America's first shopping mall is making drastic changes to avoid the 'retail apocalypse' - but it may have made a costly mistake

Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider

• As many as 25% of malls may close in the next five years, according to a recent report.
• We visited Seattle's Northgate Mall, which originally opened in 1950, and is now trying to reinvent itself as a new downtown for Seattleites fleeing skyrocketing rents.
• Though intended to form an affordable neighborhood, the area lacks the public spaces, density, and pedestrian walkways that would make it attractive to urban millennials.

Opened in 1950, Northgate Mall has survived for nearly 70 years as a hub of commerce for the outer neighborhoods of Seattle, Washington.

But, like all malls today, Northgate faces tremendous headwinds as American consumers shift their spending patterns.

Real-estate research firm Cushman & Wakefield estimated that visits to malls have declined by as much as 50% in recent years. In a recent report, analysts from Credit Suisse predicted that 20% to 25% of malls - about 220 to 275 shopping centers - would shutter over the next five years, largely because of store closures.

Simon Property Group, Northgate's owner, and the city of Seattle have responded to recent trends by attempting to reinvent the mall as the center of a new downtown.

We visited recently to see how one mall is trying to buck the "retail apocalypse."