JLL Australia, Case Study

The Future of Malls

JLL Australia brought in Morris Misel to help reimagine the shopping mall not as a commercial centre, but as a connected urban lifestyle hub. Through a series of high-level strategy workshops with their leadership team, Morris challenged the notion that malls were simply in decline. What if, instead, they were evolving into community engines?

He presented a future where malls were no longer just for shopping, but for living: spaces with coworking pods, wellness suites, event plazas, and AI-assisted navigation that adjusted tenant mix based on shifting community behaviours. Drawing on trends in mobility, proptech, and retail AI, Morris helped the JLL team craft a new language and strategic outlook for mall reinvention.

Rather than defend the past, JLL embraced the opportunity to build the future one footfall metric, one smart tenancy, and one immersive experience at a time.

Shift: From mall-as-retail to mall-as-experience ecosystem.

The result? JLL began rethinking space curation, activated community-first leasing models, and positioned their malls as living platforms for the next generation of urban retail innovation.