It turns out that the Mall of the Future looks a whole lot like the Mall of Right Now. Sure, The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards is located in a $25-billion development that takes up 28 acres on a previously left-for-dead plot of land on Manhattan’s West Side, billed as one of the largest private real estate development in America’s history. But on a visit to the future on a frosty morning earlier this week, it seemed suspiciously like the present. After strolling past a half-dozen places to buy a $10,000 watch, a high-end retailer that doubles as a florist, an exhibition space called Snark Park where Snarkitecture will house rotating art exhibits, I end up in a corner that could be in any mall in America: there’s an H&M that shares a wall with a MAC makeup shop. There’s a Zara, and down the hallway a Verizon shop neighboring another cosmetics powerhouse, Sephora. It's a mall!

In 2017, analysts predicted a quarter of all American malls would close over a five-year period. And yet Hudson Yards spent the past 12 years trying to crack what it means to be a successful shopping center—and all the preliminary data the project’s managers have collected hints that the problem has been solved. Ninety percent of the retail center is leased, with a mix of over 100 brands that expect 15 million to 22 million potential customers to pass through the center per year. And while Hudson Yards doesn't use the M-word, once you get past the massive development and find the Shops & Restaurants, it fits the classic definition: a collection of stores and dining options, a food court that’s been blasted from one central location to throughout the entire building. All of which begs the question: if large chunks of Hudson Yards look like the kind of mall closing daily across the country, what, exactly, has Hudson Yards figured out?

Project: Hudson YardsClient: RelatedLocation: New York, NY. Francis Dzikowski

The answer requires us to zoom out—both figuratively and literally. Because Related Companies, the developer behind Hudson Yards, didn’t just spend the better part of this century erecting a mall. It built an entire city. Over the past few years, Hudson Yards buildings sprouted up slowly and jaggedly like baby teeth: there’s now the Shops & Restaurants (exactly that), 10 Hudson Yards (offices), 15 Hudson Yards (residences), 30 Hudson Yards (offices), the Shed (a venue for art and performances), 35 Hudson Yards (more residences, plus a hotel by Equinox), 55 Hudson Yards (offices), with several more skyscrapers still to come. “What we love about Hudson Yards and why we felt so confident is it's a city within a city,” said Cheryl Kaplan, the co-founder and president of footwear brand M.Gemi, which is putting its first permanent store in the development.

The concept at work is simple: if customers don’t want to go to malls, Hudson Yards will bring the mall to them—but only after replacing the Johnsons next door with a Neiman Marcus, and the grocery store with a cereal-slinging Kith Treats counter. The benefits flow in both directions: “What was the selling point to the retailers? That you have all these great office workers there,” said Brian Nitzberg, the leasing director at Related. “What's the selling point to the office workers? That you’ll have this great retail environment right at their fingertips.”