Data
1902 sites and every table behind them, regenerated on each publish. One CSV per table, a SQLite copy for SQL and notebooks, GeoJSON and KML for maps, JSON per record; see integrations for Google Earth, Google Maps and ArcGIS. Licence undecided: research use only until terms are agreed with the authors.
Files
| sites.csv | one row per site: identity, place, before, after, planning, tier, screen |
|---|---|
| events.csv | dated timeline entries per site, with source_id |
| sources.csv | every source with URL, date, licence and the quoted sentence that supports a field |
| deals.csv | sales, listings, auctions, loans, special servicing, foreclosures |
| parcels.csv | county assessor parcels within 40 m of a site: owner of record and mailing address, acres, use, zoning, appraised, assessed and taxable values, tax amount, last sale and deed reference where published, plus every raw county field as JSON |
| partys.csv + site_partys.csv | organisations and their roles per site (owner, operator, developer, architect), undated unless a year is present |
| photos.csv | key photo per site plus gallery photos (is_key=0), each with Commons title, author, licence, URL, how it was found, a vision-model caption and check result (ok/no:view:quality) |
| anchors.csv + site_anchors.csv | defunct and named retail chains per site |
| markets.csv | county ACS 2018/2023: population, median gross rent, income, vacancy |
| provenances.csv | which import, model or research set which field, when |
| contexts.csv | per-site context layers as JSON: transit (OpenStreetMap), flood (FEMA NFHL), env (EPA FRS), tract (ACS 2023), yield (computed value and GLA per acre, FAR), assessment (model-written from the record), peers (six most similar sites), walk (EPA National Walkability Index block group: index, intersection density, transit distance, land-use mix, jobs within 45 min, zero-car share), fifteen (OpenStreetMap counts within 800 m: grocery, schools, parks, health, civic, food, cycleways, sidewalks), oz (federal Opportunity Zone tract), overture (Overture Maps place id, category, website, socials, phones, confidence, providers; building footprint id, area, height), pageviews (Wikipedia monthly views since 2015: total, last 12 months, trend, peak), web_presence (website liveness, social platforms, Wayback first/last capture), nrhp (National Register places within 500 m), tract_change (ACS 2013 vs 2023 tract: population, income, renter share, home value, with change), nri (FEMA National Risk Index: composite and per-hazard ratings, expected annual loss, resilience), lihtc (HUD tax-credit housing within 1 km: count, units, projects), retail_trend (county retail establishments and jobs 2012 vs 2023, Census CBP), housing_market (county typical home value and rent with 1- and 5-year change, Zillow Research), hpi (FHFA tract house price index with 1-, 5-, 10-year change), traffic (FHWA HPMS: max AADT, trucks, class, lanes within 600 m), permits (county housing permits 2023–24 by building size, Census BPS), svi (CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index 2022 tract percentiles), cluster (other atlas sites within 10 and 25 km), web (web image pages and ULI/planning/academic references found by search; links only) |
| party_facts.csv | Wikidata facts on owners and operators: type, HQ, ticker, parent, founded |
| site_details.csv | before/after fields extracted from the record text (parking, architects, costs, units, sq ft by use, street grid, public investment) with the verbatim quote; unreviewed |
| sec_facts.csv | CoStar-style mall facts from free SEC filings, one row per value with the filing URL and the verbatim table row or XML fields it came from: REIT 10-K property tables (GLA, in-line GLA, year built, acquired, renovated, occupancy or leased %, in-line sales psf, anchors, ownership share, tenure; origin sec-reit) and CMBS ABS-EE Exhibit 102 loan data (balance, original amount, maturity, rate, DSCR on NCF and NOI, NOI, payment status, special-servicer transfer, workout, servicer, originator, appraised value and date, occupancy, year built, NRSF, three largest tenants; origin sec-absee); match tier exact / name-city / name-state; unreviewed |
| elements.csv + site_elements.csv | profile elements (strategy, new use, policy tool, finance, ownership, anchor, place, scale, era) and which sites carry them, with the evidence snippet and origin |
| atlas.sqlite | the whole store (outreach drafts removed); schema in schema.sql |
| sites.geojson · sites.kml · sites.json · records/<id>.json · index.json | map and per-record formats |
sites.csv atlas.sqlite sites.geojson deals.csv parcels.csv sources.csv
Codebook
| verified | curated = taken from the authors' public 2021 map, not reviewed by them for this site · draft = imported from Wikipedia/Wikidata/Esri or drafted by a model with quotes, not yet reviewed · contributed = submitted through the form |
|---|---|
| strategy | redevelop | reinhabit | regreen, semicolon-separated; empty = none recorded |
| status | operating | closed | demolished | proposed | approved | under construction | built | partial | stalled | reversed | unknown (= not verified) |
| type | mall | big-box | office-park | strip | garden-apartments | industrial | golf-course | gas-station | other |
| year_opened / year_closed / year_retrofit | integers; from Wikidata, the authors' map, the Esri layer or a quoted sentence (see provenances.csv) |
| acres / gla_sqft | as recorded; acres may be a sum of county parcels within 40 m (provenance says so) |
| opp_score / opp_reasons | the multifamily screen points and reasons; research only |
| owner_of_record | largest parcel's owner from the county assessor, Title Case; present for sites with parcel data only |
| last_updated / last_verified | source last edited · reviewed by a person (empty = not yet) |
| encoding | UTF-8, comma-separated, quoted; multi-valued fields use '; ' |
Working with it
In Python: pandas.read_csv("https://retrofitatlas.org/data/sites.csv"), or sqlite3 atlas.sqlite and SELECT state, count(*) FROM site GROUP BY 1. Joins are on site.id. For ArcGIS Online: Add layer from URL with the GeoJSON. There is also a read-only JSON API (sites, records, nearby, elements, owners, stats, changes).
Versions
Build 2026-10-20. No DOI yet. Methods and limits.