Fair enough. I can see how that might work with a dead mall, where the building really does have no value as its format just isn’t viable. A municipality might intervene for everyone’s benefit.

In this case, the building looks ugly, but still has value. It’s not unreasonable to imagine that property would be with $1m less if the building were demolished.

Unfortunately in many cases rentable value has fallen from its former glory, and owners don’t want to rent for a realistic price as it may reduce the value of the property itself.

IMO the best solution would be a vacancy tax.