Shopping mall

For the traditional meaning of the word "mall", see pedestrian street or promenade.

Azrieli shopping mall in Tel Aviv is the city's largest shopping center

Horton Plaza in San Diego, California.

A shopping mall or shopping centre is a building or set of buildings that contain a variety of retail units, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit.

Strip malls have developed since the 1920s, corresponding to the rise of suburban living in the United States after World War II. As such, the strip mall development has been the subject of the same criticisms leveled against suburbanisation and suburban sprawl in general. In the United Kingdom these are called retail parks, out-of-town shopping centres, or precincts.

Regional differences

An aerial view of North West England's largest shopping center, the Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester.

In most of the world the term shopping centre is used, especially in Europe and Australasia; however shopping mall is also used, predominantly in North America, but also to a large extent in Asia. Shopping precinct and shopping arcade are also used. In North America, the term shopping mall is usually applied to enclosed retail structures (and may be abbreviated to simply mall) while shopping centre usually refers to open-air retail complexes.

Malls in Ireland, pronounced "maills", are typically very small shopping centers placed in the center of town. They average about twenty years in age, with a mix of local shops and chain stores. These malls do not have shops found in the high street or modern shopping centers.

Shopping centres in the United Kingdom are referred to as "shopping precincts" or just "precincts", but with American-style centres becoming more common in the UK, they are increasingly being referred to as "malls".

History

An example of the mid-19th century arcade: The Passage in St Petersburg.

Forum Bornova Open-Air Shopping Center in İzmir, Turkey

Isfahan's Grand Bazaar, which is largely covered, dates from the 10th century A.D. The 10 kilometer long covered Tehran's Grand Bazaar also has a long history. The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul was built in 15th century and is still one of the largest covered markets in the world with more than 58 streets and 4000 shops. The Oxford Covered Market in Oxford, England was officially opened on 1 November 1774 and still runs today.

The Burlington Arcade in London was opened in 1819. The Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island introduced the concept to the United States in 1828. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy followed in the 1860s and is closer to large modern malls in spaciousness. Other large cities created arcades and shopping centres in the late 19th century and early 20th century, including the Cleveland Arcade and GUM in Moscow in 1890. Early shopping centers designed for the automobile include Market Square, Lake Forest, Illinois (1916) and Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri (1924).

The first indoor mall in the United States was the Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island built in 1910, and held its grand opening on July 20, 1916. The building is two-stories with a full basement and shops were originally located on all three levels. All of the stores were located within the interior of the mall with some shops being accessible from both inside and out.

In the mid-20th century, with the rise of the suburb and automobile culture in the United States, a new style of shopping centre was created away from downtown.

Early shopping centers

The second shopping center in the United States was Country Club Plaza, which opened in 1924 in Kansas City, Missouri. Other important shopping centers built in the 1920s and early 1930s are the Highland Park Village in Dallas, Texas; River Oaks in Houston, Texas; and Park and Shop in Washington, DC.

However, the concept of the fully-enclosed shopping mall did not appear until the 1950s. The idea was pioneered by the Austrian-born architect and American immigrant Victor Gruen. This new generation, that were eventually called malls, included Northgate Mall, built in north Seattle, Washington, USA in 1950, Victor Gruen's Northland Shopping Center built near Detroit, Michigan, USA in 1954, and Gulfgate Mall in Houston were all originally open-air pedestrian shopping centers that later were enclosed as malls. The first enclosed, postwar shopping center (or mall) was the Gruen-designed Southdale Center, which opened in the Twin Cities suburb of Edina, Minnesota, USA in 1956. As equally important as the enclosed aspect of these new malls was that for the first time in the development of American cities, these malls moved retailing away from the dense, commercial downtown into the new sprawling and largely residential suburbs. This formula--enclosed space with stores attached, away from downtown, and accessible only by automobile--became a popular way to build retail across the world at different moments. In the UK, Chrisp Street Market was the first pedestrian shopping area built with a road at the shop fronts.

The title of the largest enclosed shopping mall remains with the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada since 1986. West Edmonton Mall is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the "largest shopping centre in the world" and "world's largest parking lot".

One of the world's largest shopping complexes at one location is the two-mall agglomeration of the Plaza at King of Prussia and the Court at King of Prussia in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, USA. The King of Prussia mall has the most shopping per square foot in the US. The most visited shopping mall in the world and largest mall in the United States is the Mall of America, located near the Twin Cities in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA. However, several Asian malls are advertised as having more visitors, including Taman Anggrek Mal, Kelapa Gading Mall and Megamal Pluit, all in Jakarta-Indonesia, Berjaya Times Square in Malaysia and SM Megamall in the Philippines.

Beijing's (Peking) Golden Resources Mall, opened in October 2004, is the world's second largest mall, at 600,000 m² (approximately 6 million square ft). Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is advertised at 700,000 square metres (7,530,000 sq ft). SM Mall of Asia in the Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the world's third largest at 386,000 square metres (4,154,900 sq ft) of gross floor area. The Mall of Arabia inside Dubailand in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which will open in 2008, will become the largest mall in the world, at 929,000 square metres (9,999,700 sq ft).

"Pitt Street Mall" of Sydney is Australia's busiest shopping precinct. This mall has eight retail centres and more than 600 speciality stores, within two city blocks.

A mall can refer to a shopping mall, which is a place where a collection of shops all adjoin a pedestrian area, or an exclusively pedestrian street, that allows shoppers to walk without interference from vehicle traffic. Mall is generally used in North America and Australasia to refer to a large shopping area usually composed of a single building which contains multiple shops, usually "anchored" by one or more department stores surrounded by a parking lot, while the term arcade is more often used, especially in Britain, to refer to a narrow pedestrian-only street, often covered or between closely spaced buildings (see town centre). A larger, often only partly covered but exclusively pedestrian shopping area is in Britain also termed a shopping precinct or pedestrian precinct. The majority of British shopping centres are in town centres, usually inserted into old shopping districts, and surrounding by subsidiary open air shopping streets. A number of large out-of-town "regional malls" such as Meadowhall, Sheffield and the Trafford Centre, Manchester were built in the 1980s and 1990s, but there are only ten of them or so and current planning regulations prohibit the construction of any more. Out-of-town shopping developments in the UK are now focused on retail parks, which consist of groups of warehouse style shops with individual entrances from outdoors. Planning policy prioritizes the development of existing town centres, although with patchy success.

Classes of malls

File:Mercado de Abasto Buenos Aires.jpg

Abasto Shopping Centre in Buenos Aires.

In many cases, regional and super-regional malls exist as parts of large superstructures which often also include office space, residential space, amusement parks and so forth. This trend can be seen in the construction and design of many modern supermalls such as Cevahir Mall in Turkey. The International Council of Shopping Centers' 1999 definitions were not restricted to shopping centers in any particular country, but later editions were made specific to the U.S. with a separate set for Europe.

Regional malls

A regional mall is, per the International Council of Shopping Centers, in the United States, a shopping mall which is designed to service a larger area than a conventional shopping mall. As such, it is typically larger with 400,000 square feet (37,000 m²) to 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²) gross leasable area with at least 2 anchors and offers a wider selection of stores. Given their wider service area, these malls tend to have higher-end stores that need a larger area in order for their services to be profitable. Regional malls are also found as tourist attractions in vacation areas.

Super-regional malls

A super-regional mall is, per the ICSC, in the U.S. a shopping mall with over 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²) of gross leasable area, and which serves as the dominant shopping venue for the region in which it located.

Outlet malls

Main article: Outlet mall

An outlet mall (or outlet centre) is a type of shopping mall in which manufacturers sell their products directly to the public through their own stores. Other stores in outlet malls are operated by retailers selling returned goods and discontinued products, often at heavily reduced prices. Outlet stores were found as early as 1936, but the first multi-outlet mall, Vanity Fair, located in Reading, PA didn't open until 1974. Belz Enterprises opened the first enclosed factory outlet mall in 1979, in Lakeland, TN, near Memphis.

Components

Food court

Main article: Food court

Food court at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia.

A shopping mall food court consists of shops stalls offering different cuisines. At a typical food court, meals are ordered at one of the shops then carried to a common dining area, which is normally a plaza contiguous with the counters of the multiple food vendors.

Department stores

Main article: Department store

When the shopping mall format was developed by Victor Gruen in the mid-1950s, signing larger department stores was necessary for the financial stability of the projects, and to draw retail traffic that would result in visits to the smaller stores in the mall as well. These larger stores are termed anchor store or draw tenant. Anchors generally have their rents heavily discounted, and may even receive cash inducements from the mall to remain open. In physical configuration, anchor stores are normally located as far from each other as possible to maximize the amount of traffic from one anchor to another.

Dead malls

Main article: Dead mall

In the U.S, as more modern facilities are built, many early malls have become largely abandoned, due to decreased traffic and tenancy. These "dead malls" have failed to attract new business and often sit unused for many years until restored or demolished. Interesting examples of architecture and urban design, these structures often attract people who explore and photograph them. This phenomenon of dead and dying malls is examined in detail by the website Deadmalls.com, which hosts many such photographs, as well as historical accounts. Until the mid-1990s, the trend was to build enclosed malls and to renovate older outdoor malls into enclosed ones. Such malls had advantages such as temperature control. Since then, the trend has turned and it is once again fashionable to build open-air malls. Some enclosed malls have been opened up, such as the Sherman Oaks Galleria. In addition, some malls, when replacing an empty anchor location, have replaced the former anchor store building with the more modern outdoor design, leaving the remainder of the indoor mall intact, such as the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California.

The Mall, an out-of-town shopping centre at Patchway, near Bristol, England. Escalators connect the upper and lower levels.

New trends

In parts of Canada, it is now rare for new shopping malls to be built, as outdoor outlet malls or big box shopping areas known as power centres are now favored, although the traditional enclosed shopping mall is still in demand by those seeking weather-protected, all-under-one-roof shopping. In addition the enclosed interconnections between downtown multi story shopping malls continue to grow in the Underground city of Montreal (32 kilometres of passageway), the PATH system of Toronto (27 km of passageway) and the Plus15 system of Calgary (16 km of overhead passageway).

Vertical malls

Due to the high land price in densely populated conurbations such as Hong Kong, and the higher yield on retail property, the "vertical mall" is common - Times Square is considered the first of its kind. The concept of the vertical mall departs from the common western model of the flat shopping mall: space allocated to retail is configured over a number of storeys accessible by escalators linking the different levels of the mall. The challenge of this type of mall is to overcome the natural tendency of shoppers to move horizontally and encourage shoppers to move upwards and downwards.

Shopping property management firms

Main page: Category:Shopping property management firms

A shopping property management firms is a company that specializes in owning and managing shopping malls. Most shopping property management firms own at least 20 malls, often specializing in one area. Some shopping property management firms use a similar naming scheme for most of their malls, for example Mills Corporation puts "Mills" in most of their mall names.

Legal issues

One controversial aspect of malls has been their effective displacement of traditional main streets. Many consumers prefer malls, with their spacious parking garages, entertaining environments, and private security guards, over downtown, which often suffers from limited parking, poor maintenance, and limited police coverage.

In response, a few jurisdictions, notably California, have expanded the right of freedom of speech to ensure that speakers will be able to reach consumers who prefer to shop, eat, and socialize within the boundaries of privately owned malls. See Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins.

See also

• Bazaar
• List of the world's largest shopping malls
• List of shopping malls converted to outdoor format
• List of largest shopping malls in the United States
• List of shopping malls in the United States
• James Rouse, community planner

Types of shopping facilities

• Big-box store
• Strip mall
• Plaza
• Market
• Main street
• High street
• Town square
• Power centre
• Lifestyle center

Planning concepts

• Public space
• Gruen transfer

References

• Hardwick, M. Jeffrey. Gruen biography2004. Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream. University of Pennsylvania Press (ISBN 0-8122-3762-5).
• Ngo-Viet, Nam Son. 2002. The Integration of the Suburban Shopping Center with its Surroundings: Redmond Town Center. Seattle: University of Washington.

External links

• Academic Shopping Mall studies site
• History of the Shopping Mall
• International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
• Photography project on the largest American shopping malls