Shopping mall
For the traditional meaning of the word mall, see pedestrian street or promenade.A
shopping mall (or simply
mall),
shopping center, or
shopping arcade is a building or set of buildings that contain
stores, and has interconnecting
walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from store to store. The walkways may or may not be enclosed.
In the
British Isles and
Australia, these structures are known as "shopping centres" or "shopping arcades" and are not normally referred to as "shopping malls". In
North America, the term "shopping mall" (or "mall" for short) is usually applied to enclosed retail structures, while "shopping center" refers to open-air retail complexes.
Strip malls are a recent development, corresponding to the rise of
suburban living after
World War II in the
United States. As such, the strip mall development has been the subject of the same criticisms leveled against
suburbanization and suburban
sprawl in general. In the United Kingdom these are called "retail parks" or "out-of-town shopping centres".
Indoor multi-vendor shopping is not a recent innovation.
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 very old history. The
Oxford Covered Market in
Oxford,
England was officially opened on 1 November 1774 and is still going strong 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. Many other large cities created arcades and shopping centers 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, (1924).
In the mid-20th century, with the rise of the
suburb and
automobile culture in the United States, a new style of shopping center was created away from city centers. The concept was pioneered by the
Austrian-born architect
Victor Gruen. The new generation called malls included
Northgate Mall, built in north
Seattle, Washington,
USA in
1950, Gruen's
Northland Shopping Center, built near
Detroit, Michigan,
USA in
1954, and the
Southdale Center, the first fully enclosed mall, which opened in the
Twin Cities suburb of
Edina, Minnesota,
USA in
1956. In the
UK,
Chrisp Street Market was the first pedestrian shopping area built with a road at the shop fronts.
A very large shopping mall is sometimes called a
megamall. The title of the largest enclosed shopping mall was held by the
West Edmonton Mall in
Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada for 20 years. One of the world's largest shopping complex 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. Comparable in size is Europe's largest shopping center, the
MetroCentre in
Gateshead,
England. 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
Berjaya Times Square in Malaysia and
SM Megamall in the Philippines..
The race is on to build the largest mall. Beijing's
Golden Resources Shopping Mall, opened in October 2004, is the world's largest, at 600,000 m² (approximately 6 million square feet).
Berjaya Times Square in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is advertised at 700,000 m².
SM Mall of Asia in the
Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the World's third largest at 386,000 square meters of gross floor area with further expansions still ongoing. The SM Megamall in Manila, Philippines is the world's 16th largest and one of the busiest. SM Megamall is currently the second largest shopping mall in the Philippines. It is located in Mandaluyong City, and owned and operated by SM Prime Holdings under the management of Henry Sy, a Chinese immigrant to the Philippines.
Another one is the Ayala Group of Companies's Ayala Mall, also in Manila. The
Mall of Arabia inside
Dubai Land in
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, which will open in
2006, will become the largest mall in the world, at 929,000 square meters (10 million sq. feet).
|
"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. |
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 large shopping areas, 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. 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 centers are in town centers, 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 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.
A
regional mall is a shopping mall which is designed to service a larger area than a conventional shopping mall. As such, it is typically larger, and offers a wider selection of stores. Given its 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 are usually shopping centers with over 1 million square feet of retail space and serves as the dominant shopping venue for the region that it serves.
A
strip mall (also called a
plaza) is a shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a
sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large
parking lots in front. They face major traffic
arterials and tend to be self-contained with few pedestrian connections to surrounding neighborhoods.
In the U.S. and Canada, strip malls usually come in two sizes. The smaller variety is more common, and often located at the intersection of major streets in residential areas; they cater to a small residential area. This type of strip mall is found in nearly every city or town in the U.S. and Canada. They are service-oriented and will often contain a
grocery store, video rental store, dry cleaner, small restaurant, and other similar stores. In the past,
pharmacies were often located next to the grocery stores, but, now, the drug store is often free-standing in the parking lot. Sometimes, gas stations, banks, and other businesses will also have their own free-standing buildings in the parking lot of the strip center.
The other variety of strip mall in the U.S. has large,
big box retailers as the anchors, such as
Wal-Mart or
Target. They are sometimes referred to as
power centers in the real estate development industry because they attract and cater to residents of an entire population area. The type of retailers may vary widely--from electronics to bookstores to home improvement stores. There are typically only a few of these type of strip malls in a city, compared to the grocery store-anchored strip mall. Some of these strip centers may only have three of four of these large retailers in them, while others may have a dozen or more major retailers.
Some strip malls are a hybrid of both of these types.
Strip malls vary widely in architecture. Older strip malls tend to have plain architecture with the stores arranged in a straight row; in some cases there are vacant stores. Newer strip malls are often built with elaborate architecture to blend in with the neighborhood or be more attractive. In some cases, strip malls are broken up into smaller buildings to encourage walking. Sometimes the buildings will wrap around the parking lot to hide the parking from the road or residential areas.
Due to land use issues, strip malls in the United Kingdom are typically found on the edges of cities on greenfield sites, and are known as
out of town shopping centres. Ones in more urban areas (often brownfield redeveloped sites) are more typically known as
retail parks.
The first shopping center (strip mall) in the
United States was the
Roland Park Shopping Center in
Baltimore,
Maryland (
1896).
In the U.S, in recent times, as more modern facilities are built, many early malls have become largely abandoned, due to decreased traffic and tenancy. These deteriorating "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. 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. It is once again fashionable to build open-air malls, and 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.
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 much in demand by those seeking weather-protected, all-under-one-roof shopping. In addition the underground interconnections between downtown multi story shopping malls continue to grow in the
Underground city of
Montreal and the
PATH system of
Toronto, reaching a total of 32 km of shop-lined pedestrian passages in Montreal and 27 km in Toronto. The numbers do not include the passages inside the many subway stations which also interconnect with the commercial areas.
One controversial aspect of malls has been their effective displacement of traditional
main streets. Many consumers prefer malls, with their spacious parking garages, well-maintained walkways, and private
security guards, over public streets, which often suffer from limited parking, poor maintenance, and limited
police coverage.
 |
The Mall, an out-of-town shopping centre at Patchway, near Bristol, England. Escalators connect the upper and lower levels. |
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 within the boundaries of privately owned malls. See
Pruneyard Shopping Center.*
List of shopping malls - list of notable shopping malls around the world
*
List of defunct shopping malls*
List of shopping malls converted to outdoor format*
List of upscale shopping districts*
Victor Gruen - Considered the father of modern shopping malls
*
James Rouse - Community planner
Types of shopping facilities
*
Outlet mall*
Plaza*
Market *
Main street*
High street*
Town square*
Power centreComponents of shopping facilities
*
Department store*
Anchor store*
Food court*
Fountain*
AtriumShopping property management firms
*
Premium Outlets*
The Westfield Group - an
Australian-owned company with international locations
*
General Growth Properties*
Simon Property Group*
The Pyramid Companies*
Jones Lang LaSallePlanning concepts
*
Public space*
Gruen transfer*Hartwick, M. Jeffrey. 2004. Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream. University of Pennsylvania Press (ISBN 0812237625).
*
Ngo-Viet, Nam Son. 2002. The Integration of the Suburban Shopping Center with its Surroundings: Redmond Town Center. Seattle: University of Washington.* Academic
Shopping mall studies site
*
Malls of America (vintage Mall photos)*
History of the Shopping Center and Mall*
DeadMalls.com*
MallHistory*
A look at shopping malls in America*
Labelscar: The Retail History Blog*
International Council of Shopping Centers
