60 Fun Facts About Shopping Malls

What kind of retailer traditionally anchors a shopping mall?

Anchors are placed as far apart as possible so shoppers walk past the smaller stores between them.

What did the word "mall" originally mean before it was applied to enclosed shopping centres in the late 1960s?

Bergen Mall used the name in 1957, but such places were still called shopping centers for another decade.

A shopping centre that has lost its anchor stores and most of its shoppers is popularly known as what?

Ghost mall and zombie mall are the alternatives.

According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, how much gross leasable area makes a mall "super-regional"?

A regional mall runs 400,000 to 800,000 square feet with at least two anchors.

The first covered shopping passage, built in 1798, was in which city?

The Passage du Caire came two decades before London's Burlington Arcade.

Which famous covered London shopping passage opened in 1819?

The Royal Opera Arcade beat it by three years, in 1816.

The Galleria that opened in 1877 and gave its name to malls worldwide is in which city?

It is named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of Italy, and was built by Giuseppe Mengoni.

The Arcade, built in 1828 and claiming to be America's first shopping arcade, is in which US city?

It survives as a downtown landmark.

Country Club Plaza, considered the first planned suburban shopping centre for car-borne shoppers, opened in 1923 where?

J. C. Nichols styled it after the architecture of Seville, Spain.

The world's first fully enclosed shopping mall opened in 1955 in Lulea, in which country?

Ralph Erskine designed it and it was simply named Shopping.

Which Austrian-born architect pioneered the regionally sized, fully enclosed shopping mall in 1956?

Malcolm Gladwell has called him the most influential architect of the twentieth century.

Gruen's Southdale Center, the first enclosed climate-controlled mall in the US, opened in 1956 in which Minnesota suburb?

The Dayton family, who owned the department store, financed it.

Which famous architect visited Southdale in 1956 and said Gruen "should have left downtown, downtown"?

He said its garden court had "all the evils of the village street and none of its charm".

Gruen arrived in New York from Vienna in 1938 with, in his words, an architect's degree, no English and how much money?

His first hit was the Lederer leather-goods boutique on Fifth Avenue.

Gruen also designed the first outdoor pedestrian mall in the United States, opened in 1959 in which Michigan city?

He was an advocate of putting pedestrians before cars in city centres.

How did Gruen come to feel about the suburban malls his design spawned?

In 1978 he said, "I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments."

What is the "Gruen transfer"?

Gruen himself disapproved of such manipulative techniques.

The first retail complex promoted as a "mall", Bergen Mall, opened in 1957 in which New Jersey town?

It was open-air until 1973; Paramus Park later hosted a pioneering food court too.

Developer A. Alfred Taubman removed carpeting from his malls in 1980 because he believed it did what?

He also used dimming daylight and rising electric light to make the afternoon seem to last longer.

Which mall's second-floor food court, opened in 1974, is credited as the first successful one in the United States?

Toronto's Sherway Gardens had built one three years earlier.

Which mall-building firm created the first food courts, after a failed 1971 attempt at Plymouth Meeting Mall?

The Plymouth Meeting version was judged too small and insufficiently varied.

Which 1975 Chicago skyscraper on the Magnificent Mile pioneered the "vertical mall" with an eight-level atrium?

The concept was conceived in the late 1960s by Marshall Field's development arm.

In the mid-1990s, how many malls a year were still being built in the United States?

By 2007, for the first time in 50 years, none were built at all.

What was notable about 2007 in American mall history?

City Creek Center in Salt Lake City, opened in 2012, was the first built after the recession.

Roughly how many shopping centres did the United States have by 2010, up from 4,500 in 1960?

Experts describe the market as "extremely over-retailed".

By 2022 how much retail space per person did the US have, against about 4.5 sq ft in Europe?

That glut is why operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield decided to quit the American market.

Real estate experts label a mall "dying" when its vacancy rate reaches at least what?

In 2014 nearly 3 percent of US malls were in that category.

The 1980 Supreme Court case Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins concerned what issue inside a California mall?

California expanded speech rights so campaigners could reach shoppers on private property.

Mall of America opened in 1992 on the former site of which sports venue?

The Minnesota Vikings and Twins had played there until 1982.

Mall of America is in which Minnesota city?

It sits across the interstate from Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport.

Which family-led Canadian firm developed Mall of America and owns West Edmonton Mall?

The Ghermezian family, who emigrated from Iran in 1959, also own American Dream in New Jersey.

The indoor theme park at Mall of America was originally branded after which cartoon franchise?

It became Nickelodeon Universe after licensing talks with Cedar Fair broke down in 2006.

Roughly how many people visit Mall of America each year?

That is more tourists than Walt Disney World and Disneyland combined.

How many stores did Mall of America open with in August 1992?

Its first anchors were Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Sears.

West Edmonton Mall held the Guinness title of world's largest indoor shopping centre until which year?

It opened in 1981 and was built in four phases.

What record-breaking attraction is West Edmonton Mall's Waterpark famous for?

The mall also had a lake with submarine rides from 1985 to 2005.

What was the name of the West Edmonton Mall roller coaster involved in a fatal 1986 derailment?

Three people died when a rear car left the track and hit a concrete pillar.

Which Canadian mall is the country's most visited, ahead of West Edmonton Mall?

West Edmonton still has over 800 stores, the most in the Western Hemisphere.

Dubai Mall stands next to which landmark?

It opened in November 2008 with about 1,000 retailers.

How many visitors did Dubai Mall record in 2023?

It had already been the most visited building in the world in 2011 with 54 million.

What holds the Guinness record for the longest continuous concrete pour, set in March 2018?

The Tehran mall opened its first phase that May with 708 retail units.

The Tehran complex described as the world's largest shopping mall stands beside which body of water?

Its traditional bazaar section copies the markets of Isfahan, Kashan and Shiraz.

King of Prussia, the largest mall in Pennsylvania, is about 20 miles northwest of which city?

Its Plaza and Court complexes were joined by The Connector in 2016.

Gateshead's Metrocentre was built on the site of what?

It opened in stages in 1986 and was financed by the Church Commissioners of England.

Who financed the construction of the Metrocentre?

Sir John Hall's company masterminded it on land bought for 100,000 pounds.

The Trafford Centre changed hands for 1.65 billion pounds in 2011, setting what record?

It also had Europe's largest food court and the UK's busiest cinema.

Which is the largest shopping centre in Europe, according to Wikipedia?

British planning rules now prohibit building any more out-of-town regional malls.

George Romero set his 1978 zombie film Dawn of the Dead in which Pennsylvania shopping centre?

A friend whose company managed the complex showed him its hidden back areas.

Which sitcom revealed that Robin Scherbatsky was once a Canadian teen pop star with the hit "Let's Go to the Mall"?

Her stage name was Robin Sparkles.

Which Kevin Smith film of the 1990s is set almost entirely in a shopping mall?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bad Santa and Paul Blart: Mall Cop are other mall movies.

What verdict did Newsweek deliver on the indoor mall in 2008?

Big-box chains like Walmart and Target prefer free-standing buildings to anchor spaces.

Where are a mall's anchor stores normally placed in its physical layout, and why?

Victor Gruen's 1950s format relied on signing big department stores to make the smaller tenants viable.

Which city is noted for vertical malls such as Times Square, Langham Place and Hysan Place?

High land prices push retail upward; the challenge is persuading shoppers, who naturally move horizontally, to ride up and down.

Which Canadian writer called Victor Gruen the 'most influential architect of the twentieth century'?

Gruen's Southdale Center of October 1956 launched the regional enclosed mall that spread around the world.

In which year did American Dream and The Shops at Hudson Yards, the first new US malls since 2012, open?

Salt Lake City's City Creek Center, opened in March 2012, had been the first mall built since the Great Recession.

The 1980 Pruneyard v. Robins free-speech case grew out of a dispute between the mall and whom?

The Supreme Court affirmed California's ruling that speakers could reach shoppers inside privately owned malls.

Which Philippine company puts 'SM' in the name of every mall it owns, along with anchors like The SM Store?

In the UK, The Mall Fund similarly rebrands anything it buys as 'The Mall (location)' with a pink-M logo.

Valley Fair, an early enclosed centre with central air, opened in March 1955 in which Wisconsin city?

It beat Southdale Center by more than a year, though Gruen's Minnesota mall is usually credited with launching the format.

Mafco, which conceived the vertical mall in the late 1960s, was the development arm of which retailer?

Chicago's Water Tower Place, built in 1975 by Urban Retail Properties, became the showcase of the idea.

Which architect designed the world's first fully enclosed mall, opened in Luleå, Sweden, in 1955?

It was simply named 'Shopping', and the region now claims the highest shopping-centre density in Europe.