The Demise of the Regional Shopping Mall in America
The year is 2099. Two archaeologists are scooping dirt at a dig in the northwest part of the United States. Suddenly an arm freezes. One of the archaeologists has hit a solid impasse. Excitedly they both clear the dirt away and uncover what looks like a part of a cinder block wall.
One of the archaeologists is puzzled. He asks, “What do you think it is?”
His partner carefully examines the exposed cinder block. Then he responds “I’m not sure. It looks like part of a regional shopping mall.”
“A regional shopping mall? What’s that? And what happened to it?”
“Ready for a little history?”
“Okay, but please, brief and to the point.”
“I’ll try. This is a sad but true tale of what happened to the regional shopping malls in America. First, what was a regional shopping mall? The original description and intent were simple. A regional shopping mall occupied approximately 250,000 square feet and consisted of an assortment of retail stores anchored by a national department store. The mall provided parking and serviced a geographic area defined as a region. If the region being serviced was larger than a certain standard size, then the mall would be larger. The larger mall would be anchored by two department stores, usually one on each side. If the region was larger yet, then of course the mall would be even larger. The largest malls were called super malls. They were anchored by three department stores, one on each side and one in the middle.
If you stretch the description of a regional shopping mall to include market squares, bazaars, and seaport malls, then shopping malls have been around for thousands of years. Fast forward to the 20th century and we find the beginnings of the modern regional shopping mall.
The first two shopping malls anchored by a downtown department store opened in the early 1950s (Northgate in Seattle, Washington and Shoppers World in Framingham, Massachusetts). Shoppers World was the first two-story regional shopping mall. The Northland Mall (circa 1954) in Detroit, Michigan was the first regional shopping mall that included both central air conditioning and heating.
Every new idea is ultimately credited to some person. For the modern regional shopping mall, that person is Victor Gruen. He is the architect who designed the Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota, in 1956. This was the first two-level, enclosed, centrally heated, air-conditioned mall.
The concept of the modern regional shopping mall offered consumers convenience and close proximity to a variety of retail stores. Most of these stores were leased to national credit tenants. The lessees sold brand name merchandise and were affiliated with firms that ran large, national advertising campaigns. The stores and the malls were the beneficiaries of this advertising.
