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What is the oldest mall in the US?

Author

Emily Sparks

Published Jan 09, 2026

Southdale Shopping Center, located in Edina, Minnesota, was the first totally enclosed shopping center in the nation.

When was the first mall in the US?

When the Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, opened its doors in 1956, its design was revolutionary. Southdale was the first modern indoor mall in the U.S., and eventually became a national symbol of car-centric, consumerist, postwar suburbia.

What is the smallest mall in America?

″Welcome to the Exeter Mall,″ it boasts in a sunburst of yellow and blue. Come one, come all. Step right up to a purely American curiosity. On the edge of 200 acres going brown in the nation's smallest state is what its owner claims is the nation's smallest shopping mall.

What's the largest mall in the US?

Overview. With seven major department stores and more than 450 stores, boutiques and restaurants, King of Prussia Mall is the largest retail space in the U.S. and the largest shopping mall on the East Coast. The mall's 2.9 million square feet of retail space welcomes around 20 million visitors a year.

What is the tallest mall in the world?

The Dubai Mall is part of the Burj Khalifa complex, the tallest man-made structure ever built.

45 related questions found

What is the 7th largest mall in the world?

The SM City North EDSA mall is the largest in the Philippines and seventh-largest in the world. It was also the very first real estate project of SM Supermalls. When launched in 1985, the mall had just 120,000 square meters of gross floor area.

How many SM malls are there in the world?

There are 74 SM malls nationwide—and counting

Today, there are 74 SM Supermalls branches nationwide and more than 20 are found in Metro Manila. Dozens of SM Supermalls are also slated to open this brand-new decade. Check out the complete list of SM Supermalls branches today!

What is the oldest outdoor mall in America?

The Country Club Plaza a Landmark

Visionary J.C. Nichols proved everyone wrong when the Plaza became the first outdoor shopping mall in America and the model on how to capitalize on suburban development. It may have taken him years to plan, but the early Country Club Plaza is more than a shopping area.

What was the first mall built?

Southdale Center is a shopping mall located in Edina, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities. It opened in 1956 and is both the first and the oldest fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States.

Who opened the first mall?

The first shopping mall was the Country Club Plaza, founded by the J.C. Nichols Company and opened near Kansas City, Mo., in 1922. The first enclosed mall called South-dale opened in Edina, Minnesota (near Minneapolis) in 1956.

Who invented the first shopping center?

Gruen, an Austrian Jewish architect born Viktor David Grünbaum, immigrated to New York with $8 in his pocket, and when he designed the first enclosed shopping centers in the mid-1950s, he envisioned a communal gathering like the one he knew back home, with a lively mix of commerce, art and entertainment.

Were there shopping malls in the 1960s?

Shopping center development boomed in the 1960s and continued throughout the early-1970s. From 1960 to 1970, more than 8,000 shopping centers were built in the United States - more than twice as many as the brisk development activity experienced in the 1950s.

When did indoor malls start?

The first shopping mall was technically an outdoor shopping plaza that opened in 1922 in Kansas City. However, the first indoor shopping mall that mirrored how we think of malls today was opened in 1956 in Edina, Minnesota. Malls were often anchored by a large department store with a cluster of other stores around it.

How many malls are left in the US?

Number of shopping centers in the U.S. from 1970 to 2017

In 2017, there were approximately 116,000 shopping malls spread across the United States. Back in 1970, there were only 30,000 shopping malls in the United States.

Why is the mall called The Mall?

The word 'mall' comes from a 16th-century Italian alley game that resembled croquet. It was called pallamaglio, or pall-mall in English; the alley on which the game was played came to be known as a 'mall'.

What is the biggest shop in the world?

At 5.847 million of square feet, Shinsegae is practically three times the size of Macy's. The Shinsegae Centum City store in Busan, South Korea was declared the World's Largest Store by ...

What mall has the most shops in the world?

At over 12 million square feet (equivalent to more than 50 soccer fields), the Dubai Mall is the largest shopping mall in the world based on total area. The mall contains more than 1,200 shops, an ice rink, a SEGA game centre, a five-star hotel, 22 cinema screens and 120 restaurants and cafes.

Why is the New South China Mall empty?

South China Mall opened in 2005 and for more than 10 years it was mostly vacant as few merchants ever signed up, leading it to be dubbed a dead mall. In 2015 a CNN story reported that the mall had begun to attract tenants after extensive renovations and remodeling, though large portions still remained vacant.

Where is the largest Tanger Outlet?

Long Island's largest outlet center featuring over 165 manufacturer designer outlet stores. Situated at the gateway to the Long Island's East End, the Tanger Outlet Center is conveniently located just off the LIE at Exit 73. It's worth a trip!

What is the biggest mall in America 2020?

Biggest Malls in America

  • Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota.
  • King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
  • South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, California.
  • Millcreek Mall, Erie, Pennsylvania.
  • Aventura Mall, Aventura, Florida.
  • Sawgrass Mills, Sunrise, Florida.
  • The Galleria, Houston, Texas.