page_title: Shopping mall
section_title: Decline of shopping malls
hierarchical_section_title: Shopping mall / History / Decline of shopping malls
caption_attribution_description: Inside an abandoned mall in Allen, Texas. The mall was the Belz Factory Outlet Mall, and was only active from 1983-1987. It has been abandoned since.
context_page_description: A shopping mall is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generic term for the large enclosed shopping centers that were becoming commonplace at the time. In the U.K., such complexes are considered shopping centers, though "shopping center" covers many more sizes and types of centers than the North American "mall". Other countries may follow U.S. usage and others follow U.K. usage.
  Malls are currently in severe decline or have closed. Successful exceptions have added entertainment and experiential features, added big-box stores as anchors, or converted to other specialized shopping center formats: power centers, lifestyle centers, factory outlet centers, and festival marketplaces.
context_section_description: In the United States, in the mid-1990s, malls were still being constructed at a rate of 140 a year. But in 2001, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that underperforming and vacant malls, known as "greyfield" and "dead mall" estates, were an emerging problem. In 2007, a year before the Great Recession, no new malls were built in America, for the first time in 50 years. City Creek Center Mall in Salt Lake City, which opened in March 2012, was the first to be built since the recession.
  In recent years, the number of dead malls increased significantly in the early 21st century because the economic health of malls across the United States has been in decline, as identified by high vacancy rates. From 2006 to 2010, the percentage of malls that are considered to be "dying" by real estate experts (have a vacancy rate of at least 40%), unhealthy (20–40%), or in trouble (10–20%) all increased greatly, and these high vacancy rates only partially decreased from 2010 to 2014. In 2014, nearly 3% of all malls in the United States were considered to be "dying" (40% or higher vacancy rates) and nearly one-fifth of all malls had vacancy rates considered "troubling" (10% or higher). Some real estate experts say the "fundamental problem" is a glut of malls in many parts of the country creating a market that is "extremely over-retailed".
  Online shopping has also emerged as a competition to shopping malls. In the United States, online shopping has accounted for an increasing share of total retail sales. In 2013, roughly 200 out of 1,300 malls across the United States were going out of business. To combat this trend, developers have converted malls into other uses including attractions such as parks, movie theaters, gyms, and even fishing lakes. In the United States, the 600,000 square foot Highland Mall will be a campus for Austin Community College. In France, the So Ouest mall outside of Paris was designed to resemble elegant, Louis XV-style apartments and includes 17,000 square metres (180,000 sq ft) of green space. The Australian mall company Westfield launched an online mall (and later a mobile app) with 150 stores, 3,000 brands and over 1 million products.
  The COVID-19 pandemic also significantly impacted the retail industry. Government regulations forced mall closures, increased entrance controls, and public sanitation requirements.
caption: Belz Factory Outlet Mall, an abandoned shopping mall in Allen, Texas, United States
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