The Mall of America

When you build a shopping mall with 520 stores over 3 floors taking up the area of a small town (4.2m sq. ft.), how do you ensure that enough shoppers visit it to make it profitable?

1. Put an amusement park in the middle of it, and an aquarium in the basement.
2. Build it next to an airport so that people can fly in from other cities to do their shopping.

Minneapolis's Mall of America, opened in 1992, was once the largest enclosed mall in the world. It receives 40 million visitors a year. Walking around it, you will encounter some store names 3 or 4 times. There are even a number of Mall of America merchandise stores selling souvenir t-shirts, mugs etc.

The heat produced by the lighting fixtures, other appliances and visitors/staff means that the air conditioning has to be used even when it is freezing outside. There is a light rail service linking the mall with the city and the airport, but it does not appear to be well patronised; there are ample parking spaces (20,000) and a large fleet of airport taxis.


There are plans to extent he mall from 520 to 900 stores.


Apparently guns aren't allowed in Mall of America.