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QUESTION
How many shopping centers/malls are there in the US with over 50 retailers? What is the average number of retailers per shopping center/mall?
INSIGHTS
There are over 2,000 shopping centers or malls with more than 50 retailers. The statistics gathered on shopping centers and malls focuses on Gross Leasable Area (GLA), rather than number of stores. This makes it difficult to get a constant, accurate count of the average number of retailers per mall. The average retailer space in the United States is 65,401 sq. ft.
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OVERVIEW
Hello! Thanks for your question about shopping malls in the United States. The quick answer is that there are over 2,000 shopping centers or malls with at least 50 stores. Below, I go deeper into these statistics, as well as how the classifications of these malls are decided. METHODOLOGY There are a number of companies whose sole function is to gather and analyze this kind of data for business owners and real estate seekers. I am happy to report that I found a mall directory which operates on an input/output search function, allowing me to make customizable filters to find the required information. I have gathered information from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and other statistic-based websites. The ICSC is my primary source of information, as they are the leaders in shopping center research and statistics. LET’S TALK NUMBERS As I said before, there are over 2,000 malls in the United States with more than 50 stores. Specifically, my searches brought a result of 2,062 malls or shopping centers in the continental United States, and 2,086 if you include Alaska and Hawaii (10). However, there are over 44,000 malls in the United States (3) and, if you include small shopping centers, there are about 109,500 locations that qualify as shopping centers of any kind (2). The International Council of Shopping Centers is the leader in these statistics, and they are also the ones who have created a spreadsheet of classifications for shopping centers (3). In this data sheet, the number of stores is the least relevant determiner of classification because of the constant fluctuations of stores in large malls. Rather, the ICSC categorizes most shopping-centers by their size and concept. For example, a Convenience Strip is classified by its shape and narrow offerings, whereas a Super-Regional Mall offers the greatest variety of stores and products, while only holding 10.2% of the industry's total GLA (Gross Leasable Area). This classification process makes it impossible to gauge an average number of stores for these malls, as there is constant expansion of alreadymonumental malls. Instead, GLA is the chief method of organizing these mega-malls. For a mall to have at least 50 stores, it will have up to 800,000 sq. ft. of GLA. The largest bracket of malls will have more than 800,000 sq. ft. of GLA (3) and well over 90 stores. Malls with over 1.2 million sq. ft. of GLA are informally called mega malls, such as the Mall of America (1),
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CONSTANT CHANGE As is generally the fascination, there is a lot of information on the top ten largest malls, who are constantly competing for a higher rung. According to a data sheet created in 2012 (4), the Mall of America held the title of largest mall in the nation with the Eastwood Mall Complex in Niles, Ohio ranking second. However, updated data has moved the Eastwood Complex completely off of the top 10 list (6), with the King of Prussia Mall taking its place. Even more recently, according to the Retail Business Market Research Handbook, which gathers much of its information directly from the ICSC, the South Coast Plaza in California has replaced the King of Prussia Mall in the handbook’s 2015-2016 edition. (5) Additionally, the Aventura Mall in Aventura, FL announced a monumental expansion in 2015 (9) that will bump it up to second place. These expansions are accompanied by a constant influx of newly constructed malls. This year alone, there are expected to be at least 8,251 new malls opening, though their individual store counts are unknown. (7) THE REGIONAL & SUPER-REGIONAL MALL While there is no accurate way to find out what the average number of retailers is per mall, there is endless information on the official General Purpose mall categories: SuperRegional Mall, Regional Mall, Community Center, Neighborhood Center, and Strip/ Convenience Mall. (3) Only the Super-Regional Mall and Regional Mall are pertinent to your question, as the other three categories are smaller malls with up to 40 stores. The Super-Regional Mall, as I mentioned, is the largest and least common. This is the category malls such as Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL and the Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN fall into. These massive malls will have at least 3 anchors and are, on average, 1,224,637 sq. ft. According to the most recent data from the ICSC, there are 622 SuperRegional Malls. This is not, however, the only category that is relevant to the question. We must also take into consideration the Regional Malls and any other sort of mall that is not classified as General Purpose, such as Specialty Purpose Centers and Airport Retail locations. The Specialty Purpose Centers may be anything from Outlet Malls—such as the Orlando International Premium Outlets, which has over 100 stores—to Outdoor Lifestyle Malls—an outdoor mall stretched along three streets with 120 stores. IN CONCLUSION While there is no efficient way to discern what the average number of stores is, the most similar bracket of information is the average size of retailers within malls. According to the 2014 data sheet released by the ICSC (8), the average size of a retailer, considering all GLA in the United States, was 65,401 sq. ft. 3/5
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I hope this helps! Thank you for using Wonder, and please let us know if we can help with anything else!
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SOURCES
1) Shopping Center Facts from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 2016 http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/shopping_center.aspx
2) International Shopping Center Facts and Stats, ICSC http://www.icsc.org/research/shopping-center-facts-and-stats
3) U.S. Shopping-Center Classification and Characteristics http://www.icsc.org/uploads/research/general/US_CENTER_CLASSIFICATION.pdf
4) 50 Largest US Shopping Malls http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2012/malls/
5) Retail Business Market Research Handbook 2015-2016 http://www.rkma.com/ucf/retail15/
6) Top 10 Largest Malls in America (2015-2016) http://top101news.com/2015-2016-2017-2018/news/society/largest-malls-usa-america/
7) Directory of Major Malls (2016) https://system.netsuite.com/core/media/media.nl? id=108869&c=3315739&h=4a39ca47e35168285369&_xt=.pdf
8) 2014 Data, ICSC http://www.icsc.org/uploads/default/2014-Economic-Impact-Kit.pdf
9) Aventura Mall Expansion http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2014/02/12/expanded-aventura-mall-nations-second-largest
10) Shopping Center Statistic Service (Membership Required, Free Trial Available) https://shoppingcenters.com/
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