Dead mall

Century III Mall in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, United States in 2019, the same year it was closed; it was once the world's third-largest shopping mall
A "dead" wing of the Shanghai Summit Shopping City in Shanghai, China in 2007

A dead mall,[1] also known as a ghost mall, zombie mall or abandoned mall, is a shopping mall that has low consumer traffic or is deteriorating in some manner.[2]

Many malls in North America are considered "dead" when they have no surviving anchor store or successor that could attract people to the mall. Without the pedestrian traffic that department stores previously generated, sales volumes decline for almost all stores and rental revenues from those stores can no longer sustain the costly maintenance of the malls.[3][4]

  1. ^ "Greyfields and Ghostboxes Evolving Real Estate Challenges". Uwex.edu. Archived from the original on 2009-05-26. Retrieved 2009-07-16.
  2. ^ "Recession Turns Malls Into Ghost Towns - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. 2009-05-22. Archived from the original on 2014-12-14. Retrieved 2013-09-08.
  3. ^ Rosenbloom, Stephanie (10 July 2009). "Malls See Plenty of Action, but Less of It Is Shopping". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2 September 2016. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  4. ^ Newman, Rick (2009-06-26). "How To Tell When a Mall Is In Trouble". News.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2009-07-16.