Kalamazoo Mall

South end of Kalamazoo Mall at Michigan Avenue

The Kalamazoo Mall, the first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States, is a section of Burdick Street in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Built for $60,000 and opened in 1959, the pedestrian mall became the first of several hundred built in the United States. The bold effort to make a downtown street car-free as a spur to urban vitality and a defense against suburbanization drew national attention to Kalamazoo, which was dubbed "Mall City".[1]

Initially, two blocks of Burdick Street were closed; a third block was added the following year and a fourth in 1975.[1] In 1998, the southern two blocks were reopened to auto traffic,[2] albeit a single southbound lane only.

The two blocks of Burdick from Eleanor Street to W. Michigan Avenue are designated North Kalamazoo Mall; the two blocks south of W. Michigan to W. Lovell Street, South Kalamazoo Mall.

  1. ^ a b Rzepczynski, Kris (2009-12-02). "From Wheels to Heels: The Mall City". Kalamazoo Public Library. Archived from the original on 20 March 2019. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference zoomi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).