Shopping Malls

SHOPPING MALLS

The Largest in the Country

During the decade retailers discovered that while America's cities were growing, their stores were not necessarily gaining new customers. Cities expanded mostly outward, away from their traditional downtown shopping and business districts. Rex Allison, the manager of a Bon Marche department store in Seattle, Washington, used an aerial photographic map in 1946 to determine that a suburban branch of the store would be within twelve minutes' driving time from 275,000 Seattle consumers who spent $500 million yearly. Allison proposed to Allied Stores Corporation, the owner of Bon Marche, that the company build a shopping mall, with Bon Marche as its cornerstone. In May 1950 Seattle's Northgate Mall, at the time the largest in the country, opened for business.

The Appeal of the Malls

Across the country retailers were making similar decisions. The new malls had obvious appeal for both shoppers and merchants. Parking was abundant and usually free, and shoppers could go from store to store without moving the car or worrying about the weather. Security was less of a problem for the owner of the enclosed stores, and smaller-store owners benefited from their association with more-prestigious department stores. By 1956 the United States had sixteen hundred shopping malls, six hundred of which opened that year. Mall owners were not content until they relieved their customers of the need to go anywhere else. Grocery stores, movie theaters, and restaurants were added. Northgate Mall was equipped with an office building in which it leased space to doctors and dentists. Malls even became community meeting places, hosting Christmas programs, Easter-egg hunts, and exhibits.

Strip Malls

The poor cousin to the larger mall was the "strip mall," which featured a row of connected stores but no enclosed walkway space. Strip malls were easier to construct than larger malls, but they had higher rates of failure because of the unpredictability of their business tenants. Low-cost jewelry, auto parts, and even adult bookstores might rent space. Strip malls became a common feature of the suburban landscape, but they never gained the prestige of the enclosed mall. As much as any other factor, the success of these malls sealed the doom of "downtown" as the shopping center for suburbanites.

Source:

William Kowinski, The Mailing of America: An inside Look at the Great Consumer Paradise (New York: Morrow, 1985).