Dead Mall: A mall with a high vacancy rate, low consumer traffic level,
or is dated or deteriorating in some manner. For purposes of inclusion on this
site, Deadmalls.com defines a dead mall as one having a occupancy rate in
slow or steady decline of 70% or less.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has a good definition of dead mall.
Anchor: A large store in a shopping center, usually is
a highly visible store that is a destination for shoppers.
Anchors help draw consumer traffic to a mall.
Outparcel: A store that is not connected a plaza or mall, but
is located on the premises.
Primary Store: Usually a store that belongs to part of a large
regional or national chain. A primary store usually will construct
it's own format storefront when it moves into a mall. You can find
primary stores in most thriving malls.
Secondary Store: A store that moves into an existing retail space
in a mall, they usually aren't a chain store, but more of a mom and
pop location. These stores use existing storefronts, and usually are
filling space in an otherwise dead mall.
Redevelopment: To change the architecture, layout, decor, or other
component of a shopping center to attract more renters and draw more
profits. Sometimes redevelopment can involve a switch from retail
usage to office or educational usage of a building.
Mallmanac: A map which lists
names of stores and diagrams the layout of a mall. This word is a Sniglet,
which is "a word that should be in the dictionary, but isn't".
Kiosk: A store located in the common area of an enclosed mall.
Labelscar: Fading or dirt left behind from a sign on or in a mall.
Labelscars leave a readable marking, which is very helpful when
identifying former stores. Sealed: When a mall
is locked up, and closed to the public
Shuttered: When a mall is
boarded up.
Enclosed: A mall with a common space or
non-retail area that is part of the structure, which joins the stores. Usually the space is climate
controlled, and has places for kiosks.
Open Air: A shopping center in which stores are only accessible
via exterior entrances.
Big Box: A large store that
deals in volume.
Category Killer
Another term used to negatively describe a "Big Box", referring to
the results when a Big Box opens opens and an entire category of Mom & Pop
stores and/or small retailers in that category go out of business.
Ancillary Mall: A mall that has been supplanted by another shopping
center, but is surviving as an alternative to the dominant mall.
Greyfields:
malls where annual sales per square foot is less than $150, or
one-third the rate of sales at a successful mall.
(this term is used to describe dying malls and was coined by
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and the Center for the New Urbanism
after the term "brownfields": old industrial sites).
Arcade:
Mall Categories:
(The term "labelscar" was brought to the
forefront by Peter
Blackbird in 1998 and is now widely used to describe this phenomenon)