Talk:List of shopping malls in the United States

Note to all editors
Before making any edits to this article, please review Talk:List of shopping malls by country for the debates over what should be in these lists. The consensus of all interested editors was that only notable malls should be listed. There is no need to mention all 46,000 malls in the United States on Wikipedia.

That is, do not list a mall unless you are willing to write an article about it immediately and you are certain that the new article would survive the Articles for deletion process as satisfying the minimum criteria for a Wikipedia article. Please review Policies and guidelines for information on what is appropriate subject matter for a Wikipedia article. Thank you for your attention. --Coolcaesar 18:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this note should be changed to say do not list a mall until AFTER the article has been written, and only if said article could survive an AfD. Some additional criteria might also be needed, and for those states that have their own lists, should we even duplicate them here or just link to that list?


 * Meanwhile, I've just finished going through and removed all the red-linked and unlinked malls that had been added to the list. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Redlink Additions
I added 4 redlink malls. These malls are already included in the List of largest shopping malls in the United States page, and I figure being in the top 20 list makes them at least notable, therefore worthy of inclusion in this list. --Andrew c 23:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Commentary after links in list
I noticed California, Hawaii, and Alabama all have descriptive sentances after each Mall on the list. However, the rest of the malls do not have this commentary. I noticed on the Canada and Australia pages, among others, that this commentary is missing. I'm curious if we should cut all extraneous text and leave the page as a pure list, or if we should try and write more commentary for other malls? --Andrew c 23:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that the extra text should be included as a description for something interesting, but don't just write a sentence about the mall because you can. Also, I think that it should be limited to a fact or two.  For any other info, they can click on that mall and go to that site.  Chexmix53 (talk) 21:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Smaller Malls
Why not keep this list of the large and notable malls as is, then create individual "List of shopping malls in (state)" pages? It would keep this page small, while creating a more encyclopedic directory of malls. Kirjtc2 00:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia policies at Policies and guidelines.  Most malls would not survive the "Articles for deletion" process.  --Coolcaesar 00:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * From WP:CORP: "Since there is generally very little to say about individual stores or franchises that isn't true for the chain in general, we should not have articles on such individual stores. However, a "List of Wal-Marts in Germany" would be informative." I would dare say that a list of malls in Idaho or anywhere else would be more informative than a list of Wal-Marts in Germany. Shopping malls have a lot more individual characteristics - tenant mix, architecture, status in the community, etc. - than a typical Wal-Mart. And I would also suggest that most malls (anything above a neighborhood strip mall at 2nd and Main) would survive AfD - I've seen a lot less notable things that have. Kirjtc2 02:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I still disagree. There are 46,000 malls in the United States.  Do you have the time to get citations (per Verifiability) establishing the notability and uniqueness of all of them (so that the article is not merely a one-line stub)?  I just did some rough math and it would take at least 1,000 man-hours!  That assumes you are an experienced researcher with a high-speed Internet connection, and most Wikipedia users are not experienced researchers.  In any case, you seem to have gone ahead on your crazy crusade, and I'm too busy with the Lawyer rewrite to stop you.  Good luck.  --Coolcaesar 05:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Read what I said. That 46,000 number includes those little podunk five-store strip malls - I've seen the stats. The amount of notable malls (i.e. the ones that I am actually including on these so-called "crazy" lists) would be, at most, 10% of that (shoppingcenters.com says 4,450, and that includes Canada). As you may notice, the New York list has a grand total of 53 malls. For the 8 states I have done so far, it has taken me maybe 6 hours of work. They are red links for now - they'll turn blue eventually, either by me (as I have done with at least three of them) or someone else. You are severely overestimating the size of these lists, and understimating my intelligence. Kirjtc2 05:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

VA Malls
long story short: Anon IP deleted VA malls without leaving any comments and without reading my comment that established notability of Richmond's two destination malls. diffs Central Park Mall is not my add but I figured we could discuss that here too. MPS 09:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC) MPS 09:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Central Park - Fredericksburg
 * Fashion Center at Pentagon City (Simon) - Arlington
 * Potomac Mills - Woodbridge
 * Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria - McLean
 * Stony Point Fashion Park -- Richmond
 * Short Pump Town Center -- Short Pump/ West End Richmond

Broadening notability
I posted on the AFD for the list of malls by state:

''I think it is more effective to convince Coolcaesar of the growing consensus that the requirements for "notability" be broadened than to create a fork that has tons of red links. In my opinion, notability does not have to be national or statewide, but can also be in a regional or metropolitan sense, as well as being historically notable due to past activity on the site. I am adding some malls in the California section, asserting their notability, in hopes that I can reach a consensus that these malls are indeed notable.''

Based on an early read of the consensus, that list is going to be deleted. I am asserting that malls should be listed if they have regional or metropolitan notability, in addition to statewide/national/global notability. The reason is that many states are small, and it is unfair to larger states which have geographically huge metropolitan areas. In addition, many malls are notable for historic reasons, such as being the site of a Japanese internment camp. (I have also created discussion on the shopping malls by country talk page. I ask that the malls added (or re-added) not be deleted until such time as all editors can come to a consensus. Calwatch 04:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, based on what you consider notable there would be nearly every regional mall in the US placed on that list. That indeed is unnecessary and should be placed on List of United States shopping malls by state. I find the current requirements to notability to be appropiate and more reasonable. Leonard23 2:05, 23 April 2006


 * I concur. The problem is that Wikipedia content has to also comply with the Verifiability policy (see Verifiability), and for many smaller malls it is impossible to get any verifiable information on their notability because they are so unimportant that they get very little news coverage.  If we compromise or weaken that policy, then Wikipedia becomes more susceptible to ridiculous hoaxes like the embarrassing John Seigenthaler affair!  --Coolcaesar 20:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a red herring. Most malls have news coverage associated to its opening or expansion. This information can be found through searches of newspaper databses like Newsbank or through radio/television transcripts through Lexis-Nexis. Deleting malls like Lakewood Center, which has had numerous articles about it in local news media and in the city newsletter, all verifiable sources, is inappropriate. While I am not replacing the link right now since it is just a red link, that doesn't mean that Lakewood Center or Antelope Valley Mall isn't notable.
 * Indeed, a recent Newsbank search for Lakewood Center found over a thousand articles. Most are simple announcements, but on each result page there was at least one story talking about the mall's contribution to the local economy, a piece on the ongoing mall revitalization, and information on stores closing and not closing. So do claim that malls get little news coverage is inaccurate at best. Calwatch 22:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Too long and too undefined for an article
I feel Category:Shopping malls in the United States fills the needs of this article well enough - assuming that every "notable" mall already has a Wikipedia article. Likewise, the shopping mall categories by state are much more complete than this list.

A well-defined list, like List of largest shopping malls in the United States, is fine, because the criteria is size and can be referenced. A "List of shopping malls in (state)" article may be okay too, because its limited scope will keep it more maintainable.

If there aren't many people who disagree, I may put this article up for Afd. I would include the Northwest US list too since "northwest" isn't a common geographical scope in Wikipedia. --Vossanova o&lt; 16:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for it! List of shopping malls in Singapore was just successfully AFD'ed, and the same thing happened earlier to List of shopping malls in Malaysia. Matchups 03:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It will be tough.. the Singapore list delete votes barely outnumbered the keeps. I rounded up all the lists at Category:Lists of shopping malls to see what can be deleted, merged, or categorized.  Very short lists or lists with mostly red links or no links would be the first candidates for deletion.  --Vossanova o&lt; 14:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, List of shopping malls in India easily survived an Afd a few days ago. --Vossanova o&lt; 16:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems off balance that List of shopping malls in Singapore was deleted and this was not, even though "Wikipedia is not consistent" (not a good attribute to have, mind you). I still believe this fails our standards for lists, but I guess it was too soon to request this be deleted since it was nominated about two months ago. JBsupreme (talk) 00:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Notable malls
From its creation, this list was limited to "notable malls" per the language in the introductory paragraph, until the mention of notability was removed March 3, 2007, per the diff. I have added back the requirement that a mall be notable to be on the list, since I see no consensus for it having been removed, and since there appears to have been recent removals of non-notable malls, such as those which were previously deleted in AFDs. A list has the advantage over a category of adding (redlink) items which someone judges notable but which do not yet have articles, and it allows additional fields to be added, such as age, GLA and other comments. The proposed guideline for malls, WP:MALL languishes with a "rejected" tag (except when it has an "essay" tag), so malls presently have to be judged as Notability (organizations and companies), with the shortcut WP:ORG. The discussion page of that former proposed guideline WP:MALL mentions that the international organization which represents shopping centers classifies those over 400,000 square feet of gross leasable area as "regional" and those over 800,000 square feet as "superregional" which is something to think about, in addition to those which have architectural or historical importance.In general, anything which satisfies WP:N with demonstrated substantial coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources is pretty notable, and any such have generally survived AFDs as tabulated on the talk page of WP:MALL. Edison 05:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Red linked and/or unlinked malls
Greetings. I would like to request that people stop adding red linked and/or unlinked malls to this article. The only reason why this article has survived 2 AFD's is because it has been only allowed actualy linked malls into the article. Thank you. -- su mn ji m  talk with me·changes 20:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, and further if they are added, they should be removed immediately and without prejudice. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oak View Mall - Omaha
I noticed that in the Nebraska list a notable mall was missing. The mall is Oak View Mall and its located in Omaha. I thought that maybe someone would like to add this mall to the list and create an article on it. I can provide the mall's official website if needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Couchbean (talk • contribs) 03:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Texas Malls
Town East Mall and Richardson Square Mall are missing from the list. I added them. They were deleted. That doesn't seem to make sense. A little mollusk (talk) 02:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * See above. This list is only supposed to have malls listed that have articles. AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I discovered that they DO have articles. Therefore, there should be a link to them on this page. Right?? A little mollusk (talk) 01:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If you link to the articles, then yes :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Westfield
Westfield does not operate the St.Louis,Missouri malls anymore they sold them to another company 68.94.95.75 (talk) 17:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

What to do
Okay, this list's issues are manifold:


 * How should dead malls be handled? Should they be listed separately? What about dead malls torn down for other retail use (e.g., entire mall torn down for a Walmart)?


 * The total incompleteness of the list is manageable — I have made for myself a list of every mall I've found in the US, no matter how obscure. A logical idea would be to split by state, but this raises problems:
 * By my count, Delaware has only 8 malls. Of those, two are converted to offices, one is dead except for its anchors, one was torn down in 1994, and one is about 10 stores in size.
 * Likewise, Rhode Island also had 8 malls, of which three were converted to strip malls, one is a long-defunct mall fashioned out of a former rubber factory, one is about 15 stores in size, and one is vacant except for its 3 anchor stores.
 * Vermont has 7 malls, of which two have been converted to strips and one is about 10 stores in size.
 * Also by my count, Wyoming has a whopping three malls. Doesn't it say somewhere that lists have to have a bare minimum of five items?


 * How much detail should be on the list? Should just names be enough for each state's list, or should it go into detail like List of shopping malls in Michigan?


 * What about outlet malls? There are a few "regular" malls that have been repurposed as outlet centers, and all the former Mills properties like Gurnee Mills.

Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:52, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The list is primarily for active mall sites. Notable redevelopment sites could be listed as an addendum for reference. A converted site should be listed by its new name. Major outlet malls are notable. Inactive sites are not necessarily notable. Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 19:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Why do we need this list? I'm not sure that there is much value of having a list of every shopping mall in the US on one massive list. Kumioko (talk) 19:34, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe not one massive list, but lists by state would be acceptable (except for the problems I mentioned above with DE, RI, VT, and WY). Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok fair enough. So I guess we could do it like List of Medal of Honor recipients where there is a main list with forks and a brief explaination of each. Thats still at least 50 sections though, one for each state and I'm not sure thats needed. Maybe breaking them by region? Like Northeast, Midwest, South, etc.? Kumioko (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Or it could just be a dab page listing every "List of shopping malls in [state]" page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 20:08, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't feel like a general list of malls like this is very useful. Links to shopping malls are covered with categories. I think separate state lists, with detailed information, is the only way to go about this, although because certain states have very few malls that does present another issue (although not one I feel needs to be discussed quite yet). The problem is getting people willing to write these articles. It can also be difficult to really come across reliable sources regarding shopping malls, considering they're not exactly a central focus of research. bob rulz (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Malls are considered notable far more often than not, so I wouldn't worry about the individual articles yet. I'd be willing to split this by state, but I'm curious as to how to tackle it. If you want to move your Utah list to article space and update it, that might be a good start for that state. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 21:48, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'm inclined to say it's probably a good idea to break this list out by state and turn this into a dab page. Seems more manageable that way.  SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:24, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the idea to separate this list by state with brief details on each center. It seems better the one long list. --Caldorwards4 (talk) 09:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That still leaves the question of what to do with Wyoming, since it only has 3 malls. I could swear some line of policy said that lists have to have at least 5 items, but I can't find it. The states with very few malls should probably be left on this list instead of being spun off. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That seems like the most reasonable solution. As for my Utah article, if everyone think it would be best for me to make it a mainspace article immediately to get going on this, I can do that, I just haven't had time recently. bob rulz (talk) 20:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

District of Columbia
Are there any malls in D.C.? --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:40, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Chevy Chase Pavilion, Mazza Gallerie, Shops at Georgetown Park and Shops at National Place. The last one is closed. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I meant that they are missing from the list. --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, we're currently trying to figure out how to handle the list in the first place. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:37, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Punnaka.com
I just reverted a set of your edits that added malls but only sited the mall websites (primary source) and Punnaka.com. Punnaka looks like it's a blog/promotional website. Can you please stop adding malls if that site is the only evidence of their notability? Could you go back and find RS that show notability for the malls you've already listed, on this page and others? Thanks, Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

"List of shopping malls in American Samoa" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect List of shopping malls in American Samoa and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 17 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 03:26, 17 May 2022 (UTC)