Emporis, a global provider of information on building data and construction projects, revealed the ranking of the world’s 10 biggest malls this week based on gross leasable area (GLA). It turns out nine of these malls are located in Asia, with the two largest located in China.
While the malls on Emporis’ list are certainly large, it turns out many are experiencing problems because of their size, especially given the current economic climate. For example, the world’s biggest mall, New South China Mall, sees so little shopper traffic and has such high vacancy rate that it has been classified as “dead.”
In order to combat the issue of low shopper traffic, many of the mall owners have been turning their properties into retail/entertainment centers by adding in ice rinks, aquariums, indoor amusement parks and other social activity centers. 1 Utama mall in Malaysia, for instance, comes with an indoor rainforest and the largest rooftop garden in Southeast Asia. And the CentralWorld mall in Thailand features an indoor salt-water lake with sea lions. Click here to view a photo gallery of the world's 10 largest malls.
