Why Malls Gave Their Biggest Stores Away for Almost Nothing

If you owned a shopping mall in 1980, your biggest tenants paid you almost nothing. Here's why that deal built America's malls — and why it's the reason so many of them are empty today. In the 1980s, the American mall looked like a building full of stores. Economically, it was something else: a real estate machine that ran on a handful of department stores. They got their space for next to nothing, the small shops in the corridors paid the real rent, and the bank lent the money because of those anchor leases. This video follows the money — from Southdale in 1956 to Randall Park Mall in Ohio, once promoted as one of the largest malls in the world, and the Amazon warehouse that stands on its land today. Subscribe to Boom & Gone for new documentaries about the businesses, stores and brands that shaped America. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Anchor Paradox 0:39 A Downtown Under a Roof 2:43 Building the Machine 4:34 Follow the Money 7:18 The Numbers That Lied 9:18 The Unraveling 10:49 One Store Closes 12:24 Randall Park and What Remains SOURCES & FURTHER READING Thomas W. Hanchett, "U.S. Tax Policy and the Shopping-Center Boom of the 1950s and 1960s," The American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 4 (1996) History of Southdale Center (Edina, Minnesota, 1956) and architect Victor Gruen Federated Department Stores – May Department Stores merger (2005) Sears Holdings Chapter 11 filing (2018); J.C. Penney Chapter 11 filing (2020) Randall Park Mall, North Randall, Ohio (opened 1976, closed 2009) and the Amazon fulfillment center later built on the site The mall in the "Follow the Money" chapter is a simplified illustration with typical proportions, not a real building. This video is for educational purposes and is not financial advice. ARCHIVE FOOTAGE (Prelinger Archives, public domain, via Internet Archive) Shopping Can Be Fun (1957) The Dynamic American City (ca. 1956) PHOTOS Public domain: Southdale Shopping Center postcard — DPLA via Wikimedia Commons Smithtown Shopping Center (1954), Gottscho-Schleisner — Library of Congress U.S. Capitol at night (1923), Theodor Horydczak — Library of Congress Creative Commons (via Wikimedia Commons): "Penneys store at West Seattle Junction, circa 1979" — Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 4.0 "Steeplegate Mall center atrium and skylight" — JJBers, CC BY 2.0 "Sears – Randall Park Mall", "Randall Park Mall" sign, "Macy's – Randall Park Mall" (2 photos), "Higbee's – Randall Park Mall" — MikeKalasnik, CC BY-SA 2.0 "Randall Park Mall" (interior, 2008) — Eddie~S, CC BY 2.0 "Abandoned JCPenney" — Will Fisher, CC BY-SA 2.0 "El Con vacant storefronts" — Acc78, CC BY-SA 3.0 "Exton Square Mall, Upper Hall" — Rookiephotographer, CC0 "Chesterfield Mall Fixtures Sale" — LuxembourgBoy42, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Deserted mall" — Bellerophon5685, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Martinsburg Mall Demolition" — Nationdecay1149, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Former Aerie; Ross Park Mall" and "Former Apple Store; Fayette Mall" — Larry Hachucka, CC BY-SA 4.0 Photos may be cropped, color-graded and animated. Licenses: Creative Commons CC BY 2.0, CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 2.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 (full texts at the Creative Commons website). Stock images: Magnific (Freepik) license. Some scenes are AI-generated illustrations and AI-animated recreations of typical 1970s–80s mall life; they do not show real people or specific real places. Motion graphics made for this channel. Music and sound effects generated with AI (Magnific). #deadmalls #shoppingmall #americanhistory