Why America's Biggest Mall Is Dying - The Mall That Was Supposed To Last Forever

A visitor stands inside the largest mall in the United States. Five point six million square feet. More than five hundred stores. An indoor roller coaster overhead. An aquarium below. A 34-foot Lego robot. Two on-property hotels. A zip code of its own. And yet, somehow, the place feels quiet. When Mall of America opened on August 11, 1992, 150,000 people walked through its doors on the first day alone. By 1996, the mall was pulling 43 million visitors a year — more than Disney World, the Grand Canyon, and Graceland combined. By its 30th anniversary in 2022, an estimated 1.2 billion people had visited. So why are videos now asking if the place is empty? The story starts with the anchors. Bloomingdale's left in 2012, leaving a 210,000-square-foot hole. Sears left in 2019, leaving a three-story 160,000-square-foot corner sealed off and dark. But the real twist isn't the closure. It's a lease the mall's developers signed back in 1991 to attract Sears in the first place: 100 years, $10 per year. When Sears went bankrupt, that lease passed to a holding company, and after two trips to the Supreme Court — including an April 2025 decision in which the court declined to void the lease — Mall of America has legally lost the right to reclaim that anchor space until 2091. Then came the pandemic. Then Best Buy, American Girl, Forever 21, Marshalls. Then 2021 and 2022 security incidents. And underneath all of it, the broader collapse of American retail — from approximately 1,500 enclosed malls in the early 2000s to roughly 1,150 in 2024, with projections suggesting only around 150 will operate in their original form by 2032. But here is the part most "is the mall dying" videos miss: by Mall of America's own 2024 reporting, retail sales were up 5%, visits were up 4%, and the mall led the Twin Cities region in foot traffic gains while Southdale and the Galleria in Edina declined. The owners — Triple Five Group, the Ghermezian family behind the West Edmonton Mall — are now placing a $432 million bet on an indoor water park called Mystery Cove, with a retractable roof, a 52,000-square-foot wave pool, and a 1950s retro theme. Construction begins in 2026. Opening: 2029. The empty feeling is real. The numbers contradicting it are also real. Both things are true at the same time. This is the story of what really happened to the mall that was supposed to last forever — and what might come next.