Shopping Center Types
Based in part on criteria established by the International Council of Shopping Centers

Airport mall: specialty retail, restaurants, and other services concentrated in airports

Arcade: a type of enclosed urban shopping center popular in the 19th century, typically with an arched glass roof and two rows of shops either side of a pedestrian passageway, which often connected two parallel streets

Community center: a shopping center of  100,000 to 350,000 square feet GLA, typically anchored by a one or two discount department, drug, or home improvement stores; they are commonly open, one-story, with stores arranged in a single strip, L- or U-shape

Convenience center: an open shopping center with fewer than half-a-dozen with stores offering day-to-day necessities, such as a mini-mart, dry cleaners, wine and beer, video rentals, and the like

Enclosed mall: a shopping center entirely inside a roofed structure, so that entrance to the mall is controlled by a limited number of entrances and most stores are accessible only via interior corridors

Entertainment complex: a shopping center that features theaters, restaurants, amusements and related retail stores

Fashion mall: a shopping center featuring stores that offer stylish clothing, posh merchandise, and quality consumer goods 

Festival (or themed) marketplace: typically, an urban shopping center, featuring restaurant and entertainments, associated with a place of historic or cultural interest, such as Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Boston’s Faneuil Hall 

Galleria: a glass-roofed mall or mall courtyard, derived from the European glass-vaulted Victorian-era shopping arcades, especially the design of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (built 1867) in Milan, Italy 

Greyfields: a dying shopping center, specifically (according to Price-Waterhouse-Coopers) a center in which annual sales are less than $150 per square foot of retail space

Lifestyle center:  typically, an open-air shopping center whose array of retail outlets (such as women's fashion stores, jewelers, leather goods, and restaurants) are designed to appeal to upscale consumers; lifestyle centers usually include attractive landscaping, fountains, outdoor seating, and other features that encourage browsing

Mall: any large shopping center (usually enclosed) with adjacent parking and out buildings

Mixed-use center: an integrated complex that may contain residences, offices, restaurants, theaters, a hotel and other services, in addition to retail stores

Neighborhood center: typically, an open-air shopping center of  30,000 to 150,000 square feet GLA with 3 to 15 stores, anchored by a supermarket

Open-air: a shopping center in which stores are directly accessible to the public; exterior walkways may be covered, but the stores are not enclosed under a single roof

Outlet (or off-price) mall: a shopping center with national brand-name retailers, factory outlets, or close-out outlets selling discounted merchandise 

Power mall: a shopping center containing several category-killer stores, such as home-improvement, discount department, toys, and stationary

Regional center: a shopping center with 400,000 to 800,000 square feet GLA, often an enclosed mall, with 40 to 100 stores anchored by one or more department stores

Shopping center: a planned group of connected retail stores, usually with an attached parking area, specially developed on a parcel of private property and managed by a single organization

Strip: a small open-air neighborhood shopping center, typically smaller than 10,000 square feet GLA , with at least three stores, arranged in a connected row facing a parking area

Super-regional center: the largest classification of shopping center; it is usually an enclosed mall larger than 800,000 square feet GLA with more than 100 stores, including several department stores

Urban mall: shopping center located within a city, the largest of which may be on several levels with adjacent multi-level parking

Value-oriented mall: a large shopping center characterized by low-end, discount, and outlet stores

Anchor stores: the largest retail outlets, usually located at the ends or corners of shopping centers, and chosen in part for their potential to attract customers to the shopping center generally; departments stores usually anchor regional and super-regional malls and supermarkets are typical anchors in community centers 

Arcade: an entertainment area offering coin-operated computer games and other amusements

Back of the house: the office, stock room, and other non-retail areas of a store

Big box: a large stand-alone store that specializes in a single line of products, such as home improvements, toys, or office supplies; no-frills discount stores that sell in volume and category killers are often big box stores

Brownfields: a potential shopping center site contaminated by chemicals, such as a former industrial location

Cart: a wheeled display from which merchandise is sold in pedestrian areas of a mall, often fitted out with shelves, display racks, and the like

Cash wrap: the front counter with the cash register and often a wrapping or packing area

Category killer: a large national chain store specializing in one line of products, such as home improvements, office supplies, or toys, that can overwhelm both smaller and more diverse competitors because of its size, variety of merchandise, and prices

Community room: an area available for public use, ranging from a bare meeting room that can accommodate folding chairs and tables to a more elaborate hall with stage, adjacent kitchen, and other services

Double dumbbell shape: a cross-shaped shopping center with anchor stores at the end of each cross

Draw tenant: a store that attracts a large number of potential customers to a shopping center, often an anchor store

Dumbbell: a linear shopping center with anchors stores on each end

Factory outlet: a retail store that sells merchandise direct from the manufacturer, usually at reduced prices

Food court: a separate area of a shopping center containing fast-food outlets and a common seating area

Free-standing store: a retail outlet not associated with a shopping center, especially those at a distance from congested shopping areas and downtowns

Greenfields: undeveloped land, particularly a site suitable for a shopping center

Gross leaseable area (GLA): the total area of floor space (usually cited in square feet) leased for retail shops, consumer services, and entertainment, including restaurants. The total floor area of any shopping center or mall is inevitably larger than the gross leaseable area; the difference can be accounted for by mall offices, utility areas, storage, rest rooms, interior plazas, and other non-revenue producing spaces. Areas that are not let on long-term leases, such as assembly halls, exhibition space, public meeting rooms, and the like are usually not included in GLA figures, though they may produce some rental revenue.

Irregulars: salable merchandise with minor imperfections sold a reduced prices

Junior department store: (1) a small department store offering a limited selection of goods; (2) a scaled-down version of a full-sized department store

Kiosk: a semi-permanent booth placed in pedestrian areas of a shopping center and used to sell small items or to offer specific services, such as jewelry repair

Mall rat: young person who frequents a shopping center primarily for socializing and entertainment, rather than for shopping

L-shaped: a shopping center with two linear strips of stores connected at right angles, forming the letter L; anchors are typically located on the two ends or at the apex, with parking inside the apex; L-shaped is a common design for community-sized centers

Mall manager: the person employed by the owner or a management company to supervise daily operations of a shopping center

Mall mayor: the retailer who acts as the informal spokesperson for the tenants of a shopping center

Mall walker: person who walks in a shopping center for exercise, especially during a period set aside for this purpose before stores have opened in the mornings

Market area: the geographical area from which a shopping center draws its customers

Off-price center: a retail store that sells brand-name clothing or other goods (often with labels removed) at reduced prices

Outlot tenant: a free-standing retailer or service located on a separate parcel in front of a shopping center; also called a pad tenant

Outparcel: (1) a physically separate store or service, such as a restaurant, bank, office, or motel, included in a shopping center’s property; (2) unoccupied land on a shopping center's property

Shrinkage: (1) difference between value of inventoried merchandise and merchandise book value, attributable to waste, shop wear, carelessness, fraud, theft, and so on; (2) more specifically, loss of merchandise due to shoplifting, usually reported as a percentage of sales

T-shaped: a shopping center comprising two linear arrays of stores forming the shape of the letter T, with anchor stores at each of the three ends and parking on all sides

Tall-wall stall: a temporary retailing display and counter built against an empty wall

Temporary tenant: typically, a retailer that rents space in a common area for a cart, kiosk, or tall-wall stall for less than a year