Posts Tagged ‘NYT article Russia’
American Excess Heads East
January 7th, 2013 | 
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In the mid-90s, the King of Prussia Mall outside Philadelphia underwent an incredible transformation.
Its owners, including Kravco and Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG), renovated and expanded the mall, connecting its two sections (the Court and the Plaza) to turn KOP into one of the largest shopping malls in the U.S. More importantly, the mall saw a huge influx of specialized, boutique and brand-name merchants, as well as higher-end anchor tenants like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. Suddenly, King of Prussia was no longer a mall; for the region’s shoppers, King of Prussia was THE Mall.
The enormous growth that turned King of Prussia (now majority-owned by Simon Properties) into a retail mecca was something that occurred throughout the country–a culmination of the 80s’ unbridled consumerism and emphasis of the shopping mall “experience.”
Today, e-commerce is crushing many community malls and power centers, and even the highest-end regional malls (KOP included) aren’t drawing shoppers the way they once did. But the “mega-mall” as we knew it in the 90s hasn’t gone away, but simply migrated to other countries.
Like Russia. Read the rest of this entry »
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