The South China Mall in Dongguan, China sounds good on paper. The holder of the title “World’s Largest Mall” is more than twice the size of the previous record holders, Mall of America in Minnesota and Edmonton Mall in Canada. The building includes nearly 7 million sq. ft. of space and is complete with 8,000 parking spots. It also features amusement park rides, themed outdoor areas, an indoor rain forest, and an artificial canal system.
But there is one thing missing … people
The sprawling mall sits virtually empty. It’s a lonely place with only about a dozen operating tenants (some 1,500 store spaces are available). Escalators sit idle, corridors are darkened, nude mannequins sit in stark shop windows, little boats designed to run through the mall’s system of canals run anyway, but have no passengers. Workers at the mall fight to stay awake (a few lose that battle).
A short documentary, Utopia, Part 3: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall, chronicles South China Mall’s rise to failure and investors’ determination to see it succeed.
Construction started on the South China Mall in 2002 with an investment of 2.5 billion yuan. It was the pet project of Alex Wu — a Chinese billionaire who wanted to build the mega-mall in his hometown. He figured the concept would attract businesses and tourism in the country with 1.3 billion people. So he built it, but they didn’t come.
If it was a smaller shopping center it probably would’ve gone bankrupt by now. But because of its notoriety, it has been deemed too big to fail (sound familiar?) and a government-owned investor has anted up some big bucks and is committed to do whatever it takes to turn things around at the mall. This year they even revamped the mall’s name, calling it the New South China Mall.
Part of the problem here is that there was no concept of a mall in China before. No one had ever experienced what Americans see in every suburb, city, and town. Another problem — the surrounding population is mainly factory workers who barely survive on their wages. Tourism is scant, there is no airport, and there is little access to major freeways.
Managers are convinced that in two or three years the mall will gain popularity. But by that time South China Mall will be just another bloated shrine to consumerism as another shopping center, The Mall of Arabia in Dubai, is expected to dethrone it as the World’s Largest Mall. We shall see how they deal with holding the title, which carries with it such great expectations.
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Image from the documentary Utopia Part 3: The World’s Largest Mall by Sam Green and Carrie Lozano.
POV Utopia, Part 3: The World's Largest Shopping Mall
The world's largest shopping mall, in Guangzhou, China, is almost entirely empty. Details
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