Two more strip malls close to completion

There are more than 45,000 shopping centers in the United States. Ninety-five percent are strip malls.

Two of the newest strip malls are on North Sprigg Street in Cape Girardeau, and in front of the Wal-Mart Supercenter, along Highway 61 at Jackson.

The Dollar Tree is already open at the Jackson strip mall. Three more small businesses -- Check Please, Blockbuster and Great Clips -- will be opening soon there.

A number of strip malls are being built throughout the United States, strategically placed near Wal-Marts, with tenants like Dollar Tree, Fashion Bug, Cato's, Shoe Show, beauty salons and small cafes. Klein Construction, owner of the new Jackson strip mall, is putting final touches for other openings at Jackson.

CC Hair, a beauty salon, is already open at the new strip mall being built at 820 N. Sprigg in Cape Girardeau by Bob McDonald.

Four business are scheduled on the Sprigg Street side of the McDonald strip -- CC Hair and Burrito-Ville -- will open today, and two other operations already in the strip -- Tan-It-All and CD's Cafe -- will open soon.

McDonald's facility will include two levels. Once the top level, on Sprigg Street, is completed, a lower level, on the back side, will be added.

Cape Girardeau has a number of strip operations, dating the past 40 years, starting with Town Plaza in early 1960s. The Heritage Square strip center was added over the past five years.

More recent strips operations have been added in Cape West Business Park, Silver Springs Road and along William near Interstate 55.

The concept of developing a shopping center away from a metropolitan city's downtown is attributed to J. C. Nichols of Kansas City, Mo.

Nichols' Country Club Plaza opened in 1922, as a business district for a large scale residential development. It featured unified architecture, paved and light parking lots, and was managed an operated as a single unit.

During the later half of the 1930s, as cars began to clog the central business districts of large cities, small strip centers were built along the outskirts, or in growing residential areas.

The centers then usually anchored by a supermarket and drug store.

The typical design was a straight line of stores, with space for parking in front.

Some included a dozen shops. Others had as many as 30 shops.

In 1956, Southdale Center in Edina, Minn. opened the first fully-enclosed mall, with a two-level design. It had central air and heat, a comfortable common area a couple of big angle stores.

Southdale is considered to be the first modern regional mall.

By the mid 1960s, there were 7,600 shopping centers in the U.S., including the many strip centers serving new housing development in the 1950s and 1960s.

By 1972, the number of shopping centers had doubled, to 13,174, and the1980s saw an unparalleled period of growth in the shopping center industry, with the appearance of 16,0009 new centers. Big malls (larger than 800,000 square feet) became popular. But, many people we still shopping the neighborhood caters.

Factory outlet centers joined the fastest-growing segments of the shopping center industry in the 1990s. Now, there are about 285 of the outlet centers in the U.S. M Outlet malls area tenanted by manufacturers selling their own goods at discounted prices.

'Many of the outlet malls are built' away form larger cities, so as to compete with their regular goods.

The largest mall in the U.S. today is the Mall of America at Bloomington, Minn., which includes a several-acre amusement park, nightclubs, restaurants with about half of the 4.2 million feet devoted to retailing.

Shopping Centers have been an integral part of the economic and social fabric of their communities.

In 2000, more than 197 million adults visited various shopping centers in the U.S., and sales were estimated at $1.14 trillion.

At the end of 2000, there were 45,025 shopping centers, containing 5.57 billion square feet of feasible space in the U.S.

California, Florida and Texas account for 27 percent of the gross leasable space in shopping centers. California leads the nation in GLA with 705 million square feet, followed by Florida with 440.2 million and Texas at 376.3 million square feet. Following in order were Illinois, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky were among the top 20 states in leasable space, Ranging from 96 million to 165 million square feet.