Southridge Mall is a huge mall on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa. It brings in about 3.5 million visitors a year (which is half a million more people than the actual population of Iowa). They are “anchored” by a JC Penny’s, Sears, Target and a Younkers (I don’t know what that is). Around the outside of the mall you have your typical stores including a 12 seat theatre that is run by Carmike.
Southridge opened in 1975 after 3 years of construction. Younkers was the first anchor store to sign up for a spot and remains the oldest tenant of the mall. The occupancy rate at the 1,000,000 square foot mall has been down in recent years because of newer and cooler (editors opinion) malls popping up. If you are from Nashville and have ever been to the Bellevue Mall (sometimes called the Bellecrap Mall) that is what Southridge reminds me of. Instead of having real stores they have churches, offices and an animal shelter. Also, they probably have a really cool comic book store where grown men (and sometimes the ladies who love them) who should actually grow up, play Magic: The Card Game. They have just installed Wi-Fi access so all the patrons can check out D&F while they are waiting for church to start. If you really want to check out their website...here it is.
Thanks to Wikipedia.com for the random article generator. Hopefully this broadened your knowledge of the malls of Iowa.
