The Great Mall of the Bay Area (often simply called The Great Mall) is a large indoor outlet

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that ...

Milpitas, California Milpitas ( Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Mar� ...

built by Ford Motor Land Development and Petrie Dierman Kughn in 1994. It was acquired by Mills Corporation in 2003, and by the

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/ lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in In ...

in April 2007. The mall contains approximately 1.4 million square feet of gross leaseable area. The anchor stores are

Century Theatres Century Theatres is a movie theater chain that operates many multiplexes in the western United States, primarily in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. In its later years, it had expanded into the inter-mountain states, t ...

Kohl's Kohl's (stylized in all caps) is an American department store retail chain, operated by Kohl's Corporation. it is the largest department store chain in the United States, with 1,165 locations, operating stores in every U.S. state except Haw ...

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized as "DICK'S Sporting Goods") is an American sporting goods retail company, based in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company was established by Richard "Dick" Stack in 1948, and has approximately 854 stores ...

, Home Interiors Furniture, Q,

Saks Off 5th Saks can refer to: *Saks (surname) *Saks, Alabama, a community in the United States *Saks, Inc., holding company of Saks Fifth Avenue *Saks Fifth Avenue, U.S. luxury department store See also * * *Sachs *Sachse (disambiguation) *Sacks (surname) *Sa ...

Marshalls Marshalls is an American chain of off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store, covering 42 states and Puerto Rico, and 61 stores in Canada. M ...

, Burlington,

Dave & Buster's Dave & Buster's is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's has a full-service restaurant and a video arcade. As of October 2022, the company has 151 locations in the United States and tw ...

and the

Legoland Discovery Center Legoland Discovery Centre is an indoor family attraction chain operated by British leisure group Merlin Entertainments. Featuring models and attractions inspired by the Lego building toys, the Discovery Centres are smaller versions of the Legolan ...

History

The Mall was formerly the Ford

San Jose Assembly Plant San Jose Assembly was a Ford Motor Company manufacturing site in Northern California, outside of San Jose in what is now the town of Milpitas. It was the automaker's primary factory in that region from 1955 to 1983, replacing the Richmond Assembl ...

that was built in 1955.

Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...

s were produced at this plant and Mustangs bearing the name San Jose as the assembly location were in fact built in Milpitas. Fairlanes, Torinos, Pintos, F-Series pickup trucks and Escorts; Edsel Rangers and Pacers; and

Mercury Cougar Mercury Cougar is a nameplate applied to a diverse series of automobiles sold by the Mercury division of Ford from 1967 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2002. While the nameplate is most commonly associated with two-door coupes, at various times durin ...

s, Montegos,

Comets A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

Bobcats The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the I ...

, Lynxes, & Capris (US version) were also assembled here. The plant closed down in 1983 in part due to increasing competition with Japanese auto manufacturers. In the early 1990s, developers resized the former plant and converted it into a mall. Today, an oak tree with a plaque commemorating Great Mall's history stands in the southwest section of its

parking lot A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface ...

. The Great Mall of the Bay Area, which opened on September 22, 1994, was developed as a joint venture between Ford Motor Land Development Corporation of

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per ...

and Petrie Dierman Kughn of

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its prox ...

. In 2016, it was announced that the mall would be undergoing renovation in the spring.

Location

The Great Mall of the Bay Area sits at the intersection of Great Mall Parkway (which becomes Capitol Avenue when it crosses Montague Expressway) and

Montague Expressway There are 21 routes assigned to the "G" zone of the California Route Marker Program, which designates county routes in California. The "G" zone includes county highways in Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz co ...

. The Parc Metropolitan apartments lie to the north of the mall. A few inns are also located at the south entrance of the mall.

Layout

Great Mall, unlike many other malls (but like most Mills malls), is a "flat" mall with only one story and an oval racetrack layout with six neighborhoods. The mall is currently laid out in this fashion because the existing main structure was a Ford automobile assembly plant and was not designed to serve as a shopping center. Based on

gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

, the Great Mall of the Bay Area is the largest outlet mall and the 8th largest mall in California. It was once the largest mall in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

, but has now been surpassed by others. Like other malls, Great Mall also has a

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. ...

, which can be accessed through Entrance 4.

Public transit

The Great Mall of the Bay Area is close to the

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a Special district (United States), special district responsible for public transit services, Congestion management agenc ...

's Great Mall/Main station. Many VTA bus routes and also one by

AC Transit AC Transit (Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District) is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates "Transbay" r ...

stop at this transit center. The light rail station is elevated in the median of Great Mall Parkway.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which u ...

opened service to Milpitas station on June 13, 2020, providing access to the Great Mall and connections with VTA and AC Transit.

References

External links

* {{coord, 37.415773, -121.898012, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Outlet malls in the United States Simon Property Group Shopping malls established in 1994 Shopping malls in Santa Clara County, California Buildings and structures in Milpitas, California 1994 establishments in California