The Great Mall of the Bay Area (often simply called The Great Mall) is a large indoor outlet
Legoland Discovery Center
.
History
The Mall was formerly the Ford Motor Company’s San Jose Assembly Plant that was built in 1955. 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.
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 and Petrie Dierman Kughn of McLean, Virginia.
In 2016, it was announced that the mall would be undergoing renovation in the spring.[2]
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
. 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, 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, but has now been surpassed by others. Like other malls, Great Mall also has a food court
Great Mall
Milpitas