The world’s biggest shopping centre cost more than £1billion to build and has room for over 2,300 stores.
South China Mall in Dongguan, China, was built on farmland in 2005 with five floors and the goal of attracting 100,000 visitors a day.
The mall was the brainchild of Alex Hu Guirong, a Dongguan native and billionaire instant noodle seller.
To make the shopping centre unique, it was divided into seven zones, each dedicated to a different area of the world: Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Egypt, the Caribbean and California.
Designers spent two years scouting locations for these zones around the world, and large parking lots were built in anticipation of a large number of drivers, reports the Daily Mail.
Features of South China Mall included a 25m replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice’s St Mark’s bell tower, and a 2.1km canal with gondolas.
But despite its huge space, few shops opened and many quickly took to calling it a “dead mall”. Even a renovation in 2018 could not revive the mall.
The vast majority of Dongguan’s population is made up of migrant workers and so the impersonal shopping mall failed to draw close to the desired numbers.
Most of the in-use units were occupied by fast-food chains as well as an IMAX-style cinema, a go-kart track, theme park, and a marine mammal park.
In 2013, the Mail Online reported sheets covering unmoving escalators, old dusty decorations, and the only signs of activity are occasional crisp packets being blown by the wind.
Duan Shuhuai, head of the renovation and upgrade project, told the China Times in 2020: “The renovation and renovation of South China Mall will continue. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the current unit vacancy rate is above 91 percent.”
