Let's Get Commercial

The Mall of America....owned by the Triple Five Group opened in 1992 and currently has 4,200,000 square feet of retail/office space under it's roof. That's large enough to fit seven Yankee Stadiums inside! The Mall has 2,500,000 square feet of retail space and entertains over 40 million visitors annually. It became the second largest shopping mall in total area and largest in total store vendors in the United States when it opened. This past winter, the mall hosted a 40 feet tall ice castle made of icicles formed from 4 million gallons of water and then fused together. The castle joined 50 large ice towers together to create a series of shimmering archways, tunnels, walls and caverns. The mall currently has only a 4% vacancy. Here is a sampling of the Nickelodeon Universe which is an indoor theme park with roller coasters, air drops, ferris wheels and other rides.

There really isn't a caption I could put on this picture, although several come to mind, that would not land me in the dog house for several weeks....Debi and Josh were looking over their offerings....

Nickelodeon Universe features many different rides and attractions. The large mechanical arm in the foreground swings you up and around in weightlessness and then flips you upside down. Don't eat before riding this contraption.

Of course, SpongeBob Squarepants has his own area of fun stuff, called the Rock Bottom Plunge.

On display was a huge figure of a transformer and a half scale helicopter. The transformer was almost three stories tall! Not necessarily impressive until you realize they are made entirely out of LEGO blocks! Someone had way more time, and patience, than I do.

Each of the figurines you see here are made entirely with LEGO blocks... The store was packed with shoppers.  You could buy LEGOs in every color, size and shape.

While the Mall is certainly commercial in a big way, it has something for everyone 

and we enjoyed spending the day there.