U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for March 26

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

AMERICA'S FIRST SHOPPING CENTER

Profile America — Thursday, March 26th. Everyone who loves convenience in shopping can thank Edward Delk and J.C. Nichols. It was they who conceived, designed, and built the first shopping mall in the U.S. The Country Club Plaza, on the outskirts of Kansas City, opened this month in 1923 to wide acclaim. It was the first shopping area to have stores facing inward toward a promenade, rather than facing out toward a road. The mall had 150 stores, a 2,000 seat auditorium, and parking for 5,500 cars. Today, the Country Club Plaza is still in business — along with nearly 110,000 other purpose-built shopping centers, where Americans ring up much of the nation's $4.7 trillion in non-automotive retail sales annually. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 2501
Shopping centers:  http://www.icsc.org/research/shopping-center-facts-and-stats 
Retail sales/t. 1:  http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

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http://www.census.gov