Mall of America: No Central Heat, a Partner Betrayal and a $10 Sears Lease

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The Mall of America sits on the 78-acre site of Metropolitan Stadium, the old home of the Minnesota Vikings and Twins, demolished in 1985. Its original pitch included an indoor lake with six-foot surfing waves and submarines. Today it covers 5.6 million square feet and draws about 32 million visitors a year. A red seat high on a wall marks Harmon Killebrew's 520-foot home run of 1967, and floor plaques mark the old home plate and 50-yard line. Architect Jon Jerde split the building into neighborhoods, East Broadway, West Market, North Garden and South Avenue. The retail corridors have no central heating: skylights, lighting, equipment and people keep them near 70 degrees. Ownership began as a venture of the Ghermezian family's Triple Five Group, Simon Property Group and TIAA, which held 55 percent. In 1999 Simon secretly bought TIAA's 27.5 percent stake.

In 2003 U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson heard recordings showing Simon hid the talks, called its conduct "boorish" and "the worst kind of self-dealing and subterfuge," and ordered the stake sold to Triple Five for $81.4 million; by 2006 Triple Five bought out Simon for $1 billion. After the 2000 Mardi Gras event, Fat Tuesday lost its liquor license, and in 2002 three Gators patrons were hospitalized after taking GHB. Triple Five banned smoking in 2004, and Knott's Camp Snoopy became Nickelodeon Universe in 2008. COVID-19 closed the mall for 12 weeks, the mall sued Hard Rock Cafe for over half a million dollars and locked out its staff, and Transformco held the shuttered Sears space on a lease of $10 a year, a fight that reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

• The mall employs behavior detection officers trained in Israel and in summer 2024 added facial recognition at its entrances.
• During Black Lives Matter protests in 2014 and 2015, thousands filled the rotunda and the mall sought restraining orders against organizers.
• In April 2019 a 24-year-old man threw a five-year-old boy from a third-floor balcony; the boy survived and the attacker got 19 years.
• In October 2026 the FBI arrested an 18-year-old from Richfield accused of plotting a shooting at a Hmong arts celebration in the mall.
• The indoor theme park floor rises and falls 15 feet between its high and low points.