Market Research

Shopping Malls are buildings or set of buildings that contain a variety of retail units, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit. Most shopping malls are mainly indoors, ranging in several levels with large department stores on the ends or corners of the structure. Retail, restaurants, businesses, kiosks, food courts, department stores and large open areas consist in most shopping malls. It attracts customers of all ages having a variety of stores.

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Bazaars are a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold; they are common in the Middle East. It can also be a sale of goods held to raise money for a charity. These are mostly indoors, with individual vendors selling all kinds of things, from pocketbooks to clothing to chess sets to books.

















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A strip mall is an open area exterior shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. Most of the stores are chains and are well recognized throughout different locations.

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Plazas have been used to describe a shopping complex. The name is currently even applied to a single building with some semi-public street-level areas, often with a hotel or office tower above.

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Markets are a location where goods and services are exchanged. It is traditionally set up in stalls and buyers browse the merchandise. In the USA, farmers markets are more popular, selling fresh produce, flowers and fruits. Markets vary in size, range, geographic scale, location, types and variety of human communities, as well as the types of goods and services traded. The concept of a market is any structure that allows buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods, services and information.

















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An arcade is a passage or walkway covered overhead. It is enclosed on the sides with the end open or enclosed. Light it allowed overhead with the large glass skylights/ceiling.

















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An outlet store is a retail store in which manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public through their own branded stores. It is located like a strip mall but consist of all outlet stores throughout the whole space.

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Main Street is the generic street name of the primary retail street of a village, town, or small city in many parts of the world. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in the central business district, and is most often used in reference to retailing. High Street is a generic name for the primary business street of towns or cities in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing.

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Times Square is considered the first of its kind, the first "vertical mall" in Hong Kong. Due to the high land price in Hong Kong, and the higher yield on retail property, Times Square departs from the common western model of the flat shopping mall. The space allocated to retail is configured over 9 stories. The mall is accessible by long escalators linking the ground floor podium and the first level of the mall.

















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I consider Revolution Mills to be a mixture of the different types of shopping centers. I would considered it mostly under a shopping mall. Within the space, i would want to see a courtyard space allowing light in, maybe on the side of the creek. The needs would consist of several retail shops, eating/restaurant area, bathrooms, gathering space, janitors/utilities spaces. This space needs to invite outsiders to come shop, eat, relax and feel welcomed as well as the residential renters next door.