Mall of America Is Closing on Thanksgiving

The largest shopping mall in the U.S. will close on Thanksgiving Day this year.

The Bloomington, Minnisota-based Mall of America has been open on Thanksgiving Day for the last four years, similar to many other retailers that start Black Friday sales on Turkey Day. But this year, Mall of America is doing its part to encourage people to spend the holiday with their families.

“We think Thanksgiving is a day for families and for people we care about,” Jill Renslow, the mall’s senior vice president of marketing, told The Associated Press. “We want to give this day back.”

The decision will affect many of the 15,000 people who work at the mall. A limited number of the mall’s security and maintenance personnel will work since some stores are likely to open and an annual Walk to End Hunger fundraiser will still go on, reports the Minnesota Star Tribune.

By making this move, Renslow said the mall officials also hope to “bring that special magic back to Black Friday.”

The mall will officially open at 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving, instead of staying open all night as it has in recent years. Executives plan a special “door opening ceremony” and other festivities and giveaways.

Marshall Cohen, a retail analyst with NPD Group, tells the Star Tribune he doesn’t think we’ll see a trend of malls closing on T-Day, but he noted that opening on Thanksgiving Day has not really lifted overall sales during the Black Friday weekend. It just spreads out the spending over more days.

Regardless, it is certainly a bold move by Mall of America execuitves, considering the slow decline of mall-based sales taking place.


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