Placer.ai: Traffic was up at indoor malls in March, but visits were shorter
Open-air centers in Placer.ai’s Mall Index have posted consistently higher visitation levels than indoor malls and outlet centers, but enclosed centers turned the tables last month.
Indoor mall visits in March were 1.8% higher than they were in March of last year, while traffic dipped at open-air and outlet centers by 1.1% and 0.7% respectively. Despite the March rebound, overall mall visitation in the first quarter of 2025 remains below pre-pandemic levels from the first quarter of 2019, with shorter visit durations across all formats, indicating a lingering impact of COVID-19.
However, visit numbers across all three Mall Index classes were all significantly higher than they were in February.
The foot traffic analytics provider reasoned that the rebound might have been driven by a slight increase in consumer confidence among younger consumers (under 35) and consumers from households earning more than $125,000 a year since affluent households are over-represented in the trade areas of all three mall formats.
“Top-tier indoor malls have demonstrated consistent visit strength over the past year, potentially due to the closure of less successful malls and a renewed interest in the indoor mall experience,” said Placer.ai analyst Shira Petrack.
The report also suggested that indoor malls are likely to be benefiting from a renewed demand for the indoor mall experience, which could explain recent investments in Class B malls such as Walmart’s purchase of Pittsburgh’s Monroeville Mall and Simon’s redevelopment of the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove, N.Y.
All three mall types received fewer, shorter visits in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of 2019, with outlet malls seeing the largest drop in both visit numbers and the average lengths of shopping trips. Over that period, visit duration dropped by 4.4% in open-air centers and 2.9% in indoor malls.
“So,” Petrack remarked, “despite the resilience of open-air shopping centers and the recent visit gains of indoor malls, the shopping center industry still has a way to go before visitation patterns return to pre-COVID levels across the board.”
