As the days get shorter and the temps drop, we focus our attention on indoor mapping opportunities. Mall Mapping is a great winter surveying activity! We discussed planning a mall mapping session at our regular Map Night. Let’s look at the malls we have and which ones need the most mapping!
A good way to look at this is to consider when the shops and restaurants that make up the malls were edited last. Here’s an overview.
City Creek
City Creek is Salt Lake City’s famously-closed-on-Sundays downtown mall.
Not terrible but not great either. To the right, where the blue dots (editied within the past year) are, is the food court. I remember spending some time there updating the restaurants while enjoying a chocolate malt from Shake Shack, so that tracks. The main mall area looks like most businesses have been updated between one and two years ago (green), with a few more recent edits.
Fashion Place Mall
If you want to visit the only Crate & Barrel or Container Store in all of Utah this is your mall. It’s nice as far as malls go, and it’s open on Sunday.
Looks a little worse, more orange dots, those have not been looked at in at least 3 years! I couldn’t help but check – the two red dots represent stores that definitely do not exist anymore. Not going to edit now, where’s the fun in that?
Shops at South Town
Never been, too deep into the suburbs to be convenient, but I hear it’s pretty nice as far as malls go. Looks like someone went to town (ha) here somewhere in 2024.
Checking… Yes, it’s our good friend leftybender who swept the place in July 2024. He’s pretty thorough, but a lot can change in a year and a half in mall land!
Valley Fair
A bowling center for an “anchor store”, that’s Valley Fair! Very close to the West Valley Transit Center, so easy to get to (away from) by transit. We actually did a mall mapping party there a few years ago, and it looks like the map could use some new love.
Other Options
There’s a few mall-adjacent places I can think of.
- Jordan Landing is more of a haphazard collection of big box stores from what I remember – no fun for a mall mapping event if you ask me.
- The Shops at Fort Union is kind of similar to that, I think? The only time I’ve been there is when In-n-Out burger opened its first location in Utah there and I had to go.
- The Gateway was the hot downtown SLC mall (Apple store and everything) until City Creek opened in the early 2010s. It’s been trying to re-invent itself as an entertainment something or other. A shame really, it’s a really nice place.
- Other options exist outside of Salt Lake county. Station Park up in Farmington comes to mind. Despite its name, Station park is a foot bridge and a massive parking lot away from the Farmington FrontRunner station. Also, see below, mappers have done a decent job here recently.
Where will we go?
Discuss #local-utah on the OSM US Slack!
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