Open-air malls: where new shopping centers are dropping the roof

Compare 18 open-air malls, retail parks and enclosed projects across the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with sizes, phases and opening dates.

Medley, a $560 million open-air district in Johns Creek, Georgia, opened on October 29, 2026, on the site of a former office campus. On November 1, 118 Mall opened in Kuala Lumpur with its main event space under an 88-meter glass dome. Both are new shopping destinations, and they answer the first design question in opposite ways: one leaves the public space open to the sky, the other puts it under glass.

An open-air mall connects stores through outdoor pedestrian routes, which may include covered walkways or shade canopies. This guide compares those centers with retail parks, enclosed malls and projects that combine indoor and outdoor areas.

The choice carries more weight when traffic doesn’t favor either side. In Placer.ai’s September 2026 index, visits to its sample of 100 open-air centers grew 5.6% year on year, versus 5.5% for 100 top-tier indoor malls, the smallest margin through September 2026.

Open-air, retail park and enclosed projects at a glance

Formats, briefly

Enclosed mall. A single climate-controlled building with interior corridors and exterior parking. North DeKalb Mall in Decatur, opened in 1965, was Metro Atlanta’s first fully enclosed, air-conditioned mall; Lulah Hills is replacing it.

Enclosed mall with outdoor-style public space. An enclosed center organized around an indoor garden, a glazed event space, or a covered retail street. 118 Mall, SM Nuvali and The Avenues Riyadh fit here.

Hybrid center. A development that combines substantial enclosed and open-air retail areas, as The Shops at Mission Viejo will once its outdoor village opens.

Open-air lifestyle center. Streets and plazas open to the sky, parking close to storefronts and a large share of restaurants. The Summit in Birmingham, Alabama, is a long-running US example.

Open-air mixed-use district. Shops and restaurants at the base of homes, offices or a hotel, laid out as a street grid. Medley, Lulah Hills and Sarasota Square fit here.

Outlet village. Low-rise, open-air streets of brand outlets on the edge of a large metro area, as at Torino Outlet Village.

Retail park. Large-format units with parking-facing entrances and outdoor circulation, often built around a grocery or DIY anchor. Depending on size and tenant mix, the closest US equivalents range from community centers to power centers.

United States: the roof comes off the mall site

Medley sits on a former State Farm office campus that Toro Development bought in 2024. Its first phase is organized around a 25,000-square-foot plaza with a stage, with about 25 openings that include Shake Shack, Sephora and Drybar, next to a Trader Joe’s that has been open since June. A second phase is planned for 2027 and a hotel for 2028.

Two more projects in the South are replacing enclosed malls outright. In Decatur, Edens is building Lulah Hills on the North DeKalb Mall site, with 320,000 square feet of retail planned and L.L.Bean’s first Georgia store among the tenants. In Sarasota, Torburn Partners is turning the 1977 Sarasota Square Mall into an open-air district anchored by Whole Foods and Homesense.

Owners of existing centers are adjusting from both sides. Simon is adding a 50,000-square-foot outdoor village to The Shops at Mission Viejo, an enclosed center that opened in 1979. Westfield UTC, an open-air center in San Diego, has been opening a luxury expansion of nearly 70,000 square feet in phases since early 2026. US luxury space is concentrated in a short list of centers, and half of US luxury retail fits inside 38 malls; the UTC expansion is a bet that an open-air center can hold that tier.

Europe: retail parks and conversions

Poland’s newest openings are retail parks built around everyday shopping. BIG Olkusz, anchored by Kaufland, and BIG Konstantynów opened in October fully leased, and BIG Bolesławiec is fully pre-leased ahead of its Q4 2026 opening, with Leroy Merlin and Biedronka among its tenants. In Sofia, Estrea Park Hadzhi Dimitar pairs a retail park with a food court and dining terrace.

Where an enclosed center is replaced, the result looks like the US model. Outside Paris, Bobigny Cœur de Ville replaced the enclosed Bobigny 2 with open-air town-center streets in 2025. Istanbul Shopping Center opened as a semi-open retail street inside the Istanbul Financial Center, and Roma Outlet Village adds an open-air outlet north of Rome with a preview on November 6.

Asia: the sky moves indoors

In Southeast Asia, developers keep the enclosure and bring the outdoor setting inside. 118 Mall opened at the base of Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur with 158 stores trading on the first day, according to PNB, out of more than 300 planned. Its principal event space, The Atmosphere, sits on Level 4 under an 88-meter glass dome.

SM Supermalls has set November 27, 2026, for SM Nuvali in Santa Rosa, Laguna. The mall wraps a one-hectare air-conditioned indoor garden with playgrounds, a pet park and restaurants facing it. The garden plays the role the plaza plays at Medley, inside a controlled climate.

Middle East: two answers in one city

Riyadh is testing both approaches for 2027. The Avenues Riyadh, from Shomoul Holding and Mabanee, is planned at about 370,000 square meters of GLA around a climate-controlled retail street under a translucent roof, following Mabanee’s flagship The Avenues in Kuwait. The Bellevue, from Unified Real Estate Development with design by Gensler, is an open-air center on one to two levels with more than 90,000 square meters of leasable area.

What the format choice means for operators and brands

The grocery anchor is the clearest pattern in this set. Medley, Lulah Hills and Sarasota Square each include one, and several Polish parks combine food shopping with discount, home and service tenants. For leasing teams, the practical question is which grocery and dining tenants are committed and when they begin trading.

Leasing commitments and trading stores measure different stages of a launch. The Polish developers reported fully leased space, while PNB reported stores operating at 118 Mall. Telling the two apart is part of knowing how to read retail expansion plans.

For brands, the format changes the store. An open-air unit needs exterior signage and often entrances from both the street and the parking. In an enclosed center built around a garden or a dome, a unit’s sightline to that space becomes part of the location. The format question sits inside the wider decision of how brands choose between malls, high streets and standalone stores, and it does not change where value sits: that stays concentrated in the top 100 properties, enclosed or open.

Methodology and sources

Projects were selected from shopping-center openings and announced developments in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and are grouped by format and by how shoppers move between stores. Size figures follow each developer’s measure: GLA, leasable area, total commercial space, site area or the phase named in the table. US figures are in square feet with metric conversions. Dates are as announced and can change. Visit-growth figures come from Placer.ai’s September 2026 data, published October 6, 2026. Project details draw on developer announcements and local business press, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Connect CRE, CoStar and REBusiness Online. Updated November 4, 2026.

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