Kalamazoo Mall

The Kalamazoo Mall, the first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States, is a section of Burdick Street in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Built for $60,000 and opened in 1959, the pedestrian mall became the first of several hundred built in the United States. The bold effort to make a downtown street car-free as a spur to urban vitality and a defense against suburbanization drew national attention to Kalamazoo, which was dubbed "Mall City".

Initially, two blocks of Burdick Street were closed; a third block was added the following year and a fourth in 1975. In 1998, the southern two blocks were reopened to auto traffic, albeit a single southbound lane only.

The two blocks of Burdick from Eleanor Street to W. Michigan Avenue are designated North Kalamazoo Mall; the two blocks south of W. Michigan to W. Lovell Street, South Kalamazoo Mall.