Wild Animals Loose--In Malls Aiming For Tourism $$

Wild Animals Loose--In Malls Aiming For Tourism $$

The Wall Street Journal this week reported that American Wilderness Experience is nearing completion -- not in the roughhewn beauty of the Rockies -- but in a shopping mall. Created by Ogden Corporation for Mills Corporation's Ontario Mills mega-mall property in San Bernadino County, CA, it will combine a restaurant and boutique with a nature preserve housing some 160 wild animals.

Mills Corp's vision is to create properties which are not only attractive shopping venues, but tourist destinations on a par with Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. "When we open a mall, it normally becomes the first or second-largest tourist attraction in that state," said Stacy Strombeck Heins, tourism director for Arizona Mills, which will open in November in Tempe, AZ, and will also contain an American Wilderness Experience.

In a related story, The Mall of America's UnderWater World, Bloomington, MN, introduced its new baby girl stingrays to the world on July 8th with a festival of pink bubble gum cigars, balloons and banners. "These new ray pups are the first babies born at UnderWater World, but that's not the only reason we're so pleased," said Cuator Reid Withrow, "Their birth is also an indication of our success at closely replicating their natural habitat." Or at least as closely as you can at an indoors Minnesota mall. The three female pups were born on June 24th, when guests noticed "something funny" hanging out of one of the adult stingrays.

UnderWater World at Mall of America is the first interactive, multi-sensory aquarium and marine science center in the Midwest. Guests begin their education by "diving" 14 feet below the surface of a Minnesota lake, continuing down through the Mississippi River and out into the Gulf of Mexico, ending up in a Caribbean coral reef. It also boasts a venomous lion fish exhibit and a marine touch pool.

Ironically, eatertainment nightmare, Rainforest Cafe, which has only robotic animals, will be competing with both concepts (at The Mall of America and at Arizona Mills). [07/13/1997]