a last april, on a visit to the new mall of america near minneapolis, i carried with me a small book provided for the reporters by the public relations office£®it included a variety of “fun facts" about the mall, for example, 140,000 hot dogs are sold each week, there are 10,000 full time" jobs, 44 sets of moving stairs and 17 lifts, 12,750 parking places, 13,000 tons of steel and $ 1 million is drawn weekly from 8 atms£® opened in the summer of 1992, the mall was built where the former minneapolis stadium had been£®it was only a five - minute drive from the minneapolis st£®paul international airport£®with 4.2 million square feet of floor space - twenty - two times the size of the average american shopping center - the mail of america was the largest shopping and family recreation center under one roof in the united states£®