Like many things in South Florida, Sawgrass Mills Mall is an artificial destination. Built in 1995 as the Sunrise Galleria, the mall is a sprawling shopping destination for local and international visitors alike. When I was a kid the area was nothing but swamp and farmland. Today, it is difficult to discern that there was once farmland where a gigantic mall and parking lot now stands. The highway that leads to the destination, which also contains the BB&T Center, is modern and congested.
As a shopping experience, Sawgrass is almost daunting. My visit to the mall on a Saturday evening (in mid-November) was not a shopping experience. I was there to kill a few hours while waiting for companions to attend a show at BB&T. I noticed that patrons were engaged in an orgy of shopping. It was surprising the number of shoppers, many international, who had purchased rolling luggage and were in the process of filling their bags up with clothes, toys and the latest electronic gadgets. The mall has even tried to transform nature. It moved people almost imperceptibly from outside to inside. If it were not for the change in temperature and humidity, most patrons might not even know that where he/she was. As I watched several people busily explore their avarice laden desires, I was struck about how the mall might have resembled a traditional market on a Saturday, the major difference being that no traditional market would be open at 9PM.
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