BUSINESS WATCH:

It boasts one of the richest collections of stores under one roof in Southern California, including a number of Orange County exclusives and high-end boutiques.

It’s been renowned for nearly four decades as Orange County’s premier shopping destination — topping even Fashion Island, its nearby rival owned by none other than the Irvine Co.

In short, South Coast Plaza has emerged as the most prestigious, most popular and highest-earning mall in the region.

Except that, officially speaking, it isn’t a mall.

The shopping center’s media relations department removed the word “mall” from its publicity materials a few years ago, opting instead to refer to the destination as a “planned retail center.” Werner Escher, South Coast Plaza’s executive director of domestic and international markets, said the word “mall” sounded commonplace to most people, and he and his colleagues preferred a moniker with a little more panache.

“If we’re attracting the visitor outside of the core market — and I define the core market as a 100-mile radius — everybody knows South Coast Plaza,” Escher said. “The store selection we offer, the diversity of dining, everyone knows that in the core market. Beyond that, looking at the visitor, the traveling public, why would I be attracted to go to the South Coast Plaza mall if I have a mall in my hometown? That’s not necessarily going to be compelling enough for me to visit if I have a mall right near my house.”

South Coast Plaza’s news releases refer to it as “the highest-grossing planned retail center in the United States.” Almost everywhere else, though, the household word seems to prevail. Wikipedia calls South Coast Plaza “an upscale shopping mall,” while such travel websites as Family Vacation Getaways, California Information and Seeing Stars in Hollywood feature the term prominently.

Even the Google summary for www.southcoastplaza.com labels it “Orange County’s largest shopping mall” — although Escher said he hoped to correct that.

South Coast Plaza may frown on the “mall” designation, but anyone who refers to it that way technically isn’t wrong. The International Council of Shopping Centers has a list on its website of several different types of locations — “planned retail center” not among them — but spokesman Mike Tuberdi said it wasn’t up to the council to assign labels.

If his office had to pinpoint South Coast Plaza, he added, it would probably call it a “super regional center” — an enclosed, multilevel mall with a wide array of shops and a large clientele.

“When the general public hears ‘mall,’ by me, that could just cover the big department store-anchored ones, but even a small grocery-anchored center,” Tuberdi said. “But to the industry itself, when they talk about ‘mall,’ they definitely have a regional or super regional center in mind.”

For most of the people who shop at South Coast Plaza, apparently, one word is good enough. A number of customers said Friday they had always referred to the destination as a mall and were content with that.

“Of course it’s a mall,” said Kathy Hoffman of Newport Beach. “I’d call it a mall.”

She added that Fashion Island, which is mostly open-air and arranged in a circle, seemed more worthy of a special label.

“Now, that would be a planned retail center,” she said.

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.