March, 2010 - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Brickyard Mall; Chicago, Illinois

Brickyard Mall, which opened in March 1977 on Chicago’s northwest side, was one of two regional, suburban-style shopping malls constructed in the city – the other was Ford City Mall on Chicago’s south side, which opened in 1965. Three other regional malls are, however, literally within a stone’s throw of the city limits – Lincolnwood Town Center, Harlem-Irving Plaza, and Evergreen Plaza all are located either directly across the street from the city or just blocks from it. Brickyard Mall enjoyed a modicum of success through the 1980s, but in the 1990s its viability met opposition as neighborhood demographics changed and competition from other malls outmoded it.

More than 8 years ago I walked through Chicago’s troubled Brickyard Mall with my first digital camera, taking tons of pictures in anticipation they’d someday be the only surviving documentation of the mall – and then I promptly lost them. Very recently, though, when consolidating some old photo CDs onto a larger hard drive, I rediscovered these great “vintage” shots of retail history that is now gone forever. I hope you enjoy seeing them and reading Brickyard’s story as much as I enjoyed finding the pictures and reliving the memories.

The late 1970s was the middle of a great enclosed mall building boom across the United States. The overbuilding of these hulking behemoths was often done without extensive foresight and with little abandon. Brickyard Mall was built with two major goals in mind, neither of which would ultimately guarantee its permanency.

The first and main goal of Brickyard Mall was to give local residents a regional shopping center. Belmont-Cragin, the neighborhood which Brickyard Mall anchors, was mostly built out by World War II with a modest housing stock of bungalows, cape cods and two-flats, which were intended to house Polish immigrant factory workers. Over time, the factories which originally brought these immigrants to the far northwest side of Chicago closed, the original population left, and incomes have dropped. The Polish influence on the neighborhood is still visible today, but has declined significantly in recent decades, as an influx of Hispanic immigrants has come to the area. As of 2000, the neighborhood is 65% Hispanic, and this number is almost certainly higher today.

The second goal of Brickyard Mall was both political and fad-oriented. A plaque used to hang on the wall in Brickyard Mall, indicating that Brickyard was “Chicago’s first in-city regional mall.” It was signed by then-mayor Richard J. Daley, who put his name on practically every civic project the city invested in. Malls were popular in the 1970s, so putting one in the city certainly helped promote him politically. This plaque confuses me a little though, because Ford City Mall is also in the city of Chicago and opened in 1965 – 12 years before Brickyard. Wouldn’t Ford City have been first? Either way, Chicago wanted to get on the mall-building bandwagon, and selected a former brickyard at the corner of Diversey and Narragansett for this infill development. The brickyard was also, for a short time in the early 1970s, the city of Chicago’s first ski hill – anyone who has been to Chicago and seen how flat it is knows how much of a mistake that was. The site is located in a less-dense suburban area of Chicago, about 10 miles northwest of downtown, and was intended to supplant north and northwest side Chicago residents’ trips to suburban malls such as Woodfield, Randhurst, Golf Mill, and the nearest competitor, Harlem-Irving Plaza.

Brickyard Mall opened in two phases, starting in 1977. The first phase was anchored by Kmart and Chicago-based grocer Jewel-Osco, and was connected by an enclosed plaza with stores on one side and a wall of windows facing the parking lot on the other. A two-level Montgomery Ward was also placed behind the enclosed section of the mall, to the south of it, a full level above the rest of the structure. As such, an escalator ran from the middle of the enclosed portion of the plaza-mall up to Wards’ first level entrance. The grade separation at the site was a necessity because the site was formerly an artificial ski hill, so it was easy to just build the mall into the hill rather than to dismantle the hill and start over from a flat surface – plus, it gave the mall a very unique design.

Due to the confusing floorplan, I threw together a sketch of the mall by labelling satellite imagery. You can see in red where the escalator was, connecting the lower Convenience Level of the mall with second and third levels of the main mall through Wards. The sections labeled in yellow are a full level beneath the sections in blue. Essentially think of this layout as a bigger mall with two anchors spooning a little plaza mall, also with two anchors and located under it.

A major expansion at Brickyard took place over the next two years, as a huge two-level mall structure was added from Wards southward, ending at a 209,000 square-foot two-level JCPenney, which opened July 1979. The result was a weirdly-sewn-together frankenmall with a very interesting floorplan. The original phase of the mall, featuring Kmart and Jewel-Osco and facing Diversey Parkway, was rebranded the Convenience Level, and was connected to the rest of the mall by Wards. Shoppers using the Convenience Level could access Wards by ascending an escalator, located in the middle of the Convenience Level, which went up to a first level entrance of Wards. By going through Wards, they could then access the rest of the mall. This was a rather interesting and fun layout, giving Brickyard three separate levels, one (the Convenience Level) being completely disparate to the other two. Also, while many malls are split by an anchor, Brickyard was split by both an anchor and an entire level. Due to the confusing nature of this setup, there was ample signage throughout all parts of the mall advertising how to get between the main mall and the Convenience Level stores.

The brand-new Brickyard roared into the 1980s with success, as shoppers came from not only the surrounding neighborhoods, but from as far away as Edgewater and Lincoln Park via bus. Brickyard was the closest mall to much of the north half of the city, and also to wealthier suburbs such as Oak Park, River Forest, and Elmwood Park. However, this influence wasn’t maintained due to changing demographics in Brickyard’s immediate area during the 1990s.

In the 1990s, the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, a pre-war area of modest, mostly single-family dwellings, lost its economic foothold as the manufacturing jobs that established the neighborhood floated away. The workers, mostly Poles who helped establish the neighborhood in the beginning, moved with the jobs, to other parts of the city or the suburbs. The immigrant group replacing these original settlers were predominantly Hispanics of lower income. As these demographic changes took place, store turnover at Brickyard replaced national, mid-level stores with discounters and urban-wear stores. And, with the demographic shift also came a perception of crime. Whether real or not, as evidenced by these reviews on Deadmalls.com, patrons no longer felt safe here and began driving out to the suburban malls and skipping Brickyard. Also, at the end of the decade, JCPenney also downgraded their store to an outlet, an ominous predictor of what was to come in the 2000s.

As the 2000s reared, Brickyard was no longer a viable regional mall. With a reduced selection of stores, a perception of crime, and changed demographics, Brickyard was demoted to a neighborhood center living in the husk of a regional mall. Bus trips were no longer bringing in throngs of city residents from across town, and Brickyard began bleeding stores. Over the course of a year, Brickyard lost all of its anchors except for Jewel-Osco. Kmart was the first to close in Summer 2000, followed by Wards in March 2001, and JCPenney Outlet was the last to leave in mid-2001. Wards’ closure wasn’t actually Brickyard’s fault, but a case of bad luck, as that entire chain folded; nonetheless, their departure was critical to accelerated demise at Brickyard, because their store bisected the two parts of the mall and connected them. After Wards closed, it became necessary to walk outside and along the side of the store in order to access the rest of the mall from the Convenience Level.

Like a ship without sails, Brickyard didn’t go very far for very long without anchors – a year and a half passed between the last of the anchors closing at Brickyard in 2001 and the announcement of redevelopment in late 2002. Not surprisingly, nothing was saved in the redevelopment, which commenced in May 2003 with the mall’s closing and immediate demolition. Jewel-Osco hung on for a few more months, operating out of its original building, while a new store was constructed a block south, opening in 2004.

Securing fast and easy credit for the redevelopment, including a nice chunk of change from the city of Chicago, owner Goldman Sachs worked quickly to transform the Brickyard site. Although the mall was a failure as a regional enclosed mall, it was seen as a potential gold mine as a neighborhood power center. Because the city of Chicago and its near-suburbs are almost completely built out, space for big box power centers and new strip malls is at a scarce premium, and usually results from the redevelopment of former uses like industrial sites. Knowing they had a captive audience, Goldman Sachs jumped on this opportunity to be able to develop a brand new, large-scale suburban-style power center right in the city.

In late 2004, most of the power center opened. Anchored by big box stores Target, Marshalls and Lowe’s, The Brickyard, as it has been rebranded, is home to over 40 small stores as well. In fact, many of the stores that were in the Brickyard Mall at the end have reopened here, including multiple shoe stores, the Super China Buffet, Radio Shack, and Jewel-Osco. In addition, The Brickyard was home to the first midwestern location of Pollo Campero, a cult-popular Guatemalan chicken chain.

Here are a couple outside photos I snapped while driving by in May 2000. The first shot is the pylon along Diversey, and the second shot is the Convenience Stores section at the north end of the mall. Kmart would close a couple months after this was taken:

Some people have criticized the new Brickyard development for lacking verve as well as its rather generic layout. I found this comment in Labelscar’s archives from user Allan:

“I dunno about you, but coming from briefly shopping at the lifestyle center that replaced Brickyard Mall(of Chicago) earlier today, there’s no doubt in my mind that the former Brickyard Mall was a much denser development, and was many times better than the lifestyle center that was built in its place. Not to mention, it’s unappealing as heck having to drive from store to store, rather than having the much more pleasurable experience of parking your car in one place, and shopping in an environment that you know won’t be too cold or too warm.”

In addition, there’s even a Facebook group decrying the mall’s renovation as not being up to snuff. Maybe if they would have shopped there when it was viable…

I visited Brickyard Mall several times between 1999 and 2001, and have only been back once since renovation, when I visited Pollo Campero a couple years ago. Other than that, there’s not much reason to go here unless you live in the area. Overall, though, I think this repositioning was successful. Sure, Brickyard is no longer that interesting to me, or anyone, and that’s a little sad; but I think if you look at the bigger picture, Brickyard is fulfilling its role as a neighborhood center.

If I renovated the mall, I wouldn’t have totally removed the two-level enclosed mall; instead, I would have renovated it with modern, bright flooring to replace the dark brick, adding comfy seating and bright colors on the walls. The natural light from the skylights would flood the center, and it would feel vervey again. I think people would come to the renovated mall, especially considering the density of the city, and although it would be a neighborhood center rather than a regional mall, it would still thrive. I would have used Target and Lowe’s to replace JCPenney and Wards, and put Marshalls and other big box stores along the main mallway somewhere. I probably would have removed the Convenience Center portion of the mall, though, since that portion of the mall was the most outdated of all.

What would you have done with Brickyard Mall? How do you feel about the renovation? Leave your own memories and thoughts on our comment page.

Here are the photos I recently found, which I took on November 17, 2001:

Also, here are some photos I dug up on the ol’ Interwebs. They were taken by an impressive photographer named Chuck Janda, and featured on his site. Be sure to check it out if you’re interested in sets of other abandoned and older buildings in the Chicago area. These were taken in Summer 2003, during Brickyard Mall’s demolition:

UPDATE 4/7/10: I went down to Chicago the other day and swung by the “new” Brickyard development, and here it is!

Hickory Ridge Mall; Memphis, Tennessee

Located approximately 20 miles southeast of downtown Memphis, Hickory Ridge Mall opened in 1981 at the corner of Winchester and Hickory Hill Roads. At the time, this was the farthest mall from Memphis’s core, and indicative of a shift in population away from the city and into the suburbs. 1981 was also the same year the larger Mall of Memphis opened, closer to the center of population and near the airport. Over time, both malls failed: Mall of Memphis succumbed due to a perception of crime after some high-profile incidents, and Hickory Ridge Mall faltered due to the wrath of overbuilding and demographic changes before being snuffed out by mother nature.

When Hickory Ridge and Mall of Memphis debuted, there were already several shopping centers in town. Memphis’s extant mallscape included the small, much older Southland Mall, built near Elvis Presley’s house in 1966, and the Raleigh Springs Mall, located on the north side, built in 1971.

Shortly after Hickory Ridge opened, it became the anchor to a long corridor of retail along Winchester Road, home to several million square feet of retail space in the form of big box stores and strip malls. This was the hot retail area in Memphis for a hot minute, before changing demographics and other forces banished this corridor’s progress and revenues sank during the 1990s and beyond.

In 1988, Hickory Ridge received a minor blow in the form of a new upscale mall located in southeast Memphis on Poplar Avenue, Oak Court Mall. While smaller than Hickory Ridge, Oak Court has always been fully tenanted and has been an upscale fixture in Memphis retailing since it opened, drawing wealthy shoppers from all parts of the area. Oak Court Mall is also the closest mall to wealthy Germantown. As an offensive move against Oak Court, Hickory Ridge completed an expansion in 1986.

Hickory Ridge’s design after the expansion was modified T-shape, with a slight zig-zag at the middle of the mall, where a two-story carousel sits under a tall glass canopy. Anchors included Memphis-based Goldsmith’s, Sears, and Dillards.

A demographic change came to the Hickory Hill area in the 1990s, causing the number of whites in the area to drop by 50 percent and the number of blacks to grow 450 percent. This trend changed the types of stores at the mall, even though the Hickory Hill area remains one of the wealthiest and most educated black-majority neighborhoods in Memphis.

Another change took place when the neighborhood was annexed by the city of Memphis, which doubled commercial as well as residential rents. This taxation not only directly burdened retailers, but it further encouraged residents to move even farther into the suburbs where taxes are lower. In addition, the 385 freeway, Nonconnah Parkway, was constructed in the area, allowing residents to bypass Hickory Ridge Mall on their way to the booming sprawl in Collierville.

In February 1997, a new mall opened on I-40 in far northeast Memphis, and quickly became the destinational retail center of choice in the Memphis area. Wolfchase Galleria has 130 stores, four anchors, and 1.3 million square feet of retail space, and spawned a new retail corridor around it on Germantown Parkway. Furthermore, Wolfchase is the closest mall to the most wealthy, newest parts of Memphis like Cordova.

As Wolfchase opened, Hickory Ridge issued its counter-offensive in terms of a whole scale renovation of the mall, removing the dated 1980s look completely and attempting to stave off competition as much as possible. Unfortunately, the renovation of Hickory Ridge, located away from major freeways, was too late to ensure a permanency of success here.

The 2000s were a rough decade at Hickory Ridge Mall. By 2003, the Winchester Road strip corridor was over 70% vacant, with 700,000 square feet of dead retail space. The problems were much more serious than simple turnover, too – Memphis had too much physical space devoted to retail. And, the mall wasn’t immune to the failure of the strip surrounding it. To compound this, more retail was being constructed at an alarming rate in suburbs farther out, where a brand new mall was even being planned in Collierville.

In May 2003, Carlyle Development took the reigns of Hickory Ridge Mall, having purchased it that year for $13.5 million; and, citing an 20 percent vacancy rate and rapidly changing demographics, they decided to dramatically refocus the mall. According to Carlyle, marketing the mall toward a middle-to-upper-income set, putting it in direct competition with Oak Court and Wolfchase Galleria, was a mistake. They changed their focus to target a lower to lower-middle income set of folks, orienting the mall as more discount-focused with apparel at the forefront. This repositioning was probably a good strategy at the time, all things considered, in an attempt to save the mall without too much wrangling.

Over the next few years, Carlyle implemented their plans and Hickory Ridge slowly lost many national middle to upmarket chains, which were replaced by local stores, discount chains, athletic apparel stores and shoe stores. Oh, and vacancy. The vacancy rate at Hickory Ridge creeped up from 20% in 2003 to 40% in 2006, and by 2007 nearly half of the mall was empty. At the same time this was happening, Macy’s purchased Goldsmith’s, and phased out the name by 2005.

Meanwhile, two brand new malls opened in the Memphis area, one in growing DeSoto County, Mississippi, and another one in Collierville. The one in Collierville, Avenue Carriage Crossing, stole more of Hickory Ridge’s potential customer base when it opened in 2005. I say potential customers because they probably weren’t shopping at Hickory Ridge by then, anyway, so it was kind of a moot point. Avenue Carriage Crossing ended up delivering a major blow to Hickory Ridge by sucking away Dillard’s, who opened a 200,000 square foot store at Avenue Carriage Crossing in early 2006, effectively making the Carriage Crossing store a replacement.

Up until this point, the Hickory Ridge story has been fairly typical. Changing demographics, continued sprawl, and competition sent this mall into a pretty common downward spiral; however, on February 5, 2008, mother nature decided to change the mall’s slow decline into an immediate one. An F2 tornado touched down at the mall that day, collapsing a 50-foot wall of Sears, tearing a giant hole in Macy’s and twisting much of the roof off center court. The mall was also severely flooded. Sears patched up the damage to their store and opened five days later, on February 10th, but none of the rest of the stores at the mall have been open since (as of March 2010). The tornado effectively killed the mall.

Click here for a video of the tornado showing damage to the Hickory Ridge Mall.

Click here for a photo gallery of the extensive damage at Hickory Ridge Mall. Whoops. It seems the mall posted some photos it wasn’t entitled to post. The author of the damage photos has denied their use, so the link is dead. Sorry!

In the days, weeks, months, and even years that have followed the tornado, residents have sat and waited for their mall to reopen. Early on, Macy’s decided to give up and not reopen their damaged store, showing their commitment to the site wasn’t that strong. Also, due to the mall’s beleaguered state before the tornado, owner Carlyle wasn’t in a hurry to patch it up and get it running again either. For a time, the city even wanted to step in and purchase the mall to put civic offices there. However, a different buyer was found, and Carlyle sold the site to a church in October 2008 for $1.4 million, about 10 percent of what they paid for it in 2003. Ouch.

The new buyer, World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church, immediately set forth with grandiose plans for the tornado-ravaged site. Its first order of business was to repair the twisted center court area, which cost $5 million. Next, the church laid groundwork for re-tenanting the center, which is to be a mix of commercial retail, social services, and entertainment. The 3,000 member church, which is located down the street from Hickory Ridge Mall and is known for displaying a striking 72-foot-tall Christian reinterpretation of the Statue of Liberty, holding a cross in one palm and the ten commandments in the other, laid out these plans in five ambitious phases.

Phase I, set to commence in April 2010 with the grand reopening of the mall, will include 32 commercial retailers, 10 community and social service agencies, 8 food court vendors, 2 education and training centers, and entertainment venues including the two-level carousel and a movie theater.

Phase II will consist of 18 various medical offices, including natal care, 15 additional social services agencies, 4 more food court vendors, a child care center, more training and education centers, and an Incredible Pizza franchise. This phase will take place mostly in the former Macy’s wing of the mall.

Phase III will convert the former Macy’s building itself into a 72,000 square-foot conference center and banquet hall. It will also have an auditorium, kitchen, and historical museum.

Phase IV will convert the former Dillard’s location to a youth enrichment and entertainment center, including a roller skating rink, recording studios, and computer lab. In addition, a business center or a hispanic cultural center, to reflect the changing demographics in the area, will open as well. Phase IV is slated to be complete by 2012.

Taking place away from the mall, Phase V will manage the construction of a 60-80 unit senior living facility on the periphery of the mall, as well as a 1,000 seat outdoor ampitheatre and performing arts complex.

In addition to these phases, Sears will remain at the mall where it has been the entire time, except for the five days it closed after the tornado.

According to the church, Phase I and the mall’s reopening will take place next week, on April 3, 2010. Check out these photos of the work the church has been doing to repair the mall and prepare it for opening. It’s been a long time coming, but this is a welcome reinvestment in a neighborhood that has had major setbacks as retailers follow the dollars east. It’s hard to really feel bad for Hickory Ridge Mall and this area, because it was sprawl to begin with, but it’s sad that an entire layer of the city has fallen in this manner.

We’ll keep up to date with developments in this interesting story. In the mean time, take a look at the pictures I took in January 2004, when the mall still had Goldsmith’s. Feel free to leave some comments, too.

Hilldale Shopping Center; Madison, Wisconsin

Opened in 1962 on what was then the western edge of Madison, Hilldale Shopping Center has had a unique and intriguing history. Hilldale was one of the first major shopping centers in town, and it’s also one of the closest malls to where I live. The thing about Hilldale is that it falls under the radar – it’s not a traditional mall in any sense of the word, and never really was. Through the decades Hilldale has undergone some major changes and has continued to reinvent itself by eschewing shopping center norms, and, reflective of its status as an institution in this weird city I live in, remains as viable as ever.

Known primarily for being the state capital as well as home to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison is the second largest city in the state and a burgeoning little metropolis of over 500,000 people. A leading research university and one of the top-tier public institutions of higher learning, UW-Madison has infused the city with a progressively laid-back culture and a wealth of diversity. They even gave me a degree! Both the University, the industry it spawns, and state government offices have kept Madison a highly educated, tightly knit, self-aware cosmopolitan city which is often referred to as ’85 square miles surrounded by reality’.

Before construction, the land where Hilldale sits was – surprise! – a farm. It was called Hill Farms, and was owned by the University’s School of Agriculture. In the early 1950s, as Madison expanded, its edge of development rapidly reached Hill Farms, gobbling up farmland left and right all around it. The neighborhoods being built on the near west side of Madison were mostly residential and nicer than average – today as then, this part of Madison is home to older yet tasteful and expensive homes, housing many professors, doctors, and other professionals.

Not wanting to stand in the way of progress, and looking to make a tidy profit in the process, the University decided to develop Hill Farms into a cute little 1950s planned suburb. The focal point of this new development was to be Madison’s first large-scale shopping center, located on 33 acres of land at the corner of Midvale Boulevard and University Avenue, which was then US Highways 12 and 14. In addition, housing, offices and other townsy facets were to be thrown in the mix, with the ideal of a totally self-contained community a goal. Using their lawyer, the University determined the best way to go about this was to create a dummy corporation, Kelab Inc., to deal with the mall and other buildings constructed in the development. The dummy corporation would serve as a bridge between the mall and the University, collecting the mall’s rent and passing it along.

This undertaking apparently inspired controversy, and it wasn’t long before Hilldale was wrangled into the first of several legal struggles in its history, which occurred years before the center even opened. It pitted the Hill Farms developer, the University, against other developers who felt that the University – a hand of state government – shouldn’t be in the business of profiteering. After years in courts, the U.S. Supreme Court made the final refusal for appeals, ruling in favor of the University, and the project finally continued on its merry way. Meanwhile, Westgate Mall opened just a few miles away in 1960, stealing Hilldale’s thunder for first shopping center in Madison.

Once the legal issues were resolved, Hilldale finally broke ground in 1961 and opened October 25, 1962. It was anchored by Milwaukee-based Schuster’s department store, which was flanked on both sides by a row of stores. However, about the same time Hilldale opened Schuster’s was purchased by a Milwaukee/New York-based store of a more familiar name, Gimbels, and was renamed Gimbels-Schusters before finally just becoming Gimbels. Other Madison originals such as Yost-Kessenich’s and Wolff Kubly also located here, as did Walgreens and an A&P supermarket.

Here’s an early aerial shot of Hilldale, looking northwest (courtesy of Malls of America):

In 1968-1969, Hilldale renovated and expanded, fully enclosing the mall. In 1971, Gimbels doubled the size of its store here, at the same time it opened another large store in Madison’s East Towne Mall. In 1975, A&P left Madison and the supermarket became a Milwaukee-based Sentry Foods, an affiliation it would hold until 2010 when it dropped the affiliation, becoming Metcalfe’s Market.

In 1985, Hilldale embarked on yet another renovation and expansion, updating the 1960s mall to a more modern upscale/subdued 80s look. The next year, in 1986, Gimbels closed all its stores. Normally, losing the only retail anchor would give a mall owner a bad case of the heebie jeebies, but luckily Hilldale was spared much grief when Chicago-based Marshall Field’s stepped in and purchased most of the former Gimbels locations in Wisconsin. The purchase turned out to be a great fit – both for Field’s and for Hilldale – as the affiliation lasted until Marshall Field’s was eaten by Macy’s in 2006. (RIP MF, we still miss you…)

Following the Gimbels purchase, Marshall Field’s did some restructuring a few years later, and some adjustments were made to keep the brand both upscale and profitable. In 1988, Field’s scaled back their Wisconsin presence, giving several Milwaukee-area stores to Green Bay-based Prange’s, because the upscale Marshall Field’s felt those locations were a better fit for a mid-level store like Prange’s. After all, Gimbels was more of a mid-level store itself. Field’s, however, was pleased with sales at Hilldale and kept that store running – as well as two others in Milwaukee. It was a better fit for Hilldale’s demographic, too, as the neighborhoods on the near west side of Madison are some of the most affluent in the area.

During the 1990s, Hilldale soldiered along, all the while holding its own against larger, more traditional competitors East and West Towne. In 1997, Hilldale renovated again, carpeting the floor and giving it a spruced up 90s look.

In 2000, Chicago commercial real estate developer Joseph Freed literally showed up one day in front of Marshall Field’s and approached the mall’s manager, Tom McCann, and asked him to lunch. Over lunch, Freed told McCann of his intentions to purchase the mall. McCann told Freed the mall was not for sale, that the University was happy with it, and instead invited Freed to apply to be the Hilldale’s management company instead. He did, but the management contract ended up going to Corrigan Properties instead, and the two parted ways for the time being; however, this meeting ignited a spark for the chain of events that would bring Hilldale into the present.

The next few years proved to be pivotal for Hilldale, as it rode the roller coaster from the brink of downturn to the precipice of reinvestment. In 2004, the vacancy rate at long-venerable Hilldale started to rise, as fortunes of small enclosed malls like it fell nationwide. Competition as well as changing consumer preferences away from local boutiques to national chains added to Hilldale’s woes. The center wasn’t in dire straits yet, though, and proactive local management combined with several very interested private parties helped Hilldale innovate and reposition.

In February 2004, the University decided to sell Hilldale to the highest bidder, which turned out to be Joseph Freed. His unwavering commitment to the site’s procurement was apparent, as his company was the only one willing to pay Hilldale’s full asking price.

Freed and Associates immediately took Hilldale to task, and proposed the biggest expansion and renovation in the center’s history. Phase I of the project commenced right away. It involved removing the front parking lot and adding 75,000 square feet of streetscape shopping directly in front of the 347,000 square foot existing enclosed mall, paralleling it. To replace the parking, two large parking structures were built behind the streetscape shops, and a row of 40 townhouses were constructed behind that, facing Midvale Boulevard.

Phase I was completed in 2007. However, the outdoor streetscape portion of the mall is still not fully leased as of 2010, due to the economy and the fact that Joseph Freed has apparently become insolvent – more on this in a little bit. Regardless, the development has been mostly considered a success and definitely saved Hilldale from becoming history.

A major addition to the mall occurred with the early 2007 opening of Sundance 608, a multi-screen theater/cafe/bar complex and the first location of the Sundance branded conceptualized by Robert Redford. The bar space above the theater is actually pretty cool, and features nooks with comfy seating and windows into the movie theater. You can grab drinks and look down into the theater and actually watch the movies, just don’t expect to hear them without actually paying for a ticket – no sound is piped in to the bar. The theater is a significant improvement over the mediocre Upstairs Downstairs restaurant which flanked the south end of the mall from 1985 to 2005.

The outdoor portion of the mall is split into north and south sections, which are themselves split by the main entry from Midvale Boulevard. The space in between the outdoor part of the mall and the enclosed mall is a two-way street with vehicular traffic, and perpendicular parking stalls exist in front of all the outside stores. The south section is more fully tenanted than the north, which has several vacancies. The north section currently contains Pasqual’s, a local New Mexican food chain, Anthropologie, L’Occitane en Provence, and Title Nine, a women’s athletic clothing retailer. The south section contains more tenants, including North Face, David Bacco chocolates, Sushi Muramoto, Fair Indigo – a fair trade family clothier, FlatTop Grill, Cafe Porta Alba, a US Cellular store, a salon, and the third location of The Great Dane Brewpub. The northeast corner of the property also has chain steakhouse Fleming’s.

Regarding the interior portion of Hilldale, all of it was retained in the renovation with minor tweaks. The south end funnels patrons into the Sundance theater rather than the exit that was there before, and the University Book Store there also renovated and expanded, adding a basement level. Longtime local tenants Wolff Kubly and The Chocolate Shoppe were ousted during renovations, which was an example of Freed’s lack of understanding in what makes Hilldale uniquely Madison – the local stores. A Ben and Jerry’s was brought in to replace the Chocolate Shoppe space, but in true karmic retribution it failed within a year. Some even resent the chain-ification of Hilldale, not wanting it to turn into the generic Towne malls or samey strip malls on the far west side.

Like the exterior open air streetscape, the interior portion of the mall has also struggled with its share of vacancies, but by no means is it troubled or dead. Many local retailers like Wehrmann’s Travel Shop, Morgan’s Shoes, Jan Byce’s, Therese Zache Designs, Playthings toy store and Ulla Eyewear coexist with regional retailers like Fannie May Candies, Buddy Squirrel and national chains like Pendleton, Bath and Body Works, and Christopher and Banks. In recent years, a small food court popped up on the west side of the mall near the west entrance. At its height it had Quizno’s, Hong Kong Wok, and Rocky Rococo, but currently only Quizno’s remains – Hong Kong Wok moved to a different part of the mall and Rocky Rococo closed. I have no idea what the long term plans are for this space, but it seemed to be a popular lunch spot and viable in spite of the myriad of food options in this area.

The design of the mall’s interior is based on the main hallway, which runs from north to south from Metcalfe’s Market, past the front of the department store anchor, terminating at the theater. A small side hallway passes to the north of the department store, connecting the main hallway to the back of the mall, where a small food court exists. In addition, a small basement level housing a Ballet school, Madison Academy of Music, Hilldale Barber, Edward’s Salon, a Coin and Stamp shop, and management offices. The basement level has its own dedicated entrance to the north parking lot, via a long stairway, and has been at the mall as long as I can remember.

During the middle of renovation, Hilldale’s center court was remodeled with a large, swooping, modern glass facade, which welcomes shoppers as a focal point from the main entrance off Midvale Boulevard. This facade was fitted with a gigantic Marshall Fields sign, which was only up for a few weeks (or less?) before Marshall Fields fell to Macy’s in September 2006. Whoops.

Following the completion of Hilldale’s renovation and expansion, Phase II of the project began in 2007. This project involved the demolition of a large office building, movie theater and Chinese restaurant to the west of the mall. Originally, this site was to become a Whole Foods Market, a condominium tower, and a hotel. Sentry, who also operates an upscale grocery store anchoring the north end of the mall, rightfully threw a fit about the proposed Whole Foods. What mall has two grocery stores? Who thought this was a good idea? However, the project has been delayed due to the economy, and as of early Spring 2010 is still a gaping hole in the ground – but at least now it’s a gaping hole with a solid plan. Whole Foods pulled out in October 2008, citing the economic downturn, and after hunting for tenants, Freed announced they had landed what will become the Madison area’s fifth Target store in Summer 2009.

Target sailed through the permitting process, which is a rarity for businesses who attempt to deal with the city of Madison. This should tell you how bad they wanted something here – even notoriously NIMBY local residents did not emit a peep of dissent or concern with Target’s plans during meetings. Target plans to break ground sometime in Spring/Summer 2010, with a Spring or Summer 2011 opening. Meanwhile, plans for the residential components of Phase II turned to dust, and I haven’t seen mention of the hotel anywhere lately. Hotel, what hotel?

Most recently, Hilldale has again become subject to legal wrangling as its owner, Freed, apparently ran out of money. In late 2009, Freed stopped making payments on its loan for a major project in downtown Chicago, which has since been placed into receivership. Then, in February 2010, Freed stopped making payments on Hilldale. However, Hilldale was not placed into receivership because a Circuit Judge decided that it wouldn’t be in the best interest of the $175 million redevelopment to change landlords at this late stage of the game. In addition, Freed skipped out on the obligation to pay their taxes, owing almost a million dollars to the city. Unless Freed comes up with a lot of cash soon and emerges from their problems, look for a new owner eventually. I have trepidation for new ownership though, because it could mean bad management from a remote owner. Even with the slow pace and all of Freed’s troubles, their persistent commitment to Hilldale is at least a sign that they might really care.

Hilldale’s reinvigoration represents a good infill investment in a great location which had been underutilized for years. It’s really too bad the economy is in the toilet, making the process of expansion a lot longer and more arduous than it would have been in more prosperous times. I wonder how many of the current vacancies are really due to complete lack of interest, or Freed’s inability to market the appropriately market the center due to their own financial problems. At any rate, progress has been made, albeit slowly, giving Hilldale the framework to succeed in the future. Hilldale remains true to Madison as an institution of local and national retailers, with an unusual emphasis on local, because that’s what has endeared Madisonians here for almost five decades.

Photos from August 2006:

Photos from March 2010:

Mondawmin Mall; Baltimore, Maryland

Baltimore’s busy, urban Mondawmin Mall opened in 1956 as Mondawmin Center, an open-air mall located just three miles from downtown, at the intersection of Gwynns Falls Parkway and Liberty Heights Avenue. Mondawmin Center was the very first development by Maryland mall magnate James Rouse, who would later build an empire of shopping centers, planned suburbs and festival marketplaces around the country – before his company was ultimately sold to General Growth in 2004.

Baltimore’s busy, urban Mondawmin Mall opened in 1956 as Mondawmin Center, an open-air mall located just three miles from downtown, at the intersection of Gwynns Falls Parkway and Liberty Heights Avenue. The name Mondawmin was chosen because it was the name of a Native American corn spirit from a 19th century Longfellow poem, and the mall was built on a former corn field. Mondawmin Center was the very first development by Maryland mall magnate James Rouse, who would later build an empire of shopping centers, planned suburbs and festival marketplaces around the country – before his company was ultimately sold to General Growth in 2004.

Anchored by Sears and a supermarket, it took a few years for Mondawmin Center’s 58 store spaces to be filled to capacity; however, once they were, the mall became very popular. Meanwhile, competition came calling from nearby Westview Center in 1958, which opened a few miles away in the suburb of Catonsville on US 40, and from Reisterstown Road Plaza, which opened in far northwest Baltimore City in 1962.

In 1963, Rouse enclosed Mondawmin Center, renaming it Mondawmin Mall. It was supposedly one of the first shopping centers to coin the term ‘mall’ as such, and with the enclosure came a new owner. Rouse sold the mall during the mid-1960s to a Baltimore real estate developer, which ultimately proved to be a mistake.

In 1973, Sears departed Mondawmin Mall, leaving it without a real anchor. In 1972, a brand new, larger Sears had opened at the west-suburban Security Square, a regional mall which was much larger and better located along both I-70 and I-695. At the same time, the demographics in the area immediately surrounding Mondawmin began to change for the worse, as middle class families left in droves following race riots and general social unrest in the late 1960s. Those who chose to stay in the area were mostly lower income and African-American, which continues to be the dominant demographic today.

The balance of the 1970s and early 1980s were a period of decline at Mondawmin Mall, as the owner of the mall did little to rejuvenate it. However, previous owner Rouse realized possibilities here, as Mondawmin is one of Baltimore City’s two enclosed malls, and bought the mall back in 1982. Immediately, Rouse reinvested in it and finally replaced the vacant Sears with in-line space, added a parking deck to the west end of the mall, and renovated the entire structure. The result was a hodgepodge, confusing floorplan with shopping areas on four distinct levels, though most of the mall is on two levels.

Then, in 1983, the Baltimore subway debuted, and a station next to Mondawmin Mall opened, connecting the mall to downtown and points beyond. This reinvigoration helped the mall’s success through the rest of the 1980s, though into the 1990s the mall fell into decline once again, mostly due to a perception of crime.

In 1999, Rouse had plans to renovate and expand Mondawmin Mall once again, but they were scrapped, even despite the city’s plans to change the Mondawmin subway station into a regional transit hub.

In 2004, Rouse’s company was sold to General Growth, who embarked upon a 68 million dollar renovation and expansion of the mall, beginning in 2007. The expansion included adding a Target, AJ Wright, and Shoppers Food Mart grocery store to the mall, and the renovation involved gutting the 1982-era interior. This project gave Mondawmin Mall anchor stores for the first time since Sears departed in 1973, and gave Baltimore City its first Target store as well. The reinvigorated interior also included new glass entrances, landscaping, restrooms, lighting, flooring, and other modern design accoutrements. In addition, the spiral staircase and fountain at center court – the centerpiece of the mall – were also reimagined. The natural greenery at center court was removed too, so that more kiosks could be installed. Think you can get away from the dead sea people here? Think again.

Regarding the renovation, take a look at two sets of photos I took from similar vantage points:

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

Today, Mondawmin is a reinvigorated center positioned for success. While the perception of crime will keep some away, the mall itself is safer than many realize. Despite the fact that many murders have occurred in the neighborhoods surrounding Mondawmin, the number of murders that have actually occurred on the property are rare. And, the number of random crimes that take place at Mondawmin is rarer yet. Still, many people use the crime statistics for the area in dictating their shopping habits, and choose to avoid Mondawmin completely. Possibly one of the greatest hindrances for success here has been the perception of crime, and word of mouth marketing as well as the center’s repositioning – away from the dark 1980s look and into modernity – will help Mondawmin in the long run.

I visited Mondawmin Mall twice, in 2004 and 2008. The differences before and during/after renovation are stark, so be sure to check out the pictures and leave your comments.

March 2004:

August 2008:

Finally, contributor Michael Lisicky sent us these two vintage shots of Sears at Mondawmin Mall:

Westfield Oakridge; San Jose, California

San Jose is the third largest city in California, and the largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, trumping even the region’s more famous namesake city in population. San Jose, however, is a much different kind of city than San Francisco: sprawling and modern, built mostly in the automobile age, this formerly agricultural metropolis with around 1,000,000 residents is the hub of the world’s high tech industries, with many computer manufacturers and internet companies (Apple, Google, HP, etc.) all calling the region home. The San Jose MSA–even viewed separately from San Francisco–is one of the highest-income metropolitan areas in the United States and also amongst the most expensive places to live.

Because San Jose is mostly suburban in character–with much of it built in the post-war era and cris-crossed with massive boulevards and defined by tract housing–it’s surrounded by a bigger crop of malls than much of the rest of the Bay Area. We’ve already discussed the most prominent dead one–Cupertino Square/Vallco Fashion Park–but here are some tidbits about the most significant one serving the city’s mostly middle-class southern flank.

Westfield Oakridge (formerly known as “Westfield Shoppingtown Oakridge” or, originally, just “Oakridge Mall) is a large shopping mall located on the south side of San Jose, in the Almaden/Blossom Hill area. One of three malls along the Blossom Hill Road corridor and the largest by far, the mall is one of the largest and most dominant malls serving Silicon Valley and one of the largest overall in Northern California. Westfield Oakridge was originally built in 1971 by The Hahn Company, with anchors Montgomery Ward and Macy’s. A Bullock’s store was added somewhat later. Bullock’s closed in 1983 and was replaced by Nordstrom in 1985, when Nordies acquired all of Bullocks stores in the region. Unfortunately, the store underperformed and was sold to Sears in 1994, and they continue to occupy the space today.

Westfield bought the mall in 1998 and did their standard rebranding deal wherein they make the logo look like every other Westfield mall on the planet. Bigger changes came the following year when Target replaced bankrupt Montgomery Ward to anchor the mall’s eastern end in 1999. As you can see from the photos, the exterior of this Target store is *really* cool and modern but with quite a bit of the hip old verve of the department stores of the old days. I have to give Target credit; their mall anchor stores (and even their standalone multi-level stores) have some of the best new department store architecture today.

In 2003, Westfield decided to significantly upgrade and expand Oakridge with a $150,000,000+ renovation that added a new multiplex Century Theatres and tacked an entire new parallel wing in front of the old mall. This is a fairly standard tack for Westfield (they’ve done similar at other malls in Northern California, including Westfield Valley Fair and Westfield Roseville Galleria) and it created a distinctive “racetrack” design and significantly expanded the size and dominance of the one-level mall. Borders, Old Navy, and Nordstrom Rack (originally Linens N Things) also complete the roster as junior anchors, and there’s a restaurant row outside of the mall along the side facing Blossom Hill Road.

More on Westfield Oakridge from BigMallRat.
Aerial shot of the mall area.

Eastgate Consumer Mall; Indianapolis, Indiana

What’s a consumer mall without consumers?

Indiana’s first major shopping center debuted with a bang and died so slowly and painfully that its end was little more than a whimper. Opened in 1958, Eastgate Center was the first large-scale shopping center in Indiana. It located on the growing east side of Indianapolis, in what was then unincorporated Marion County, at the corner of Shadeland Avenue and Washington Street, which was then the heavily traveled cross-country National Road, US 40. After many years, and many changes, Eastgate finally bit the dust in 2004 and closed the doors, leaving its husk ripe for redevelopment.

When Eastgate originally opened, the mall was situated very similarly to how it was in later years, on a north-south axis, with an anchor at each end. A two-level Indy-based H.P. Wasson’s was the north anchor, and a smaller JCPenney dry goods-only store as well as a Standard supermarket anchored the south end. Eastgate had a weird tilt to it, too – the south end of the mall was flush with the parking lot, but at the north end the mall was significantly higher than the parking lot grade, and many people accessed it there by either ascending a long stairway or going through Wasson’s and using the escalator. Inside the mall were G.C. Murphy and Woolworth five-and-dime stores, as well as venerable 1950s mall stalwarts Thom McAn, Kinney Shoes, Lerner Shop, a National Shirt Shop, Harry Levinson’s, and Dr. Tavel Optical – who would become the last original tenant at the mall, closing in 2006.

In 1958, another open air mall arrived in Indianapolis when Glendale Center was built on the north side. However, Glendale provided little competition to Eastgate, as Indianapolis was large enough to support two (or more) centers and Glendale was a good distance away. Both centers thrived for the good part of two decades, in spite of forcing kids to wait in line for Santa Claus out in the cold. Brrr!

Competition did come a-knockin’ in 1974 with the opening of an enclosed, super-regional center just a few minutes away from the small Eastgate Center. DeBartolo, an Ohio-based mall developer, opened Washington Square Mall just two miles east on US 40. Sensing a trend, and not wanting to be left out in the cold (rather literally…), Eastgate’s owner quickly enclosed the 370,000 square-foot mall – but it was too little too late. Penneys moved out, and when the struggling Wasson’s closed in 1980 it became clear that Eastgate was in rapid decline.

In 1981, Eastgate was sold to Melvin Simon, an Indianapolis-based retail/real estate magnate, who promised to ease the mall’s woes and put it back on the path to success. And it did just that, for a while anyway. Burlington Coat Factory was brought in to replace the Wasson’s, and a mix of local and outlet stores were brought in to replace tenants who fled to Washington Square a few years earlier. Eastgate Center was renamed Eastgate Consumer Mall, and continued on through the 1980s and into the 1990s as a discount-themed mall, which was also appropriate for the changed demographics of its immediate area. This part of Indianapolis was in decline, as more people moved out to greener pastures in the suburbs, which only further benefited centers like Washington Square and decimated places like Eastgate.

As Eastgate Consumer Mall soldiered on, even the outlet mall concept became a flop. By the early 2000s, the mall was in decline again, as the caliber of stores went from okay to laughably nasty. In April 2001, when I visited, there was a store actually called What Would D$llar Do? I wanted to answer, “Not shop in this mall?” but it seemed to be a rather moot point since no one was there anyway. However, I did get yelled at for taking pictures by a rather fiery security guard lady, who seemed to be chatting with her friends in the nearly empty food court at the time of my egregious photo-snapping crime and felt it necessary to shout at me from across the cavernous emptiness and waddle over to give me hell. Par for the course at this mall, I guess.

Simon finally gave up the ghost and unloaded the mall in 2002 to a series of commercial slumlords, one of whom was Heywood Whichard, a slimy North Carolina ‘businessman’ who is infamous for craftily buying dead or dying retail properties and sitting on them, collecting rent with no reinvestment strategy whatsoever, until the properties are in such disrepair that almost nobody wants them. At this point the local government usually has to step in and spend taxpayer money to redevelop these blighted eyesores and Whichard runs away laughing, having made a tidy profit. This strategy has made Whichard the enemy of several cities around the country, including Akron, St. Louis, Niagara Falls, and Ft. Wayne.

Whichard certainly made the death spiral worse at Eastgate, and the mall began to shake off tenants faster than ever before. Mini anchor Dunham’s Sports and The Finish Line left first. Then, Burlington Coat Factory, who had been at Eastgate since 1981, decided to call it quits in March 2004 by moving to Washington Square, seizing the opportunity of a recently-closed JCPenney there. Burlington’s departure was the death knell for Eastgate, because in early 2004, Whichard gave a harsh and sudden notice, via a letter served by his attorneys, telling the 15 or so tenants operating there that they would need to skedaddle before the end of June or he would lock them out and take their stuff.

The interior of the mall closed in June 2004, and later that year Whichard did what he does best and sold the mall at a tax sale. The empty dead mall went through several other owners, including a woman from Michigan City who wanted to turn the mall into a senior-based shopping and entertainment center, and a Texas firm who did nothing. Not surprisingly, she abandoned her plans too, and the mall sat and sat. And sat. Meanwhile, Dr. Tavel, the mall’s lone remaining tenant, who was one of the mall’s original tenants and had an exterior entrance, continued to operate until his lease expired in 2006. Said Tavel in a 2003 interview in the Indianapolis Star, “One of the keys to our constant viability in that center is the fact that we always maintained an outdoor entrance,” he said. “That back door became our front door when the mall went to hell.” Well put.

In recent years, ruminations of redevelopment have finally reared their heads, which will give Eastgate new life. In July 2008, Lifeline Data Centers, an Indianapolis-based data storage outsourcing compan, decided to put a $50 million data center in the former mall. That same year, a group of U.S. Marines also used the mall to play war games, simulating urban combat for soldier training. In addition to the Lifeline project redevelopment, portions of the now-excessively-large parking lot will be removed and turned back to nature, with a landscaped park featuring walking trails and ponds. Although Eastgate Consumer Mall failed as a retail mall, it’s interesting that in the end it won’t be totally demolished and will have a use – as office space.

I visited Eastgate Consumer Mall in April 2001, just before Haywood Whichard got a hold of it and totally ran it into the ground, and took the pictures featured here. There was even a bright yellow mustang parked inside to offset any problems the mall might’ve had. For a more complete set of pictures, be sure to check out this Flickr page of photos of the mall from user penske14 . Taken in 2006, you can see that the mall quickly and alarmingly fell into disrepair, as evidenced by its condition less than two years after closure. Also, you can check out a Facebook discussion relating to the mall, or better yet, leave some of your experiences and thoughts on or own comments page here.

College Hills Mall (The Shoppes at College Hills); Normal, Illinois

In the mall-crazy late 1970s, a developer decided that one mall wasn’t enough for little Bloomington-Normal, and made plans to build a second enclosed mall on the same strip. Located just a mile north of Eastland Mall along Veterans Parkway/Old Route 66, the College Hills Mall opened in August 1980 with anchor Carson Pirie Scott and a single-level T-shaped corridor of stores. The second anchor, Montgomery Ward, opened about a month later, also in 1980, and a third anchor, Target, opened in 1982.

Illinois’ twin cities of Bloomington and Normal (which is technically not a city, but a town. Discuss…) comprise a relatively small metropolitan area in Central Illinois, about 2 hours south of Chicago and 2.5 hours north of St. Louis, Missouri. Together, the cities have around 125,000 residents, with 50,000 in Normal and 75,000 in Bloomington. Bloomington and Normal are also immediately adjacent to one another, with no gap in between them, and thus effectively function as one city. In fact, they are almost always referred to together, as Bloomington-Normal, B-N, or even the Twin Cities. Home to State Farm Insurance and two educational institutions, Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University, which together have over 22,000 students, Bloomington-Normal has a more white collar, professional persona than many other Central Illinois cities.

Bloomington-Normal was an important stop along Route 66 during its heyday, and as the famous highway grew in popularity it became congested – especially through cities and towns where local and cross-country traffic mixed. Even before the interstate system debuted, which would largely supplant Route 66, many bypasses were constructed around the cities and towns Route 66 passed. One such bypass, known as Beltline Road (later renamed Veterans Parkway), circumnavigated around Bloomington-Normal to the east, and opened in the 1950s, a full decade before Interstates 55 and 74 were built around the cities to the west.

As Route 66 became obsolete for cross-country trips, supplanted by Interstate 55 and subsequently removed in this area by the late 1970s, it became a mostly local thoroughfare and Bloomington-Normal’s dominant retail strip. In 1967, the Eastland Mall opened along this strip at the corner of Route 66 and IL 9. Expanded through the years, Eastland Mall is the biggest and only enclosed mall in Bloomington-Normal, but this wasn’t always the case.

Only about 60 percent the size of Eastland Mall, College Hills Mall never had the same cachet of stores, but it served as a successful ancillary to it for a number of years. An anchor change occurred at College Hills Mall in 1989 when Peoria-based Bergner’s purchased Chicago-based Carson Pirie Scott. Because Bergner’s did not want to operate two adjacent stores in such a small market, the Carson’s at College Hills was closed in favor of the extant, larger Bergner’s at Eastland.

Following the departure of Carson’s at College Hills Mall, management quickly found a replacement for the space – Davenport, Iowa-based upscale department store Von Maur. For those unfamiliar with Von Maur, it is considered in the same class and quality as Nordstrom and Lord and Taylor, a step up from Carson’s/Bergner’s. A weird fit for an ancillary mall, it gave College Hills an upscale cachet that management thought might translate into greater success.

Unfortunately, though, the location of Von Maur at College Hills Mall did very little to upscale the mix of stores there. In fact, during the 1990s, the mall began a slow period of decline, and finished the decade in extremely poor shape. In the early 90s, College Hills Mall had a decent mix of stores, including MC Sports, Kay-Bee Toys, Waldenbooks, Spencers, The Buckle, Foot Locker, and Champs Sports. But the loss of a department store anchor and a change of ownership in 1997 brought an irreversible decline from which College Hills would not recover.

In 1997, Montgomery Ward exited the mall amid a round of closures and in 1999, a Hobby Lobby crafts store was brought in to replace it. Discounter Stein Mart moved into the middle of the mall, taking a few dead store spaces in 1997, but this move turned out to be an unprofitable mistake for the chain and it closed in 2000. Meanwhile, many of the aforementioned national chains closed and were not replaced due to lacadaisical remote management by the Chicago-based owner of the mall.

By the 2000s, College Hills Mall was in serious decline with many vacancies as in-line stores closed and weren’t replaced. Many of the stores relocated down the street to the larger, more successful Eastland Mall, which completed an expansion in 1999, adding a Famous-Barr anchor. By mid-2004, only 11 tenants remained at College Hills Mall, including the three anchors, Target, Von Maur, and Hobby Lobby, with Radio Shack, Payless Shoes, Bath & Body Works, GNC, Christopher & Banks, Diamond Dave’s Mexican Restaurant, and some local stores among the remaining that were left.

In 2004, ownership changed again and the College Hills Mall was purchased by Peoria-based Cullinan Properties, who had recently developed the successful Shoppes at Grand Prairie outdoor mall in Peoria in 2003. Given the sad state of College Hills, Cullinan decided to demolish the existing mall and develop another lifestyle center. The enclosed mall’s last day was June 30, 2004, when the interior corridors were sealed until demolition began a short time later. The anchors – Target, Hobby Lobby, and Von Maur – remained open and continue to operate today in their original buildings.

Almost immediately, demolition work began on College Hills Mall, in order to transform it into The Shoppes at College Hills. The extra ‘e’ in Shoppes apparently confers an ‘upscale for ladies’ vibe – there’s no doubt that your mom or girlfriend would enjoy shopping here. All of her favorite stores are present – J Jill, Chico’s, Ann Taylor Loft, Coldwater Creek, Lane Bryant, Yankee Candle, and Bath and Body Works. These, combined with Von Maur, Target, Gordman’s, Starbucks, The Childrens Place, Hobby Lobby, and a make-your-own-stir-fry chain restaurant, will keep mom and all her girlfriends busy all day. In fact, there’s even a Hampton Inn in case they get too tired after all that shopping.

I don’t mean to hate on The Shoppes at College Hills – it’s not terrible or anything, just kind of poorly executed in light of the image and vibe they are trying to sell. I mean, it’s definitely not for me, and I’ll certainly concede that it’s better than the hulking dead mall that was there before. I can’t help but wonder, though, did the enclosed mall fail due to mismanagement? It was pretty dark and dated inside, so couldn’t they have just renovated it and put all these stores in there? Clearly there was a market for a retail center here, and I wonder how many people really want to walk around in the cold, rain, snow, and excessive heat – Central Illinois is a land of extremes, after all. This isn’t the Sun Belt, and ‘perfect’ days are rare. It’s kind of a moot point, anyway, because no one is realistically going to walk around here all day either – it’s not that pedestrian friendly and really set up more like a strip mall than anything else, where you can park near the door of your favorite stores. Want to visit another store? Get in your car, drive over there, and park there, too.

My biggest problem with this place is that the type of branding they’re selling is really a bunch of smoke and mirrors. All they really did was demolish the interior of a dead mall and replace it with a few, much smaller buildings, and a sea of parking lots. There are no definitive pedestrian corridors that encourage people to use them, except the sidewalk in front of some of the stores – which is how any strip mall is set up – and there’s no cohesion bringing the center together. Target and Hobby Lobby don’t even have entrances facing the rest of the development.

And yet they are selling a brand, a lifestyle even. Whatever that means. Whose lifestyle? Doesn’t a lifestyle center really need to have some non-retail components such as entertainment options, or more than one restaurant? Some even argue that a true lifestyle concept needs housing as well.

According to the mall’s website, which also states that the Shoppes are “where outside is in style”, “The Shoppes at College Hills has a stylish fountain in the midst of our outdoor lifestyle center in a beautiful, relaxing setting. The fountain is the base for a sculpture entitled “Adventure” by Jim Davidson. The fountain and sculpture pair encourages the shopper to rest or meet friends near the soothing sound of its waterfall.” This is nice, don’t get me wrong. But they fail to note that the fountain is really located in the corner of one of the parking lot seas, and that the whole setup of this place really lacks cohesion and encourages driving between the stores, not meeting at a fountain in a far corner of the parking lot. When you go to a strip mall or big box center, do you often walk to the far edge of the parking lot to meet? I don’t. There’s absolutely no reason to.

There are definitely good ‘lifestyle’ centers that pass muster, with legitimately cohesive plans and a density that allows for well-placed pedestrian concourses that will actually be used. This just isn’t one of them. Many of them have pedestrian-only corridors, like Easton Town Center in Columbus, or if the corridors allow cars the focal point is not hindered by automobile traffic but rather a dense, urban-like streetscape, like Victoria Gardens in southern California. Lacking encouragement for people to walk around and linger, a lot of the stores miss out from foot traffic walk-by sales. On a different level, without people walking around and staying a while there is less of a community feel. Plus, it doesn’t look as nice aesthetically, either. By the way, Cullinan’s outdoor mall in Peoria is a pretty good example of what a lifestyle center should be, so that makes this even more perplexing.

I visited College Hills Mall in May 2001 and June 2004, just a couple days before the mall closed forever. Feel free to leave your own experiences on the comments page.

Photos from May 2001:

Photos from June 2004, days before the mall closed forever:

Hanes Mall; Winston-Salem, North Carolina

With the probable distinction of being the only mall in the world named after underwear, Hanes Mall is the largest mall in the Piedmont Triad and one of the largest in the state of North Carolina. Hanes Mall has five anchor stores and nearly 1.5 million square feet of retail space on two levels, and is the anchor to a large retail district on Winston-Salem’s west side.

With the probable distinction of being the only mall in the world named after underwear, Hanes Mall is the largest mall in the Piedmont Triad and one of the largest in the state of North Carolina. Hanes Mall has five anchor stores and nearly 1.5 million square feet of retail space on two levels, and is itself the anchor to a large retail district on Winston-Salem’s west side.

Hanes Mall opened in 1975 with three anchor stores (Belk, Sears, JCPenney) on two levels, and was about half the size it is today. The mall expanded to nearly double its size in 1990 with the addition of two more anchors and a food court. This expansion was partially a response to nearby Greensboro’s Four Seasons Town Center adding a third level and its own food court in 1987, and also to the announced development of the brand new Oak Hollow Mall, which eventually opened in High Point in 1995.

The 1990 expansion at Hanes Mall was unique due to spatial constraints affecting its placement. It had to be built on the other side of JCPenney, and the end result for shoppers is that the mall goes “through” the middle of JCPenney. This curious setup exists at several other malls, such as Golf Mill Mall in suburban Chicago and Northridge Mall in Salinas, California. I can never tell if the arrangement is advantageous or unwelcome by the anchors themselves. On one hand, the increased volume of foot traffic allows them to market to a captive audience, but on the other hand there are a significant number of people coming through the store who have absolutely no intention of shopping there. The loss figures are probably a bit higher, too.

The expansion also added a brand new food court, as well as anchor stores Dillard’s and Richmond-based Thalheimers. Dillard’s was actually signed as Charlotte-based Ivey’s until just prior to the store’s opening, but opened as Dillard’s due to the latter acquiring the former that year. The Thalhimers anchor became Hecht’s in 1992 when Thalheimers was purchased by the May Company, who owned Hecht’s and merged Thalhimers into Hecht’s. The Hecht’s then became Macy’s in 2006 when Macy’s acquired May Company and merged all of the May plates into Macy’s. The original three anchors have remained the same since the mall opened in 1975.

After the Hanes Mall expansion, the original mall received the designation “north mall” and the 1990 expansion became known as “south mall” – both in marketing literature and on signage. Today, Hanes Mall is a dominant fixture in the Piedmont Triad, and has held its own against competition from the nearby malls in Greensboro and High Point. In fact, its greatest competition is probably SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, 80 miles away, due to its upscale mix of stores not found in the Piedmont. SouthPark actually overtook Hanes Mall for the designation of largest mall in North Carolina when it completed its most recent expansion, adding Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, in 2006.

We visited Hanes Mall in September 2005 and took the following pictures – including a “vintage” Hecht’s still in operation. Feel free to add your own thoughts and experiences to the comments page.

Florida Mall; Orlando, Florida

If you’ve ever visited the Orlando area as a tourist, odds are you’ve been very close to Florida Mall. Located just minutes from Sea World, Disney, and Universal, Florida Mall is the largest mall in the Orlando area and one of the closest malls to all these attractions. In fact, from 1986-2002, it was the only major mall in south Orlando. Since its grand opening, the massive Florida Mall has enjoyed immense success serving not only locals, but tourists from around the country and across the globe.

Let’s step back in time a bit. Before Disney World opened, ushering in millions of tourists annually and spawning other theme parks to create the largest tourist-centric area in the entire world, Orlando was little more than a sleepy burg surrounded by acres of orange groves. Orlando began to grow rapidly as a retirement destination during the latter half of the 20th century, but it wasn’t until after Disney World debuted in 1971 that Orlando began to really blossom, growing exponentially in the decades following.

However, before Orlando became known as the tourist capital of the world, two enclosed malls debuted in the 1960s to an already-growing population of people beating those cold northern winters: Colonial Plaza, which was enclosed from a strip mall in 1962, and Winter Park Mall, which opened in1964. These malls, while significant at the time, would be classified as neighborhood or possibly regional, but not super-regional centers by using today’s schematic. This would all change in the 1970s though as true behemoth super-regional centers came to fruition.

Throughout the 1970s, as the population swelled from 450,000 in 1970 to 700,000 by 1980, Central Florida built two truly super-regional malls: Orlando Fashion Square, built two blocks away from Colonial Plaza in 1973 – and Altamonte Mall, built north of Orlando in 1974. As a response, Colonial Plaza was downgraded in importance almost immediately; and though Winter Park Mall soldiered on into the 80s, both malls withered in the 90s and were eventually torn down and redeveloped as outdoor centers.

By the mid-1980s, the population of Central Florida had shot up to almost one million residents, and developers were eager to capitalize on the lack of a dominant retail presence in south Orlando. They realized a mall in south Orlando was a long time coming, and various proposals for a mall there began as early as the late 1960s; though, little success was made until the 1980s when plans were finalized.

Finally, in 1986, Ohio-based DeBartolo Group (later merged with Simon) opened the first super-regional mall, Florida Mall, in south Orlando at the intersection of Sand Lake Road and South Orange Blossom Trail, the main surface route leading south from central Orlando. Florida Mall opened as a single level mall with retail anchors JCPenney, Sears, Robinson’s, and Belk-Lindsay. A fifth anchor, a 12-story Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, also opened with the mall and opens into it just as a retail anchor would.

Florida Mall’s original layout was also much smaller and less interesting than it is today. Sears, JCPenney, and Robinson’s flanked the western end of the mall, toward Orange Blossom Trail, the hotel anchored the south side, and Belk-Lindsay was the eastern anchor.

Throughout the years, there have been many anchor changes, renovations, and expansions at Florida Mall. Of the mall’s original anchors, only Sears and JCPenney have stayed put. The first change took place when Robinson’s closed in 1988 and was replaced by New Orleans-based Maison Blanche that same year. Then, in 1993, the first major expansion took place as a Dillard’s was added to the eastern end of the mall. In 1994, Maison Blanche closed and became Mobile-based Gayfers. In 1996, Belk-Lindsay closed and was replaced by Saks Fifth Avenue. In 1998, Gayfers – only open for four years – became Birmingham-based Parisian, and JCPenney renovated and expanded its store.

In 2000, Florida Mall embarked on a massive expansion and renovation project, transforming the mall into the behemoth it is today. A Burdines store was added that year, as well as a V-shaped loop of dual mallways connecting Burdines to the existing mall. Then, in 2002, a Nordstrom was added as the icing on the cake to the expansion, adding a shorter stub wing off the Burdines wing that was just built, with 8 more store spaces. The end result is an amazingly huge floorplan for a single mall – it’s not possible to walk the entire mall quickly, and it’s fairly easy to even get lost.

At the same time the renovation took place, Parisian – which had only been open 3 years – became a Lord and Taylor in 2001. The next change took place in 2005, when Macy’s acquired Burdines and retired that nameplate, converting all of the venerable Florida Burdines into Macy’s. The next year, in 2006, Lord and Taylor – the last remaining store in Florida – closed, and remained shuttered until it was demolished in 2007 to make way for the ever-popular outdoor/’lifestyle’ addition. As of early 2010, the outdoor expansion had only partially come to fruition, and features a large Zara store, H&M, as well as an XXI Forever. And that’s it. Some reason to make people go outside. The hotel has also changed names a few times too, going from Holiday Inn to Sheraton to Adam’s Mark to an independent hotel called the Florida Hotel, which it remains today.

Florida Mall also has other interesting accoutrements, including a two-level Starbucks in the middle of the mall, a massive food court, and a huge M&M’s store. There is also an operating CVS inside the mall, despite CVS closing most of their mall stores in the last decade. In addition, the mall technically operates a strip plaza across the parking lot, currently featuring a Target and a Marshalls, which is probably included in the mall’s 1.8 million total square feet. According to many sites, Florida Mall is one of the largest single-story malls in the country, and I believe it.

Florida Mall remains on top of its game due to its location – 2 miles from the International Drive tourist strip and 3 miles from Orlando International Airport, its selection of stores, sheer size, and its massive expansion from 2000-2002 – which proved to be an effective defensive tactic. While immune to the myriad of super-regional malls that plopped down in other parts of Orlando in the 1990s, such as in Sanford, Oveido, Ocoee, and Waterford Lakes, Florida Mall had an immediate threat coming in 2002 with the opening of The Mall at Millenia, a very large, upscale center which opened just three miles away along the busy I-4. Millennia, with its shiny nuances and upscale swing, would have almost certainly decimated Florida Mall if it weren’t for the carefully planned anchor upgrades and the massive expansion that Florida Mall completed the same year Millenia opened. Coincidence? Definitely not.

In addition to Millenia, a large enclosed center called Festival Bay Mall also opened nearby in 2002, anchoring the north end of the International Drive tourist strip at the intersection of I-4 and Florida’s Turnpike. Unfortunately, even with a great location Festival Bay never took off and is a massive failure, providing neither competition to Florida Mall nor Mall at Millenia – it appears developers oversaturated the market that year.

We visited Florida Mall in February 2010 and took the pictures featured here. As usual, leave your own thoughts and experiences with the mall on the comments page – we really appreciate it.

University Mall; Orem, Utah

The single level University Mall, which opened 1973, was the first mall in the Provo area. The mall is actually located in Orem, a planned suburban city immediately north of Provo. Orem, much like Provo and the rest of the Wasatch Front, has grown from a population of 18,000 in 1960 to a population of nearly 100,000 today.

Provo, Utah is a city of almost 120,000 people located 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah’s largest city and the state capital. Provo is also located near the southern end of an urban corridor known as the Wasatch Front, a heavily populated valley which, due to geography, stretches nearly 120 miles from north to south and only 20 miles east to west. With over 2 million residents, the Wasatch Front contains over 80 percent of Utah’s entire population. Provo is also known for being the home of Brigham Young University, one of the nation’s largest private colleges, and for technology. And, due to the proximity to nearby mountains, amazing views can be had from nearly everywhere in the valley.

Provo, along with the entire Wasatch Front, has been growing in recent decades, tripling in population since 1950 and filling in the entire narrow valley with suburban growth. The southern Wasatch corridor, consisting of Provo and its Utah Valley environs, is currently home to two malls, which opened in 1973 and 1998, respectively.

When University Mall opened, it was anchored by Utah-based ZCMI – one of the only major retailers owned by a religious organization, the Mormon Church – and JCPenney. The mall’s opening was a sore point for officials in Provo, who wanted the mall to be located there – in the middle of downtown, but ultimately the developer was won over by the sprawling space offered up by Orem and the proximity to all the college students at BYU, the mall’s namesake.

One of the first major changes at University Mall was the addition of north anchor Mervyn’s, a California-originated department store operated by Dayton-Hudson of Minneapolis, in July 1981.

In the late 1990s, a war erupted between the University Mall and a developer wanting to build a new mall in south Provo. The new mall’s developer convinced JCPenney to abandon its post at University Mall with a promise of part ownership in the new mall. JCPenney took the deal and ran, closing their University Mall store in late 1997. A lawsuit and local war ensued, even as the new two level mall – Provo Towne Center – opened in 1998, with its sparkling new JCPenney.

Following JCPenney’s departure, Local officials and the media were concerned that University Mall would become a dead mall; however, University Mall saved face when Nordstrom stepped in and offered to replace the shuttered JCPenney. The new Nordstrom store opened in 2002, and helped save University Mall from being lower-tier. In addition, University Mall embarked on a multi-million dollar renovation and expansion, which debuted in 1998. The expansion gave University Mall a new junior anchor, Sports Authority, and a new food court.

In other anchor changes, the ZCMI store changed to Portland-based Meier and Frank in 2001, after the Mormons sold ZCMI to May Company in 1999 following a period of unprofitability. May retained the ZCMI name until 2001, when all of the ZCMI stores were either converted to May’s Portland-based Meier and Frank nameplate or sold. The store at University Mall operated as Meier and Frank until shortly after parent company May was sold to Macy’s in Febrary 2005. Macy’s converted all of the May nameplates, including this store, to their Macy’s brand in Fall 2006.

Most recently, Mervyn’s closed at the end of 2008 when that chain went under, and an outdoor ‘lifestyle’ expansion recently debuted. The Village at University Mall opened outside the mall, east of Sports Authority, in 2008. Consisting of over 100,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space for 25 stores, the Village is anchored by a Cinemark theatre and allows patrons to shop outside and enjoy the beautiful mountain views and fresh air. I have to wonder, though, how well the expansion was planned, because it doesn’t seem to really fit or flow cohesively with the extant enclosed mall. I really think that if you’re going to play with fads like outdoor ‘lifestyle’ add-ons, develop a design to funnel foot traffic between the indoor and outdoor portions of the mall and form a spatial business model to support and emphasize its use. This specific development encourages driving between the mall and its own lifestyle addition, and that’s kind of silly. End rant.

Today, University Mall competes head to head with Provo Towne Center, and even leans a bit more trendy and upscale than the latter with the presence of Nordstrom and other popular retailers. Also, University Mall is slightly larger than Provo Towne Center, and slightly better positioned in the center of the Utah Valley adjacent to BYU and its thousands of consumer-students. In contrast, Provo Towne Center’s major advantage is its direct access to Interstate 15, the major north-south corridor of the Wasatch Front.

The T-shaped University Mall is designed with what I’d call a ‘modern national park lodge flair’, similar to that of Park Meadows Mall in Denver (only much less dramatic), with exposed fieldstone, woodsy colors and dark brass fixtures. I’m not sure if this happened in the 1998 remodel or a more recent one. I visited the mall in July 2009 and took the pictures featured here. The impressive mountains looming overhead and crisp blue skies that day almost made me wish the mall was an outdoor center – almost. Feel free to leave your own comments and stories about University Mall.