Our third Denver-area post comes to us from reader Jacob Doherty.  The following commentary, as well as the photos here, are his.  Thanks for the contribution, Jacob, and the multitude of pictures!  Maybe some of our commenters can help us label some of the “unknown” dead stores? (mouseover for the photo tags)

Westminster is a large suburb immediately northwest of Denver.  Like many of the suburbs in the Denver metro area, the city is relatively new, and has no old town or downtown area to speak of.  In these suburbs, like many similar suburbs around the nation, the mall was the town center.  Unfortunately, because of how densely packed the Denver Metro area is, each mall that went up in each suburb leeched the shoppers from the mall in the adjacent suburbs.  This, combined with the falling fortunes of certain suburbs, as well as a series of recessions, has killed a majority of the Denver Metro area’s malls.  There are now at least eleven “lost malls” in the Denver Metro area that have either razed or demolished and transformed into lifestyle centers, according to the Mall Hall of Fame, from the gargantuan Cinderella City, to the high concept Villa Italia, to the family-friendly Buckingham Square.  If nothing changes, it looks as if the Westminster Mall may become the twelfth.

Westminster Mall is special for me because it was the mall my family went to when I was young, from when I was born until I was about six when we moved.  Westminster Mall, combined with Buckingham Square in Aurora, my grandparents’ local mall, was my first concept of what a mall is.  I remember quite clearly walking around the mall with my folks, and marveling at the quartet of hot air balloons that ascended and descended in the main court of the mall.  These were the glory days of the mall, the early and mid-eighties, and Westminster Mall was a powerhouse, providing jobs and revenue for the burgeoning city of Westminster.

I am unsure of the complete history, but what follows is compiled from several sources, including the Mall Hall of Fame, Deadmalls.com, and several news articles from local papers.  Westminster Mall was built in 1977.  At that time, its only anchor was a two-level Joslin’s department store, and the mall featured only thirty other shops.  However, it quickly became one of the most popular malls in the Denver Metro Area.  In 1986, the mall expanded, gaining three more anchors: May D&F, Mervyn’s, and Broadway-Southwest.  It added JC Penny in 1987. During this time Sears moved its Northglenn Mall store into the now abandoned Broadway-Southwest Building at Westminster Mall.  At this point, the mall plan was like a cross with one crooked arm in the north.  JC Penny anchored the smallest arm, May D& F and Joslin’s anchored two other prominent arms, and Sears and Mervyn’s anchored the extra long crooked arm, with the arm kinking at Sears and then trailing down to Mervyn’s at the end. During this time, the mall’s symbol was a series of hot-air balloons floating amongst the clouds: a reference to its center court feature which was a water fountain flanked by four real hot air balloons that rose and fell on air vents.  In the mid-eighties, the city of Westminster was on the up, and the mall’s location, on Sheridan, and just off US-36, the main pipeline to Boulder and the northern suburbs, made the mall a huge success.

Perhaps too much of a success.  The enormity of the mall started bringing in shoppers from all over the north suburbs, including as far away as Boulder.  These shoppers stopped going to their local malls, and instead came to the new Westminster.  The Westminster Mall contributed to the downfall of at least three other malls and the crippling of a third.  Crossroads Mall in Boulder (now the lifestyle center Twenty-Ninth Street), North Valley Mall in Adams County (now filled with offices), and Northglenn Mall in Northglenn (now the open-air strip mall called the Marketplace at Northglenn) all could list Westminster Mall as a contributing factor to their deaths, either by stealing customers or stores.  The Thornton Town Center was hit badly by Westminster Mall, but has recovered and transformed into a more open-air mall.

Having killed off its competitors, Westminster Mall reigned supreme in Northern Denver through the 1990’s.  In 1993 May D&F became Foley’s and in 1997 Montgomery Ward opened one of the last Ward’s in the nation in the mall between Sears and Mervyn’s.  This made for a huge number of anchors: six, and all of them giant.  There were hundreds of smaller stores and even a small food court near Mervyn’s.  Restaurants flocked in as outparcels, such as Traildust Steakhouse, the Olive Garden, and Steak & Ale.  Finally, a six-plex theater opened inside the mall near Foley’s, and this same theater had an outparcel eleven-plex building with even more space, and both were known for having the latest in digital sound.  A US Bank opened as an outparcel during this period as well.

However, during the late 1990’s competition reared its head as the planned upscale combination mega-mall and lifestyle center, Flatiron Crossing, was being built a scant fifteen miles northwest in Broomfield along US-36.  This spooked Westminster management enough to arrange for a $10 million renovation and overhaul, with $7 million contributed by the City of Westminster itself, about the same time Flatirons opened up in all of its glory in 2000.  Gone was the old balloon logo, and in was a new, hip “WM” logo, as well as a litany of color changes in the decor.  The balloons themselves persisted however, and the old logo can still be found on the mall directories.

Even with the competition, Westminster was holding its own, especially with its new $10 million facelift.  However, as anyone familiar with retail will attest, this was when things started to go south.  Montgomery Ward’s went under in 2001, taking its anchor with it.  No one wanted the space, as every major department store already had a space at Westminster, so Westminster covered the entrance. They left the building vacant and intact, and used its secondary entrance as an overflow entrance during the holidays.  Sears took over the Ward’s Auto Center.  Joslin’s was taken over at this time and became Dillard’s. 

When Mervyn’s closed in 2005, this was the beginning of the end.  The north wing, the crooked arm of the cross, lost Mervyn’s at its end.  Now having lost Ward’s and Mervyn’s the farthest part of the north wing was all but dead, its food court languishing in a sea of closed, darkened shops.  Though Sears stayed, shops closed all along the north wing, leaving Sears virtually alone.  This is where I can step in again and recount from firsthand experience.

When I moved back to the Denver Metro Area as an adult in 2006, the Westminster mall was coincidentally the closest mall to me.  I was eager to go and check out the mall of my early youth.  I was dismayed and saddened by what I found.

By 2006, Foley’s had become Macy’s, but Macy’s looked at the Westminster location, surrounded by closed shops, and the Flatirons location, new and vibrant, and decided that the Westminster location would be closed as they made their recession cuts in 2008.  Macy’s closed in 2009, and its wing died with it, including the 6 and 11-plex theaters.  Traildust Steakhouse closed its outparcel, leaving so quickly it forgot to take its signage and décor.  Steak & Ale went under as its parent company died.

The mall is now a ghost town. Utilized mostly by rowdy teenagers and elderly mallwalkers (everyone who wants to actually shop goes up to Flatirons), it seems that every time I go, at least two to five stores have closed since the last time I went.  Most stores have been closed and stripped of their branding, but a few are still recognizable.  In quite a few, mall management has set up cutsey little displays or art which make little sense, and contribute to the dead nature of the place. 

It’s sad.  This was my mall, and now it’s in its death throes, and there is little I can do about it.  Still, the mall hosts small conventions and events, but these attempts to bring people in seem pathetic, especially because no one shows up.  My fiancée and I call it the “zombie mall,” as it is both lurching on past its death, and eerily quiet and dark, like the shopping malls in each iteration of “Day of the Dead.”

This feeling of helplessness is compounded by the fact that no one knows what will happen to the mall.  Oddly, everything surrounding the mall is thriving, and most are strip malls and small shopping centers that sprouted up to capitalize on the success of Westminster Mall.  But now the mall seems to detract from the environment rather than add to it.  Rumors abounded that the mall was to be reworked and razed to create a lifestyle center to capitalize upon the upcoming light rail Fasttracks train system that was to be built along US-36 as it was along I-25 and the existing RTD (bus) park and ride.  Mall management even went to court to keep Burlington Coat Factory out of the Mervyn’s location so they would have no one standing in the way of demolishing the mall.  However, with the souring economy, it looks as though the light rail will not be built along US-36 for a long while, and all the financing that could overhaul the site has dried up.  Westminster management seems to be mum about what is happening and their website acts as though nothing is wrong (showing no photographs, of course).  In fact, rumors are that management is paranoid about photographs of the premises being published, and forbids staff from photographing their places of work.  Security will stop patrons if they are noticed taking pictures and demand they delete them.

The most recent news, reported by the Denver Post on April 30, 2009, is that the City of Westminster had Westminster Mall declared blighted, after it was inspected and found to be wanting in a variety of different safety areas.  Why this was necessary, beyond allowing for taxes to help refurbish the mall, I’m not sure, but local bloggers think it may be to push the management into taking some steps towards doing something with the mall, as the move will let the City of Westminster threaten to take over the property from mall management or store owners through eminent domain.   Otherwise, it seems the mall will become more and more dead as we keep hearing about the planned “remodel” that never seems to come.

I do sincerely hope something can be done, though I would prefer that the option of a lifestyle center be taken off the table.  Most of the lost malls of Denver are now lifestyle centers, and though they can be fun, this is Colorado.  It gets cold and windy, and open air shopping is not enjoyable for everyone when it is bitterly cold and precipitating.  Wasn’t protection from the elements the whole point of the shopping mall in the first place?  However, I would prefer anything over the nearly vacant building that stands there now.

So here are the photographs, a record of a mall that will soon be no more, and a record of my earliest shopping memories.  I’m glad I took the time to preserve the mall photographically, even if the pictures are not stellar.  Thanks for the inspiration.

As usual, feel free to leave your comments on Westminster Mall and retail in the Denver area in general, and thanks again Jacob!

The Mall of New Hampshire is a 930,000 square foot enclosed shopping mall in Manchester, New Hampshire, the state’s largest city (pop. 108,580) and the largest single municipality in Northern New England. The center is also the third largest in the state, and is one of several serving the state’s populous “Golden Triangle,” a mostly suburban and urban area in the southern part of New Hampshire that grew significantly in population over the last several decades as people from Eastern Massachusetts sought affordable housing in an area that was commutable to Boston-area jobs.

Manchester itself serves as the media and transportation hub for most of the state, although it is–like many New England cities–an aging industrial revolution era mill town, packed with triple deckers and brick 19th century factories. Like many New Hampshire cities, it also boasts a significant retail trade due to the state’s lack of a sales tax, so many people from Massachusetts and Maine cross the border to shop in the state’s malls. The Mall of New Hampshire also benefits from its surrounding environment; it’s the lynchpin of the busy South Willow Street shopping corridor, which is one of the largest commercial strips in the region. Since Mall of New Hampshire is further from the border than some of its competition, it’s somewhat smaller despite serving a larger city.

The Mall of New Hampshire first opened in 1977 as a smaller mall in a “T” configuration, and sported Sears, Filene’s, and Lechmere (I think?) as anchor stores, plus room for around 70 stores in-line. The mall wasn’t changed significantly until 1996, when the center underwent a significant renovation and expansion. The Sears store was expanded, and the existing (smaller) Filene’s was reconfigured to make room for a large expansion that turned the “T” shape mall into a loop. Filene’s constructed a larger, newer store in the new wing, and some of their old space was expanded and converted to a new JCPenney store. Lechmere closed their store at the mall in 1997 when the entire Montgomery Ward-owned chain shuttered; it was replaced in 1999 by a Best Buy and a Kitchen Etc., a locally-based kitchen supply store which itself went out of business several years later and was replaced by AC Moore. The Filene’s store became a Macy’s in the 2006 May/Federated merger; prior to this Macy’s had no presence at the mall, though they do have a large freestanding store several miles away adjacent to the Bedford Mall, the only other enclosed shopping mall in the area (though not for long…).

On the whole, the Mall of New Hampshire is a fairly standard middle-tier mall; lots of standard suburban fare but not too many higher-end or destinational stores. It’s a pretty successful place and well-located in an area without any major competition, but also doesn’t seem to have many interesting historical facts either. Have some stories about the Mall of NH? Offer them up in the comments.

Macy's/Food Court area at Downtown Plaza's West End

Sacramento is the state capital of California, and the core of its largest inland metropolitan area. With over 400,000 people in the city proper and almost two and a half million in the immediate area, Sacramento is the fourth largest fully independent metropolitan area in California and is the most important city in the state’s fertile Central Valley.

Sacramento’s Westfield Downtown Plaza is a classic example of a downtown shopping center built to drive an urban renewal effort. Opened in 1971 as a hybrid indoor-outdoor shopping mall along the K Street corridor of downtown Sacramento, the mall was meant to bring a significant amount of retail space to the center of the city. The center is two levels and has two traditional anchor stores as well as a movie theatre, and the main mall concourse (which is outdoor) aligns exactly with K Street at either end. There is also a small, two-level, mostly “enclosed” but very dank and dated portion on the mall’s south side. On the western side, the mall adjoins a pedestrian passage that goes under busy I-5 and connects to Old Town Sacramento, a popular tourist destination. At the eastern end, the mall spills onto the K Street Pedestrian Mall, where there is access to the city’s light rail system.

Downtown Plaza was originally developed as a one-level mall by the Hahn Company in 1971, and adjoined an existing Macy’s store that had opened in 1963. By the end of the 1970s, the mall was so successful that Weinstock’s moved their existing downtown store to the center, and Liberty House joined the roster as the third anchor. Liberty House was replaced in 1984 by I. Magnin, who similarly was short-lived at the center, closing in 1992. The loss of I. Magnin prompted a dramatic re-envisioning of the center, which added a second level and refreshed the look of the entire center of the mall (and, although I’m not entirely sure, likely added the food court as well). The Hard Rock Cafe also opened their lone Sacramento area location at the same time, and it became a major draw to the downtown area. After the renovation, the center boasted 1.1 million square feet of floor space. Weinstock’s closed in 1996, and their location became a second Macy’s store for Men’s and Home. Like most malls with the “Westfield” branding, this was more recent; the mall was purchased by Westfield in 1998.

Macy's at Downtown Plaza

In recent years, however, Downtown Plaza began to struggle. Although it is located at the center of downtown and thus is well-positioned for daytime office-worker traffic (including the many California state employees, who work within a close radius) and is just steps from Old Sacramento, and thus nets lots of suburban tourists, it’s falling prey to the competition from newer, larger suburban malls, especially Arden Fair and Roseville Galleria. In addition to this standard suburban competition, Westfield Downtown Plaza seems to face its own set of challenges. The mall thoroughly turns its back on its two parallel streets–J Street and L Street–which are major thoroughfares through downtown. As a result, these large avenues often feel barren and abandoned even as the mall’s heart is bustling. The flaw with this is that Downtown Plaza was so thoroughly walled-off from its surroundings that they weren’t able to benefit from spillover development much during the center’s truly successful days, and in turn downtown didn’t fully bloom into a successful retail district. The portion of the K Street Mall east of Downtown Plaza feels mostly windswept and abandoned, and can feel threatening even on sunny weekend afternoons. And apart from the mall and Old Sacramento’s waterfront, most of the activity in the center of Sacramento is in the large, bustling Midtown neighborhood, located about ten blocks east of the mall itself. Midtown is home to hundreds of restaurants, shops, and a thriving arts scene, including the city’s popular Second Saturday Art Walk event. But all of this activity is separated from the mall by a large convention center and blocks of office buildings and vacant storefronts that most pedestrians wouldn’t bother to cross.

One other strike against Downtown Plaza? Sacramento was one of the most adversely affected areas in the housing crisis of 2007-2009. Real estate prices in the area shot up precipitously during the 2000s due to the area’s relative proximity to the Bay Area and reasonably healthy economy, but the collapse of these prices was equally steep. By fall 2008, the Sacramento metropolitan area had the tenth worst foreclosure rate in the United States, and by some estimates one of Sacramento’s nearby cities–Stockton, 45 miles to the south–had the worst foreclosure rate in the nation. While California’s capital city still has a vibrant urban life and a fairly robust economy, it’s bad news for any shopping mall when so many area residents are in distress.

In 2006, Westfield announced an ambitious plan to refresh the mall. The vacant Copeland Sports anchor store on the second floor of the mall’s eastern end (above Hard Rock Cafe) would be the home of a relocated food court, which would improve the mall’s streetscape in relation to the windswept K Street Mall. The existing movie theatres would be expanded in size, and the mall would add a grocery store and a brand new anchor Target store. In addition, the main mall concourse–which is rather cut up, for an outdoor mall–would be opened up, and much of the now-dated 1990s decor would be replaced with a more modern, urban feel. This plan seemed to at least partially address Downtown Plaza’s two main problems: its poor relation to the streetscape and lack of “essentials” type stores to appeal to the burgeoning downtown population. Target and the grocery store could help draw in the many young professionals and families who had recently set up shop downtown, and the mall could reclaim its place as a retail hub in a city center that has a fair amount of activity but not much other major retail. You can read a thread about the original proposal at the SkyScraperPage forums.

Original 2006 redevelopment proposal for Westfield Downtown Plaza

Unfortunately, Westfield dragged their feet until the state of the economy made it a bad time for redevelopment. The first major blow was when Target backed out of the project in 2008, removing a significant impedus for the project. Although I can’t say for sure, it appears Westfield had begun not renewing leases, but also is understandably skiddish about proceeding with such a project, at this time, in such an economically precarious region. As a result, the mall–especially its second level–has emptied out dramatically in the past year. These photos were taken in April 2008, but there has been a significant increase in the vacancy rate since then, and many in the city have been criticizing Westfield’s lack of investment in the property even as they sink millions into expanding their 9-year-old mall in Roseville.

At the moment, it remains to be seen what will happen to Downtown Plaza, even as the rest of Sacramento’s city center sees continued revitalization.

Forest Park, Illinois is an inner-ring suburb of Chicago, located about 10 miles directly west of downtown.  Most of the built environment in Forest Park is a result of the post-World War II building boom, and most of the housing stock is between 40-60 years old.  Forest Park is hemmed in by other inner-ring suburbs of similar age.  Oak Park, Maywood, River Forest, and Riverside are all neighbors of Forest Park, and other large suburbs like Berwyn and Cicero are nearby.  Because of this, Forest Park is done expanding – at least outwardly.  

The demographics in these post-war inner-ring western suburbs vary wildly.  Oak Park is known for its tony neighborhoods of stately mansions and its upmarket downtown; Maywood is almost 90 percent African-American; Berwyn and Cicero have transitioned from Italian to Mexican; Riverside is a quiet, suburban, mostly white enclave of upper middle class homes situated along curvy, tree lined streets.  Forest Park is more of a melting pot in terms of demographics, and more diverse than many of the other suburbs; in addition, it has a centralized location along the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290), giving it direct access to downtown Chicago as well as points west.

The retail scene in Forest Park itself, however, is kind of lacking.  Downtown Oak Park has a myriad of options, including mall store chains like The Gap, but the nearest mall and a large concentration of box store options is located just a few blocks south of the city along Cermak Road and Harlem Avenue in the village of North Riverside.  This corridor also contains a large, regional two-level mall, North Riverside Park Mall, which opened in 1976 and features Carson Pirie Scott, JCPenney, and Sears.  It wasn’t until the early 1980s that a situation emerged giving Forest Park a chance to build a significant retail venture, the Forest Park Mall. 

Forest Park Mall was a 400,000 square-foot enclosed mall located along Roosevelt Road just west of Harlem Avenue, and about a quarter of a mile south of I-290.  Helmed by the same developer who created Ford City Mall on Chicago’s southwest side, Forest Park Mall – just like Ford City - was also a redevelopment project that converted an old factory into a shopping center - albeit on a smaller scale. 

The site that would become the mall originally operated as a Naval torpedo plant during World War II.  After the war, the site was used as a Naval training academy, and subsequently utilized by the U.S. Postal Service for a time after that.  Then, in the late 1970s, the then-abandoned building was purchased by the city of Forest Park. 

Not knowing what to do with the abandoned eyesore, which had been off the city’s tax rolls due to the fact that it was owned by the federal government for decades, several options emerged for the site, including retail and manufacturing operations.  It was quickly determined the best use for the site would be retail, as there was little interest from companies wishing to relocate here, and the revenue generated from retail would put more money into the city’s coffers; Forest Park’s tax base was already extremely restricted because there weren’t many businesses in the city, and much of the city’s land is cemeteries.  Win, win. 

The city, who owned the site, then teamed up with the same developer who converted the Ford factory on Chicago’s southwest side into a successful regional mall in 1965.  Because of the space constraints of the building and the 1976 opening of North Riverside Park Mall, a large, regional mall just one mile to the south, it was determined that the retail development in Forest Park would be smaller, at least to begin with.

Forest Park Mall opened in 1983, anchored by a Venture discount store on the west end and a Courtesy Home Center home improvement store on the east end, complemented by an enclosed hallway of stores connecting the anchors, containing room for 70 stores.  Some early stores in the mall were Deb Shops, Perry’s Drugs, Tom Olesker’s Menswear, and Gift Horse.  In addition, a giant Child World children’s store/castle was built on the northwest corner of the mall’s lot.  The decor of the mall featured period-typical beige walls with wood paneling and multiple skylights throughout the interior walkway, providing ample natural light.  A small lower level also existed, but was mostly used for offices and restrooms rather than retail use. 

Forest Park Mall received its only expansion when a small food court was built near the Venture end of the mall, with its own dedicated entrance to the south of the mall.  The food court, much like the rest of the mall, was never fully tenanted. 

However, the mall never filled to capacity, so management brought in temporary stores and filled in smaller store spaces with larger stores.  Holidays brought Spencer’s Gifts and temporary store FIM, which sold Christmas merchandise during the winter, and TJMaxx was also brought on board.  Old Country Buffet also opened near the mall entrance closest to Venture in a former shoe store.

Unfortunately, throughout the 1990s Forest Park Mall encountered many setbacks.  First, Venture decided to remodel their store, and in doing so, shut their entrance to the mall.  Whoops.  Courtesy Home Center closed their eastern anchor store a couple years later, and left with only TJMaxx as an anchor the stores began to leave in droves.  TJMaxx eventually closed also, leaving the mall somewhat anchorless, and the Forest Park library took up temporary residence in the mall’s lower level while a new facility was being built.  Meanwhile, the large Child World castle closed in the early part of the decade and was demolished for a Portillo’s Hotdogs location.

In 1998, anchor Venture went under as the whole chain went out of business, leaving another ominous hole in Forest Park Mall’s roster.  It was, however, miraculously filled rather swiftly with a K-Mart store which still operates as of 2009.

About the same time Venture discount store left Forest Park Mall, a new and unique venture moved into the former Courtesy Home Center on the other end of the mall – a church.  The Living Word Christian Center, Pastored by Bill Winston, opened up shop in the former home improvement anchor in 1998, and has since expanded throughout the entire mall.  Living Word now owns the entire mall and its outlots, including Portillos, and has expanded its church services into the mall.  According to Pastor Winston, the vision for the mall is a “one stop shop for the spirit, soul, and body.”  There’s also a business school in the mall, and a handful of other stores and services, including a clothier aimed at young black men.  At one point, a bank was even planned for the site. 

Today, a myriad of retail exists along with the church, including a large grocery store named Ultra Foods which has set up shop inside the former Courtesy Home anchor.

The transformation of this property, from Naval weapons facility to retail mall back to tax-exempt status as a church is quite the wild ride, and we’re glad to be able to properly document the journey.  The pictures featured here were taken in June 2000, and a more recent set exists here.  As always, feel free to leave some comments concerning the mall and its unique history.

I saw very big, very ambitious projects designed with an eye to ROI more than consumer need/enjoyment, including one from a Japanese architecture firm proposing four and a half acres consisting of ballpark, retail and dining along with an array of “extreme” attractions (exactly what was “extreme” about them was left to the imagination). A Turkish mall project mixed a stadium, tri-level sports lifestyle center, Olympic swimming pool and 25,000 square meters of retail. I was excited by an entry that seemed to propose a new purpose for abandoned big-box retail until I discovered the idea was merely to transform the store into a massive digital billboard — a mediocre solution for say, an abandoned store in Union Square, and a totally inappropriate one for an exurban mall.

Fitzgerald Associates Architects' Wilson Yard

The article does highlight some large format retail design concepts that the author thought were meritous, including Fitzgerald Associates’ Wilson Yard (pictured above), Retail to the People, and CommArts “Crossroads City.” While some of these ideas do relate to things we’ve seen awhile–large format retail turning back into town centers and away from spaces that are purely self-contained shopping palaces–others do touch on some interesting concepts that I think strike at the heart of why large-scale retail developments are increasingly challenged:

Malls will not only generate sales, they will “grow food, create crafts, manufacture products, generate energy, and provide education.” As an antidote to time spent online, argue the CommArts folks, the mall becomes a social center, a “spectacle of hands-on demos, lectures, performances, classes, tastings, parties, and shows.” Further, the national sameness we now experience (Gap? Check. Victoria’s Secret? Check.) will morph into something more one-off, more local, more cause-oriented.

Some of this reads a bit too much like a utopian ideal of where malls will go, but I think there’s a core truth here: if you can get all the crap you actually need online, why show up at a mall? For community, connectedness, to see your neighbors and experience your community. In some suburban areas, malls and shopping centers are the best places to do this and it’s something we’ve been losing with the rise of big box centers. If we can find ways to cycle in more uses like these that draw people in and excite them, then there may be a future for large format retail development after all.

If you can’t tell, this is the stuff that gets me really juiced up. I love malls primarily because I grew up with these types of feeling about them, and the thought of them dying makes me sad. I hope we’re able to update their function effectively enough to make them better than they ever were.

Located 10 miles southwest of downtown Dallas, at the interchange between US 67 and Interstate 20, Southwest Center Mall is both an anachronism and an eyesore.  But what an amazing eyesore it is.  One needs only to take a look at the photos to understand what a unique specimen this is, in terms of design, decor, and blatant inadequacy.  But let’s dig a little deeper and try to figure out what happened.

It wasn’t always this way.  Opened over 30 years ago in 1975, Southwest Center Mall opened to the masses with a different set of principles, and a different name – Red Bird Mall.  The DeBartolo Group developed this two level mall with a simple layout, and Red Bird Mall was anchored by four stores -  one on each end of the mall and two flanking center court.  Sears anchored the east end of the mall, JCPenney the west, with Dallas based stores flanking the mall’s center court – Sanger-Harris on the north, and Titche’s on the south.  Red Bird Mall enjoyed instant success as south Dallas’ only enclosed mall, inspired by a proud neighborhood and a good location.   

Several anchor changes took place at Red Bird Mall throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  In 1979, Titche’s became San Antonio-based Joske’s, and in 1987 two changes took place – Joske’s became Dillard’s, and Sanger-Harris became Houston-based Foley’s.  Also, at some point a large Montgomery Ward was constructed at the southeast corner of the mall next to Sears. 

As early as the mid-1980s, demographics began to change dramatically in the area surrounding Red Bird Mall, and at the same time a perception of crime began to brand the area – numerous car break-ins, vandalism, and robberies caused even loyal shoppers to begin taking their business elsewhere.  And, in 1988, this became a lot easier, as a massive super-regional mall opened just 15 minutes from Red Bird Mall in Arlington.  Called The Parks at Arlington, this new mega-mall would ciphon customers from Red Bird’s south Dallas consumer base more than any other, as most of its other competition is way up in north Dallas.

During the 1990s, Red Bird Mall continued its downward spiral.  A man named John Wiley Price, a flamboyant Dallas politician, decided to make the mall and its woes part of his political platform, and staged protests outside the mall demanding retailers change their stock to reflect the black community, making statements it was ‘their’ mall.  All the while, the mall got continuously worse, and DeBartolo, owners of the mall since it opened in 1975, unloaded it to NAAMCO Financial of California in 1997.  At the time of the sale, the 1.12-million square-foot mall was only 65 percent leased.    

In an attempt to disassociate the mall from its troubled environs and checkered recent past, NAAMCO gave the mall a small refurbishment and a new name – Southwest Center Mall – in 1997.  A new food court, begun under the reign of DeBartolo, was finished and occupied in 1998 at the mall’s northwest entrance.  With a price tag of $18 million, the food court took up the lion’s share of updates to the mall upon its change of hands and change of name.  In addition, though, Dillard’s increased their store size from 100,000 to 150,000 square feet, and Sears renovated their entire store in 1998. 

The new millenium brought more of the same problems for the newly named mall.  In 2001, Montgomery Ward closed as that chain folded, but it was swiftly replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory which moved from a nearby box center.  Also in 2001, JCPenney closed their store in Southwest Center Mall, which remains vacant today.  In 2006 Foley’s became Macy’s, and Dillard’s left the mall in 2007 for a new development 10 miles further out – its store is also still vacant.   

Also gaining speed in the early 2000s was a movement to bring more retail to Cedar Hill, a suburb of Dallas approximately 10 miles southwest of Southwest Center Mall along US 67.  Cedar Hill, combined with surrounding communities such as DeSoto, Duncanville, and Lancaster – known locally as the Best Southwest  – represent a portion of south Dallas with higher incomes and demographics expanding national chain stores like to see.  In addition to a glot of big box centers and other retail which seemingly sprang up overnight, Cedar Hill is the home to the DFW Metroplex’s newest lifestyle center – Uptown Village at Cedar Hill – which opened in March 2008.  This new urbanist-style shopping center is anchored by Dillard’s (the one that moved from Southwest Center), Dick’s Sporting Goods, Barnes and Noble, and features 725,000 square-feet of retail space – featuring stores found in better malls like Hollister, Chico’s, and Aveda.   It’s an outdoor mall and features nicely landscaped courtyards between the modern-looking buildings contaning stores, and has a decidedly upscale feel not found in other centers in south Dallas.  From the perspective of Southwest Center Mall, Uptown Village is not only a slap in the face, but a few more nails – possibly more than enough –  in the coffin.

Perhaps another factor in Southwest Center Mall’s troubles is the lack of commitment from ownership.  In the past eight years, the mall has had four owners, and its value on the tax rolls has decreased from $22 million in 2000 to just $6.25 million in 2008.   In 2008, Southwest Center’s then-owner Thomas E. Morris – owner of other faily malls like Six Flags Mall in Arlington – declared bankruptcy, and in January 2009 the mall almost closed because the electricity was going to be shut off due to nonpayment.  Whoops.  An eleventh-hour save by a new owner – Madison Capital – who paid the bills, collected outstanding rent from some of the tenants, and even hired a professional security company.  It’s no wonder the mall’s been in peril with such terrible past management problems, but Madison Capital is looking to sell the mall again to a more responsible owner.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

In June 2009, nine economic development experts from the Urban Land Institute, with briefing books in hand from the Dallas Economic Development Office, will descend on Southwest Center for an intense week of study.  Hired by the city of Dallas, the Urban Land Institute – a non-profit education and research organization focusing on land use and urban planning – is being paid $150,000 to study the mall, inteview patrons and tenants, and tour the environs in order to offer suggestions on how to make it better.  In addition, Dillards – which relocated to Cedar Hill in 2007 – is currently marketing its dark anchor store to interested suitors. 

Despite all of these problem, however, there remains a niche of stores which are making it at Southwest Center Mall.  Most of these stores cater exclusively to an African-American clientele, and feature clothing and knicknack shops which reportedly attract shoppers from a multi-state region.  According to the article, these tenants also realize the mall’s in poor shape and wish there were typical mall stores like Bath and Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, and discount boxes like Marshalls and Ross.  One tenant even wants the old name, Red Bird Mall, to be re-established.  Also, others have expressed frustration and concern that while there is direct access from the US 67 freeway, there is no direct access from Interstate 20. 

Whatever happens to Southwest Center Mall, one thing is for sure – something drastic needs to happen in order to change fortunes here.  The reality may be that demographics have shifted and other centers have opened to ciphon consumer pennies away from this particular mall, but even today a dedicated group of tenants and local residents still want this property to succeed.  The photos featured here were taken in Summer 2005 (images 1-13) and January 2009 (images 14+).  As usual, feel free to leave your own comments, experiences, and opinions about the mall and its plight.

Hialeah, Florida is a large, hispanic-majority city of 200,000 residents located just 10 miles from downtown Miami. With a history in silent movie-making and horse racing at storied Hialeah Park, Hialeah’s role in Cuban immigration has solidified its place as a working class, affordable suburb today. With a 92% hispanic/latino population, Hialeah has the second-highest amount of Cuban and Cuban-American residents in the country. In addition, 92% of residents also report speaking spanish as their first language.

Hialeah’s demographics today are a direct result of Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba in 1959. Following then, several waves of Cuban exiles – continuing through the 1990s – created what one historian has called an “…affordable Eden”, as well as “…a place where different groups have left their imprint while trying to create a sample of what life should be like.” Hialeah today is considered one of the most economically successful immigrant enclaves in the country, and one of the only industrial cities poised for economic growth.

Hialeah’s mall, Westland Mall, is located on the west side of the city along Palmetto Expressway (FL 826) at the intersection of 49th Street (FL 932).  It opened in the summer of 1971, expanding upon an already-extant Burdine’s store, adding JCPenney as a middle anchor, and Sears on the other end with an enclosed mall of stores connecting them. 

The layout of the mall is a simple dumbbell, and has remained largely unchanged since Westland first opened 38 years ago.  In fact, the only large-scale cosmetic changes to the mall have been the addition of a food court, partial renovations – such as flooring, and the changing of Burdines to Macys in 2005.  As of January 2007, the alternating wood-paneled ceiling remained, as well as the unique skylight windows.  Are they still there?  Overall, these features were by far the most interesting features of this mall.

Although demographics informs some of the tenets of the mall - such as spanish signage and  hispanic/latin restaurants - many of the mall’s tenants and atmosphere in general are your typical run-of-the-mill mid-tier mall stores, such as Lens Crafters, Victoria’s Secret, and Pac Sun.

Another change at Westland Mall recently was a change in ownership.  Previously owned by the Mills Corporation, Westland was unloaded to Westfield America in 2007 after Mills was sold to Simon and Simon ostensibly didn’t want it.  Immediately following acquisition, Westfield technically ”renamed” the mall to ”Westland Westfield” - but we’ll pretend that didn’t happen, at least in official recognition (see the title).  It’s not like we have any major beef with Westfield, they’re a fine operator - but to rename every mall with a brand?  Too much.   

The pictures featured here were taken in January 2007.  As usual, feel free to leave your own comments and experiences with Westland Mall.

Baystate West Mall photo from Architectural Record, mid-70s

Springfield, Massachusetts is the second largest independent metropolitan area in Massachusetts–and third largest city overall–and is located about 90 miles west of Boston and a half hour north of Hartford, Connecticut. Like many old New England manufacturing centers, the Springfield area has fallen on some hard times in the last few decades, facing a loss of jobs and general disinvestment in the urban core.

Tower Square–which was born as the Baystate West Mall–is a prime example of a common attempt 1970s at reviving an urban downtown. The mall opened in 1970 with about 200,000 square feet of retail space on two levels, but the low figure is somewhat misleading; the mall also adjoins a large Marriott Hotel and was built on a parcel in the center of downtown (at Main & Bridge Streets) between the city’s two flagship department stores: Forbes & Wallace and Steiger’s, and contained skywalks to connect to both.

For a significant time during the 1970s and 1980s, Baystate West Mall helped stabilize downtown Springfield, and as a result the city appeared to be in much better shape than similar-sized urban areas like Providence which bled most of their retail base and street activity. All was not completely well, however; Forbes & Wallace went out of business pretty early on, in the mid-1970s, and their building was demolished to be replaced with a large office complex. This paved the way for other, newer, larger suburban malls (especially the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, but also the Fairfield Mall and two others) to begin to userp its audience.

Tower Square center court, 2007

The real kiss of death for Baystate West’s retail dominance was the 1995 loss of Steiger’s. The May Company bought the chain in 1994 and re-branded their locations with the more well-known, Boston-based Filene’s nameplate, but the downtown Springfield store was dumped in the process. Several years later, Steiger’s art deco flagship store was demolished and replaced with a park. In the time since, the remains of Baystate West Mall became more of a convenience-oriented downtown mall with shops and services catering primarily to the downtown office and hotel crowd, with a busy food court and “essentials” type stores such as CVS, a bookstore, or Dunkin’ Donuts.

The 1970s vintage photo at the top of this page is from a period issue of Architectural Record on the mall, and highlights the giant rotating cube that hung in the center of the mall’s center court. As you can see from my more modern photos (taken January 2007), it’s not quite so snazzy now: gone are the distinctive colors, and instead the mall has a more institutional, lobby-ish feel. While some of the space is still devoted to retail–and the mall still gets some traffic due to the hotel and the downtown office crowd–it’s not really much of a mall anymore in its current “Tower Square” incarnation.

Deadmalls has a somewhat more complete write-up of Baystate West’s history, if you want more details.

Located 23 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, in sprawling Gwinnett County, Gwinnett Place Mall opened to fanfare in 1984.  Its anchors – at the time of opening - were Rich’s, Davison’s and Sears.  Because of its location – centralized within some of metro Atlanta’s fastest growing areas in the 1980s and also adjacent to I-85 – and its size -  a two level mall with nearly a million square feet of selling space – Gwinnett Place Mall instantly became popular with shoppers throughout the entire Atlanta area, even drawing regular shoppers from as far away as South Carolina.

In 1986, Mervyn’s hopped on board, building an anchor store on the southeast side of the mall, and Davison’s became Macy’s through acquisition.  Gwinnett Place Mall enjoyed continued success as the top-tier retail destination for the northeast suburbs of Atlanta into and through the 1990s, even as anchors continued to shift and expand.  In 1993 Parisian joined the mall, and in 1997 Mervyn’s closed their Gwinnett Place store as they exited Atlanta.  Then, in 1998, JCPenney replaced the former Mervyn’s store, keeping the anchor roster complete.

1999 and 2001 saw a definitive end to an era of retail dominance as two very large competing projects opened in Gwinnett – the behemoth Mall of Georgia opened approximately 10 minutes northeast of Gwinnett Place Mall along I-85 near Buford in 1999, and in 2001 the Mills Corporation opened gigantic Discover Mills just two miles from Gwinnett Place.  Surprisingly, though, the opening of these huge centers nearby has not had as detrimental an effect as it has with aging malls in similar situations - Gwinnett Place Mall took the punches and has emerged as a successful mid-tier center and remains successful today.

Despite the mall’s success in the face of increased competition, one of Gwinnett Place’s five anchors went dark in 2003 as Macy’s acquired Rich’s and consolidated its operations into the Rich’s store, becoming Rich’s/Macy’s- eliminating the Macy’s/former Davison’s location near the middle of the mall.  However, this anchor will fill in late 2009, as M International Market Place will become the first full-scale Asian department store to enter an anchor space a U.S. mall.

In 2007, Sears decided to use Gwinnett Place shoppers as guinea pigs for their new prototype/experiment store – an ‘upscale’ store with a ’showroom-type’ atmosphere.  We reported on this back in 2007 when it opened, so it was really neat to see.  Upon our visit to the store in late 2008, we discovered a store with more modern and trendier amenities than a typical Sears mall location - modern lighting, an open floorplan, centrally located computers for accessing Sears.com, classier fonts displayed on blue awnings, snacks for sale at checkout, and more expensive display materials.  As far as we know, no additional Sears like this have opened in any other malls, making this store - and Gwinnett Place mall which houses it – unique, though some of the decor and branding are employed by Sears Grand locations.

Some of Gwinnett Place’s other distinct features include a glass-facaded Macy’s (former Rich’s) on the north end of the mall, and the mall’s layout – shaped by expansions, the mall is a traditional two-level ’I’ shape complemented with two, shorter two-level wings also ending in anchors.  Gwinnett’s gross-leaseable area today is over 1.2 million square feet, including its five anchor stores.

Surprisingly, the mall has held its own against competition from much newer nearby centers and a shift in demographics as the money follows the sprawl.  In order to remain viable, Gwinnett will need to pull extensively from its immediate area in order to keep dollars from flowing to Buford or the other Atlanta super-malls.  They’ll need to recognize they won’t necessarily be the top-tier mall they were for the first 15 years, but by recognizing the demographic trends - such as opening the Asian department store – they’ll be able to hold their own.

The photos featured here were taken in December 2008.  As usual, feel free to leave your own comments or experiences with Gwinnett Place.

Image courtesy Wall Street Journal

Pretty exciting: Labelscar is featured prominently in a story about declining malls on page A1 of today’s Wall Street Journal:

The gradual fade-out of marginal malls has prompted a thriving Web culture dedicated to sharing information about dead or dying properties. Sites such as Flickr.com, Deadmalls.com and Labelscar.com are drawing traffic from mall employees, shoppers and other mall mourners who swap stories, photos and predictions about the status of centers on their way out.

“So sad!” wrote Edith Schilla, 45 years old, of Independence, Ohio, in an April 3 posting on Labelscar.com following her visit to a Sears liquidation sale at the Randall Park Mall in North Randall, Ohio. “I was able to peek into the mall and was so overtaken by the vast emptiness,” she wrote, recalling it as previously “so busy.”

Journal readers, welcome aboard, and please do spend some time with the site and contribute to our community! If you’re looking specifically for posts about the “dead malls” mentioned in the article, we have a portion of our site devoted to just that.