Dead Malls - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Beloit Mall (Eclipse Center); Beloit, Wisconsin

Located in south central Wisconsin along the Illinois state line, Beloit is a hearty, working class city of almost 40,000 residents, with a historic past. Located approximately 15 miles south of Janesville, the county seat of Rock County, and 15 miles north of Rockford, Illinois, Beloit has long been known for its roots in manufacturing and for its small-yet-exceptional liberal arts school, Beloit College. However, changing fortunes in the manufacturing industry have outsourced most of these jobs overseas or elsewhere, and Beloit has struggled in recent years to find a foothold in the modern economy – or what’s left of it.

Beloit’s retail scene, which existed downtown for many decades, began to be influenced by competition, taking shape in the form of a shift from downtowns to large-scale, regional suburban shopping centers beginning in the mid-20th century. In 1966, Beloit beat its neighbor to the north – Janesville – to the punch and opened the first of these regional shopping centers in Rock County.

Beloit Plaza, a 400,000 square-foot center, was strategically located just north of downtown Beloit on top of a large bluff overlooking the Rock River. Anchored by three major department stores, Charles V. Weise (a Rockford based department store), JCPenney, and Sears – along with three minor anchors, Walgreens, Woolworths, and Kohl’s (a Wisconsin-based grocery chain, developed in tandem with but not the same as the famous department store chain), Beloit Plaza instantly became a popular regional draw.

At first, accessibility and competition were not problems for Beloit Plaza. Located along busy U.S. Highway 51 in the heart of Beloit, the popular, new outdoor mall enjoyed easy access from Janesville, Rockford, and other cities in its large trade area. However, about the same time Beloit Plaza opened in the middle of Beloit during the 1960s, the interstate highway system was being constructed across the country with Interstate 90 passing the outskirts of Beloit on its east side. The opening of the Interstate past Beloit began to change development patterns throughout not only Beloit, but its neighboring cities as well, creating an era of intense competition that, combined with the local economy, eventually led to the demise of Beloit Plaza.

In the early 1970s, large enclosed malls in Janesville, Madison, and Rockford were constructed, giving the outdoor Beloit Plaza not only competition, but makng it somewhat outmoded in terms of design and functionality. Enclosed malls are not only climate controlled, providing the same quality and level of access year round, but the enclosures traditionally bring people together and give them a sense of place and community not often found at outdoor centers. These enclosed malls were also muh bigger than Beloit Plaza, and although Beloit Plaza continued to succeed, it was no longer the super-regional draw it once was. Plus, every one of the newer nearby enclosed malls was closer to Interstate 90, whereas Beloit Plaza was not. Not only could Beloit residents quickly get to better malls in Janesville and Rockford, but residents of Janesville and Rockford no longer needed to go to Beloit Plaza, as most of these stores were duplicated in the newer enclosed malls.

The 1980s brought both infamy and resurgence to Beloit Plaza. On February 2, 1981, two people were murdered at the Beloit Plaza Radio Shack store, and the mall gained a reputation as unsafe. About the same time, manufacturing jobs began leaving Beloit in droves. Meanwhile, nearby Janesville’s economy thrived as manufacturing jobs were added there, driving the regional economy. As a result, Janesville’s population continued to grow while Beloit’s remained stagnant, and Janesville’s retail strip – including its mall – grew along Milton Avenue (Highway 26) between downtown Janesville and Interstate 90.

Likely citing nearby competition, its unsavory location, and the recent high-profile murders, Beloit Plaza owners decided to renovate and enclose the 16-year-old center in 1982. The center retained its wide corridor; however, the 16-foot ceilings were low and the mall always seemed dark inside, even during the middle of the day. Beloit Plaza’s name was also changed to Beloit Mall, and the two-level Weise’s store was renamed Bergner’s during a nameplate consolidation in the P.A. Bergner company.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the renovation and enclosure appeared to work. Beloit Mall held its own against fierce competition from Rockford and Janesville malls, retaining all of its anchors and many in-line stores as well; however, the first casualty came in 1991 when P.A. Bergner declared bankruptcy. As a result of its reorganization, Bergner declared the Beloit Mall store a liability and shut it in 1992.

With one large anchor vacant and a crumbling economy facing Beloit, the city stepped in and attempted to intervene before the mall fell further down the rungs on the ladder of insolvency. Under an agreement with Canada-based Dorchester Corporation, the city pumped $4.5 million into the mall in order to keep it open; in return, the city gained ownership of nearly half the mall, and the city’s investment was to be repaid over time by taxes and loan repayments – this never happened, but as part of the deal the former Bergner’s was quickly retenanted by Ohio-based Elder Beerman in 1993 – Wisconsin’s first. Elder Beerman chose to demolish the smaller footprint 2-level Bergners and build out into the mall’s east parking lot, disrupting traffic flow around the mall.

Despite the addition of Elder Beerman and a complete roster of anchors and junior anchors at Beloit Mall, more trouble began brewing as Beloit’s economy fell flat and more stores in the mall closed. The next casualty to Beloit Mall was the closure of the Kohl’s grocery store, which happened around 1993-1994. The building was never retenanted and its swoopy arched facade still sits to the side of the north mall entrance, complete with barbed wire placed along the top of the arches to prevent adventurous souls from climbing on its roof. Also about the same time, Woolworths closed its large Beloit Mall junior anchor store citing poor sales and a dowturn for the company in general.

In 1996, the most ominous news came for the Beloit Mall, as the owners of the Janesville Mall were seeking ways to ameliorate the large number of vacancies there, and began talking to Sears. The owners of the Janesville Mall offered Sears the opportunity to build a giant 2-level store at its center court entrance, as well as financial incentives and an auto center on an outlot parcel, all in a city with economic growth on the busiest retail strip in the county. Also, by this point Janesville was almost twice the size of Beloit, which stopped growing in the 1960s. Meanwhile, the Beloit Mall Sears was aging, small, and in a city with little to no economic growth. It wasn’t long before Sears made the obvious decision, and announced it was “moving” from Beloit Mall to Janesville Mall. Despite a passionate letter writing campaign on behalf of Beloit residents to keep the Beloit Mall store open, it closed in Fall 1997 just in time for the brand new store at Janesville Mall to open.

The closing of Sears at Beloit Mall caused a mass exodus of the remaining stores there, which once again alerted municipal officials trying to stave off blight. Local billionaire Ken Hendricks formed a Real Estate group and purchased Dorchester’s interest in the mall, and for the first time in its history Beloit Mall was entirely locally owned by Hendricks and the city. Unfortunately, it was far too late for the failing venture, and more bad things kept happening. In 1997, JCPenney was robbed at gunpoint, and – possibly not coincidentally – JCPenney announced they were leaving and the store was shuttered in 1998.

Also in 1998, realizing the lost potential of Beloit Mall, developers rushed to give Beloit residents some retail options and opened one of the first Wal-Mart Supercenters in the state near the interchange between Interstate 90 and WI 81 on Beloit’s east side. In the decade since the mall failed, this retail district has become its de-facto replacement, attracting many national chain restaurants and retailers in strip malls, as well as new Staples and Menards locations. Just like Janesville and everywhere else, it seems that even Beloit eventually succumbed to development patterns favoring the Interstate.

Once JCPenney left in 1998, only two major stores were left – Elder Beerman and Walgreens – and a small handful of mostly mom and pop stores took up a few spaces in the mostly vacant mall. That same year, Hendricks formed another group and paid off the city, owning the entire mall after that. But, it was far, far too late to consider anything but a total redevelopment, as two more stores in the Beloit Mall – Walgreens and Radio Shack – closed in 2000. After they closed, Elder Beerman sealed their entrance to the mall. Following a series of Hispanic-oriented flea markets in 2000 and 2001, Beloit Mall was sealed except for the Elder Beerman anchor which continues to operate (as of 2009) at the back of the mall.

In the years since the Beloit Mall’s closure, numerous ideas have been floated for the blighted mall. Early on, some of these plans ranged from another go at commercial development, housing, and even a Native American casino, but none of these came to fruition. In 2004, Hendricks bought the entire property from his retail partners with the idea of giving it back to Beloit for municipal/community offices as well as possible retail and other uses. The Beloit 2020 plan, enacted by the city, has embraced Hendricks’ plan and several county and community offices have already relocated into former store spaces in the mall.

In 2007, Hendricks and his development group renamed the mall for the second time – to Eclipse Center, named after the former Eclipse Windmill Company, which was located on a part of the current mall’s property. The new Center opened a banquet facility capable of seating 1000 that same year, a school, and plans were also finalized to relocate the City of Beloit’s Public Library to the site. Also, new signage was put up for the first time indicating the mall’s new name on the main Highway 51 pylon as well as other entrances. In 2008, construction began on the new library, which will be an architecturally pleasing new building located on the site of the former JCPenney.

Unfortunately, although Hendricks successfully rehabilitated many buildings in Beloit and was an ardent supporter of its economy, he will not be able to oversee the full redevelopment of Eclipse Center as he passed away as the result of an accident at his home in December 2007.

Also in 2007, a new shopping center – Oakfield Crossing – was proposed in South Beloit, Illinois, just south of the state line near the interchange of Interstate 90 and IL 75. This center would certainly serve Beloit and the northern Winnebago County, Illinois communities of Rockton and Roscoe, and would feature two anchors and a strip of stores in between them. As of late 2007, Target had signed on to be one of the anchors, and Bergner’s was to be the second; however, the project was put on hold in mid-2008 because Target had changed its building design. If a Bergner’s would open here, I suspect the Elder Beerman would probably leave Eclipse Center.

We visited Eclipse Center in January 2009 and took some of the pictures featured here. The only retail on the site today is the holdover department store Elder Beerman, which is still shockingly still in operation and ironically now owned by the Bon Ton Corporation, who also owns Bergner’s. Also, parts of the mall are actually becoming accessible again as more offices and services locate here. As of January 2009, the north entrance was open and most of the mall was accessible. However, the entrance is technically only open to access the offices located just beyond the entrance, and signs and tape indicate not to go farther into the mall or alarms will go off and the police will come immediately. Yikes. In addition, it is not known how the library will interact with the mall space once it is complete, nor is it known why the signage for the mall’s center court, advertising where ‘people connect’ exists, as these doors were locked!

Personally, I have many fond memories of Beloit Mall from the late 1980s and early 1990s – its enclosed heyday. Our family often took shopping trips to the mall for both variety’s sake and also because Beloit Mall had Sears when Janesville didn’t. Even though Janesville Mall was technically 10 years older than Beloit Mall (at least by dates of enclosure), I always felt Beloit mall was older and not as nice. I remember the anchor stores seemed ancient, which makes sense now because they were much older than the mall. I also remember Fannie May Candies, Mr. G’s Soup-er-Sandwiches – I didn’t get this pun until I was an adult; I thought the sign was indicating indecisiveness or a stutter – Woolworths, Walgreens – both had old-fashioned lunch counters – and several smaller 80s-style glass kiosks were shoved up against the wall at Sears near the north end.

We’ll keep an eye out for updates to this story. It would be great if most of the mall could be opened up for re-use and benefit the community at the same time. Feel free to leave your own comments and experiences with Beloit Plaza, Beloit Mall, or Eclipse Center.

March 2001:

January 2009:

Scottsdale Mall (Erskine Village); South Bend, Indiana

Located in north central Indiana about 90 miles east of Chicago, South Bend, Indiana is home to the legendary Notre Dame University and for almost a hundred years was also the home of the Studebaker auto empire. In addition, South Bend is the anchor of the entire Michiana region, a 7-county area of north central Indiana and southwest Michigan containing over 800,000 people. Today, South Bend’s population exceeds 100,000, and an intermodal transportation network featuring two cross country interstates (80 and 90) combined with interurban rail links to Chicago make South Bend an enviable location.

South Bend, along with its twin city to the east Mishawaka, share two main retail areas. The largest and most dominant of these retail zones is located on the north and east sides of South Bend, extending into Mishawaka. It features numerous strip malls, big box, restaurants, and the area’s only enclosed super-regional center, University Park Mall. A secondary retail area is located on the south side of South Bend, located mostly along Ireland Road and S. Michigan Street, and it was centered around South Bend’s first regional enclosed mall, Scottsdale Mall.

Scottsdale Mall opened in 1971, anchored by Montgomery Ward, L.S. Ayres, and Ayr-Way, L.S. Ayres’s discount box. Scottsdale Mall appealed to the entire Michiana region and as it was their first mall, it became extremely popular. The two-level mall continued to be successful throughout the 1970s, as it had little to no competition in the area.

Then, in 1979, University Park Mall opened across town in Mishawaka, which not only established strong competition for Scottsdale Mall, but also shifted the entire region’s retail focus from south to northeast. However, throughout the 1980s, Scottsdale Mall held its own against University Park, even as more retail and big box was opening near University Park and not on the south side of South Bend near Scottsdale Mall. Also, in 1980, the Ayr-Way chain closed upon its sale to the Dayton-Hudson (Target) Corporation, and the Scottsdale Mall location reopened in 1981 as Target.

In order to compete with the newer University Park Mall, and attract more retail to its side of town, Scottsdale Mall embarked on a multi-million dollar top to bottom renovation, which was complete in 1993. The new development brought an early-90s, very colorful, pastel, rainbow-brite-threw-up-here vibe to the mall; but before this, Scottsdale was already tanking, and the LS Ayres store abruptly closed in January 1992 citing poor sales. It would later reopen, but the 1992 closure cast a pall on the store, and on the mall itself, from which both would never recover. By the late 1990s, the mall was once again tanking; vacancy rates were growing, and national chains began closing, being replaced by either local stores or nothing at all. Meanwhile, fortunes on the other side of town were growing ever greater, as throughout the 90s more national chains and box strip opened in and around the vicinity of University Park Mall.

The final throws to the Scottsdale Mall dunk tank came in 2000, when L.S. Ayres announced they were closing (again), and Montgomery Ward announced they were going out of business at the end of the year. Losing these two anchors proved devastating to Scottsdale Mall, and it never recovered.

By 2003, only a handful or so of stores were left in the mall, along with Target and a popular movie theatre. Unfortunately this was not enough to keep the mall afloat, and it was sold, closed, and promptly torn down in 2004; only Target was to remain at the site. Interestingly, a lot of the mom-and-pop stores moved about 15 minutes east to Elkhart’s Concord Mall. Also, unil the very end, the management was too lazy to update the directories, which still featured L.S. Ayres and Wards.

A short time after Scottsdale Mall became a pile of scrap metal and dust, a new strip-mall like development called Erskine Village began construction on the same site and opened in 2005. The new development features TJMaxx, Kohls, Target, Petsmart, several restaurants, and a strip of outward facing smaller stores. Erskine Village, not surprisingly, has been slow to get off the ground, and it certainly lacks the community and place-inspired memories an enclosed mall evokes. However, I suppose if people wanted that they would have patronized Scottsdale. Oh well.

We visited Scottsdale a few times before it got the axe; however, the pictures featured here are from a contributor and were taken in December 2003, a few months before the mall closed permanently. For clarification, the ad for the TV series was up from Summer 1999 until the mall was torn down. Feel free to leave your comments and experiences.

Manchester Center; Fresno, California

Before I get too histrionic, this is why I found Manchester Center in Fresno, California to be such a treat. It had been at least five years since I had discovered a mall quite like this one, and it was a shock to find such a creepy time capsule still completely open and accessible.

We first started traveling to shopping malls in the late 1990s, and it was during those trips that we were awakened to the beginnings of the death of the American shopping mall. In almost every major metropolitan area, there was at least one white elephant, one center that wasn’t cutting it, one place that for some reason was never renovated and still sported decor from the 1970s. We were fascinated, not only because these malls reminded us of our childhoods but also because it was inconceivable to us then that the almighty shopping mall–a development pattern that had been so dominant our entire lives–could possibly fail.

In the last decade and change, of course, this reality has been writ large and discovered by many, ranging from Deadmalls.com to CNN and NPR and (more recently) the entirety of the general public. But the types of malls that we discovered were “dead” in the mid to late 1990s had mostly already gone away: these were the weakest players, the least-loved, and they were wiped off the map before the public’s collective consciousness began to recognize their existence. As a result, our trips since have been somewhat less enjoyable, since most of the remaining malls are at least somewhat whitewashed and there’s a sad knowledge that in just about every city in America, there’s at least one true gem of retail history that’s already long gone.

Before I get too histrionic, this is why I found Manchester Center in Fresno, California to be such a treat. It had been at least five years since I had discovered a mall quite like this one, and it was a shock to find such a creepy time capsule still completely open and accessible.

First, just a quick bit about Fresno: Fresno, California is the largest city in California’s central valley, and the second largest metropolitan area (after Sacramento) in the region. It’s the largest city between San Francisco and Los Angeles and has around 470,000 people proper, with almost 900,000 in the metropolitan area. Like many of California’s inland cities, much of the development in the city and its surrounding areas is fairly new, and the population has been continually exploding over the last decade and a half. Despite anchoring a primarily agricultural region, Fresno is known as a hub for business incubators and is somewhat more politically moderate than some of the other, smaller, more conservative cities in the central valley. On the retail scene, Fresno is the home of Gottschalks department stores, one of the last true independent old-line department store chains in the country.

Like many of California’s Central Valley cities, Fresno doesn’t have the greatest reputation. Its historic downtown area, which is centered around the pedestrian Fulton Mall–one of the first downtown pedestrian malls in the nation, and the home of the original, deceased Gottschalks flagship–is notoriously foreboding and vacant, as noted when the California Planning & Development Report named it the worst big-city downtown in the state:

Bakersfield, Oakland and Anaheim all have less-than-ideal downtowns, but none of those districts is as desperate, depressing and even threatening as downtown Fresno. The hideous 1970s office buildings are the least of the problems in Fresno’s core. The place is one gigantic real estate “opportunity,” and it’s usually deserted after 6 o’clock. Yes, there is a nice new minor league baseball stadium, but that’s about the only reason locals willingly go downtown.

Manchester Center is Fresno’s oldest enclosed shopping mall–I think–heck, I’m not even sure because I can’t find much about it on the internet. It’s over 50 years old, though, and its located near the southern end of the long and massive commercial corridor along Blackstone Avenue, which leads north from downtown. The 950,000 square foot, two-level center contains three large anchor stores–currently filled with Sears, Gottschalks, and a large CalTrans office–and sports a variety of local retailers and office space. Since it was displaced by the more successful Fashion Fair (as well as several burgeoning outdoor shopping malls and one somewhat troubled enclosed one), the Manchester Center has attempted to carve out a niche as a “mixed use” building, with much of the upper level and nearly all of the CalTrans wing occupied with office space. Don’t be fooled, however; the entire mall is open for your perusal!

One thing that really struck me, aside from the really dated decor, was the mall’s strange floorplan. Let me detail it as I saw it:

I entered at the mall’s northern end. Sears was the anchor here, but when I came in on a side hallway I noticed windows on the second floor leading to a vacant space, and there was visibly an area where a stairway had been removed. The Sears store also faces the mall in a strange way, meeting it only halfway head-on, meaning that when you are standing in the center of the mall and facing Sears, only the left side of the mall enters into the Sears while the right side exits to the rear parking lot (check the pics, it’ll make more sense).
It appears that the “ghost” space next to Sears on the second level was at one point some smaller anchor. The mall goes underneath this anchor on the first level, but then emerges on the other side as the mall becomes fully two level. Does anyone know what this floating “ghost anchor” was?
Most of the main mall is a two level “L” shape with a carousel at center court. The further you get from Sears and Gottschalks, however, the further you get from retail activity. Most of the southern part of the center is either vacant or occupied by offices. The second level has no retail activity aside from a food court with several tenants.

I wish I knew more about the place… maybe some of you can fill me in. There’s precious little about Manchester Center available on the internet, including huge missing details like what the third anchor originally was. I would obviously add Manchester Center to the death watch, especially in light of this week’s chapter 11 filing by Gottschalks, one of the mall’s two surviving anchor tenants.

Park Lane Mall; Reno, Nevada

Reno, Nevada is the second largest city in Nevada, with a population of about 210,000 people and a metropolitan population of about 450,000 (including Carson City). It is not only the second largest urban area in the state of Nevada, but the only significant population center in the state other than Las Vegas, which is over 430 miles away. Reno is known as “The biggest litle city in the world” and is famous for its gambling venues, and its historical importance in gold mining and transcontinental travel have poised it for tremendous growth during the 20th century and beyond.

The predominant retail strip in Reno is Virginia Street, leading south from downtown to the outskirts of the city. On it, most of Reno’s major shopping venues, including Meadowood Mall, Old Town Mall, The Summit, and the now-defunct Park Lane Mall all stood. Today, Virginia Street is still the focal point of Reno’s retail scene, with several miles of box stores, restaurants, and strip malls.

Park Lane Mall was one of Reno’s first modern shopping centers, opening as Park Lane Center in 1967 approximately 1 mile south of downtown along Virginia Street. Situated on 44 acres, Park Lane Center opened with 448,000 leasable square-feet and was anchored by a 138,000 square-foot Sears and a Sacramento-based Weinstock’s. Other stores included Woolworth’s, Joseph Magnin, Rose Sporting Goods, and Kinney Shoes. A major focal point of Park Lane Center was a 25-foot clock, constructed many decades previous by Joseph Mayer of Seattle using parts from Howard Company of Boston. The clock once stood in downtown Reno since 1920, but the developer of the mall wanted to bring a piece of history to the new Park Lane Center, inspiring a sense of place and community in the new shopping center.

In the late 1970s, Taubman announced they were building a newer, larger enclosed mall less than two miles south of Park Lane Center at the edge of town. As a response, Park Lane owner Macerich decided to fully enclose their mall in 1977-1978, a year before Taubman’s Meadowood Mall opened in 1979 featuring Hawaii-based Liberty House, JCPenney, and Macy’s. This enclosure allowed Park Lane Mall to remain competitive with the new mall, for the time being.

In 1987, Macerich unveiled a new set of renovations for Park Lane Mall, in order to keep it up to date, featuring new entrances and an interior facelift.

However, by the mid-1990s all of Macerich’s efforts couldn’t hold back competition from the bigger, better mall to the south, and Park Lane Mall fell into serious decline. Sears left in late 1995, Weinstock’s closed in 1996, and Woolworth closed in 1997 amid a nationwide liquidation. Taking these issues in stride, Macerich quickly replaced the fallen Sears with Fresno-based Gottschalks in 1996, and demolished the vacant Weinstocks for a new theater which opened in 1998. The Woolworth’s remained vacant.

The first decade of the new millenium brought more hardship for Park Lane Mall. With an increasing number of vacancies, the mall was already not doing well when a brand new Lifestyle Center development called Sierra Summit opened in 2005. Featuring Dillard’s as well as the finest dining and upscale retail establishments in the entire Reno area, this outdoor mall even posed a competition problem for Meadowood Mall, so Park Lane was no match.

Running from the sinking ship, Macerich gave up the ghost and sold Park Lane Mall to M&H Realty Partners – based in San Francisco – in 2006, but not before making an odd decision to repair the historic clock. The new owner decided it was time to close the doors, and all the remaining tenants (not many) were kicked out at the end of January, 2007 and the mall was locked for good. Gottschalks, the theatre, and a few outlot businesses stayed open following the mall’s closure and eventual demolition in late 2007. However, Gottschalks finally decided to throw in the towel itself and is closing on December 27, 2008, with its demolition to follow.

So what’s next for Park Lane Mall? A mixed use development is planned, but as it is Reno a casino component is also rumored. However, with the economy in the state it’s in, we really don’t expect anything quickly.

We took the pictures featured here in August 2004. Leave some messages and let us know what you think, or your own experiences with Park Lane Mall. Also, what on earth happened to the clock?

Phoenix Village Mall; Fort Smith, Arkansas

It’s rare that we encounter a shopping mall in such a terrible condition as this one. We were headed south in March 2008 and enroute we discovered the gem of Phoenix Village Mall. Opened in 1970, Phoenix Village Mall was not only the first mall in Fort Smith but also the first in all of Arkansas. Unfortunately, though, after several decades of co-existence with Fort Smith’s other mall, Central Mall, Phoenix Village has died a slow, protracted death and is currently waiting for its date with the wrecking ball.

Fort Smith is a regional manufacturing center, transportation hub, and anchor city of a large area of west-central Arkansas and east-central Oklahoma. With a population of 80,000 and almost 300,000 in its trade area, Fort Smith is the largest blip on the radar between Little Rock and Oklahoma City.

Most of Fort Smith’s current retail scene is along the Rogers Avenue/AR 22 corridor, home to many strip malls, box stores, and chain restaurants as well as Fort Smith’s current successful mall, Central Mall. However, a secondary retail strip exists on the south side of town along Towson Avenue, and at the intersection of Towson and Phoenix lies the nearly-defunct Phoenix Village Mall.

Phoenix Village Mall’s history dates back as far as the late 1950s, when local developer Jewel Morris began looking for a site to consolidate his two furniture stores. He settled on a site on the northwest corner of Towson and Phoenix and purchased the land from a “General Store” owner who was puzzled why anyone would want to locate a store so far from downtown. By the 1960s, another developer, Howard Gentry signed on, and the two worked to develop a 100,000 square-foot center for the growing suburban population. This center opened in 1961 anchored by TG&Y discount store and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

The center proved a success, so Morris and Gentry decided to expand and purchased 35 adjoining acres to the site, which more than quadrupled its footprint. During the process, 35 houses were relocated to nearby Pocola, Oklahoma. They proposed a suburban outdoor “Village” concept, which consisted of a U-shaped set of buildings, but quickly discovered that they could be even more daring and scrapped those plans. Instead, they set out to build the state of Arkansas’ first enclosed mall.

In 1969, the first anchor store opened at the new Phoenix Village Mall, a Woolco store. The mall itself opened in 1970, and throughout the 1970s the mall had Beall Ladymon, two local department stores (Hunt’s and Greg’s) as well as Hancock Fabrics. In 1979, Woolco closed and was replaced with Venture, and in 1980 an expansion to the mall added 139,000 square feet, bringing the total size of the mall to 489,000 square feet. Meanwhile, the 864,000 square foot Central Mall opened three miles away, yet interestingly both malls would compete head-to-head for nearly three decades.

Phoenix Village Mall continued to be successful into the 1980s, until 1987 when a deal was struck to sell the mall to an out of state investor. The deal was to close on Black Monday, the day the stock market crashed, and the next day the sale fell through. In addition to that problem, the bank that Morris and Gentry used to finance the project called in their loan and forced them to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy until they could secure a buyer. They lined up a buyer, but the buyer’s financing fell through as well, and the bank foreclosed. Before the buyer’s financing fell through, the buyer began encouraging stores in the mall to leave because they announced plans to tear down the mall for redevelopment. Even though the buyer ultimately went away, the damage had been done, and the mall was left with a high vacancy rate into the 1990s.

In the early 1990s, original owners Morris and Gentry once again were able to assume ownership of the mall and reinvigorate it to 92% occupancy. This success sailed on for several years, until the mall’s age and ultimately, competition, sealed its fate as a dead mall. In 1998, the mall’s main anchor, Venture, went out of business and liquidated all stores, leaving a gaping wound on the south end of Phoenix Village Mall. Stores began to defect, and in 2004 the partnership attempted to unload the mall again, and this time there were talks of wooing popular tenant Target to the site. However, financing fell through again and in November 2005 the bank foreclosed once again and the local partnership lost the mall once again, this time probably for good.

Meanwhile, in 1999 Central Mall embarked on a redesign which repositioned it as not only the best mall in Fort Smith, but the anchor to Fort Smith’s main shopping corridor which extends east of Central Mall along Rogers Avenue.

2005 also saw the rapid departure of 30 some stores, as the mall emptied out rapidly amid rumors of redevelopment and its current state of disrepair. A spring storm damaged the mall’s roof and it was not repaired; pools of water now collect in the cavernous, unrenovated interior. As of 2006, the only tenants left in the mall were a non-profit religious group, two surgery centers, a bank, and a barber shop. All of these have outdoor access, except for the barber shop which is just inside one of the mall entrances.

We visited Phoenix Village Mall in March 2008 and were amazed at the state of disrepair. It appeared the mall was being prepped for demolition, as many of the interior corridors had been stripped of their flooring and some fixtures were also visibly altered. We gained access to the mall at the only unlocked entrance, which we quickly learned was only meant to access the barber shop and the bank. There is also intact signage from the Venture store, which closed in 1998. Beyond these businesses, the corridor was blocked by yellow tape indicating the mall was closed. We attempted to take a few pictures, and even “go around” the tape, but the “friendly” man working in the barber shop appeared and promptly kicked us out even after we requested politely to take a few pictures for this site. Sad. So, although we apologize for the dearth of interior pictures on this page, there are a few more featured on flickr. As usual, let us know what you think.

Cupertino Square (Vallco Fashion Park); Cupertino, California

Cupertino Square, formerly Vallco Fashion Park, in Cupertino, California Cupertino Square (the former “Vallco Fashion Park”) has a more tangled and bizarre tale than many of the malls of the San Francisco Bay Area, and today seems to be mired in a never-ending renovation and revitalization that bears few fruits. While some progress has been made to date–such as the opening of all of the above attractions–the mall seems to be frozen in amber, unable to move forward on the promise of renewal. The entire first floor of the mall is mysteriously shuttered, the food court has been closed and under construction for over a year, and little seems to ever change. The large pylon facing I-280 still displays the “Vallco Fashion Park” name, even as all other signage for the mall has been updated to reflect the new name and logo.

Cupertino Square (the former “Vallco Fashion Park“) has a more tangled and bizarre tale than many of the malls of the San Francisco Bay Area, and today seems to be mired in a never-ending renovation and revitalization that bears few fruits. Take a look with us…

Vallco Fashion Park opened in September 1976 as one of the largest malls in the San Jose (soon to be known as “Silicon Valley”) region. Located in the affluent western suburb of Cupertino–which would become famous in later years as the home of Apple Computer–the mall sported Sears, JCPenney, and The Emporium (now Macy’s) as anchors. The mall got its rather sterile and discounty-sounding name from the center’s developers: Varian Associates, and the Leonard, Lester, Craft, and Orlando families. To me, it sounds like the kind of place that would have Totes, Bugle Boy, London Fog, and Van Heusen outlets.

Vallco employed a very strange floorplan from the very beginning. There is one large, two level wing that extends between Sears and the Macy’s store, west of Wolfe Road. Then the first level of the mall ends while the second level takes a 90 degree turn, going over Wolfe Road and ending at a JCPenney anchor while also sprouting a small first floor on the far side of the street. The decor of the center–even to today–is a unique mix of ’70s modernist design; if you’re at all interested in the kind of frumpy old ’70s shopping center architecture that was at one point designed to look “fancy” then this place is a real treat.

Vallco was for many years the dominant middle-tier mall in the west valley region, drawing shoppers from the many affluent suburbs to the west of San Jose. However in the 1990s the center began to falter due to the continued expansions at the nearby Westfield Valley Fair Mall, currently the largest mall in the Bay Area. Valley Fair’s growth–combined with the 2002 opening of the massive Santana Row lifestyle center directly across the street–caused many malls to go under, including the Sunnyvale Town Center and Mountain View’s San Antonio Shopping Center. Vallco remained open but occupancy rates dipped down to around 25%.

In the mid-2000’s, three local investors (Alan Wong, Emily Chen, and John Nguyen) decided to use some Silicon Valley bank to restore some luster to this fading behemoth. Given that Vallco was located just a few miles from Valley Fair on Stevens Creek Blvd., the group needed to differentiate the center from its immediate competition by adding a significant dining and entertainment component–including the upscale Strike bowling alley, a huge AMC movie complex, and new restaurants–and giving it a spiffy new name in “Cupertino Square.”

However, while some progress has been made to date–such as the opening of all of the above attractions–the mall seems to be frozen in amber, unable to move forward on the promise of renewal. The entire first floor of the mall is mysteriously shuttered, the food court has been closed and under construction for over a year, and little seems to ever change. The large pylon facing I-280 still displays the “Vallco Fashion Park” name, even as all other signage for the mall has been updated to reflect the new name and logo. In 2008, it was reported that the mall’s investors were deep in debt and the center on the brink of foreclosure. For a dead mall, Cupertino Square does seem to generate a fair amount of foot traffic, but nearly all of the storefronts are dusty and vacant, relics of a bygone era of scrunchies, hairspray, and Huey Lewis cassingles.

Maybe Steve Jobs should turn it into a mall of the future, or something. For now, it remains one of California’s strangest dead malls.

Also read some memories of Vallco on its Yelp page.
More from BigMallRat–the mall has barely changed since this post was written.

Lincoln Mall; Freeport, Illinois

So here we have possibly one of the smallest, worse-for-wear malls this side of the mighty Mississippi. We’re actually surprised it’s still open for business at all; in fact, a website trying to sell Lincoln Mall indicates it has been “recently de-malled” and “recently rehabbed”. In fact, the whole thing can be yours for the low, low price of $3.5 million. More on this in a bit…

Freeport, Illinois is a small city of just over 26,000 in northwestern Illinois. Because Freeport is only 30 minutes from Rockford, its retail offerings are eclipsed by the better variety and volume found in Rockford. The retail strip which does exist is mostly on IL 26 (West Ave) on the southwest side of town. Here a shopper will find strip malls and chain restaurants galore, including a JCPenney and a Sears. This area would have been a great site for an enclosed mall at some point, especially considering Freeport’s population has been steady at 25,000 since 1930.

But that never happened.

Instead, developers did build Freeport a small, enclosed mall of 186,000 square feet along West Galena Ave (US 20 Business), in 1965 and named it Lincoln Mall, which is appropriate enough as the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates took place downtown. And it has not changed since…well, the structure anyway. Certainly, the anchors and in-line stores have come and gone. Unfortunately, though, they’ve mostly ‘gone’ – away, that is; the last store open inside the mall is locally-owned Degrote TV and it’s right by the main entrance. Earlier in 2008, the mall’s east anchor Menard’s moved to bigger, brand new digs with all the rest of the strip fodder down on S. West Ave. The very large west anchor is currently vacant. It was most recently a Big Lots, but what was it before? Also, a small Dollar General is appended onto the mall structure on the west end, past the former west anchor.

The indoor portion of the mall is bleak at best, and the smell can only be described as a wet, musty basement. The small corridor featured a fair amount of store spaces, 18 to be exact, between Menards and Big Lots, all of which are dark. From labelscars and stickers I could tell that one of the largest spaces back here was Ben Franklin, and another store had cedar shingles. This place has clearly not been touched since 1965, and that’s amazing. I think Mr. Lincoln might be a little upset, though.

So, back to where we started. This website, which indicated the mall has been de-malled and recently rehabbed is apparently ill-informed. I certainly hope they’re not marketing the mall under false pretenses, and that there really is a TIF district established to “help this center grow”. I hate to be skeptical, but there are some really blatant lies there. Anyway, let us know more about this mall. What were the original anchors? What were some of the stores over the years? We visited Freeport’s Lincoln Mall in Summer 2008 and took the pictures featured here. We thought we’d immortalize it before it disappeared without a trace after 40 years.

ZCMI Center and Crossroads Center; Salt Lake City, Utah

Downtown Salt Lake City used to have two enclosed malls located just blocks apart–the ZCMI Center and the Crossroads Center. Both were torn down a couple years ago to make room for more new downtown development, and another (outdoor) downtown mall, The Gateway, has mostly taken their place.

The ZCMI Center opened in 1975, and at the time claimed to be the largest downtown shopping mall in the United States. ZCMI Center was unique compared to most malls because it wasn’t exactly secular; the mall’s name stood for Zion’s Co-Operative Mercantile Institution, which was a department store chain owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints before being sold to the May Corporation. Popularly known as “America’s First Department Store,” ZCMI had an interesting genesis:

Under (Brigham) Young’s direct leadership, ZCMI was organized by local Mormon community and business leaders, for the purpose of selling goods as inexpensively as possible, with intent to distribute profits among the people; early on, its employees were even paid with store credit. Aptly dubbed “The People’s Store”, ZCMI was founded in 1868, and offered such items as as clothing, textiles, farming and household goods. It has been called “America’s First Department Store.”

It was announced in the fall of 2006 that ZCMI Center would be closing for redevelopment, and demolition began in the summer of 2007. The plan is to replace the mall with a new mixed-use development called City Creek Center.

Crossroads Plaza was the other mall, located near ZCMI Center. Crossroads Plaza was a major mall and office complex anchored by Nordstrom and Mervyn’s, and opened in 1980.

More information on downtown Salt Lake City retail here.Thanks to Jay for sending us a great set of old photos and advertisements (mostly from 1997) that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get our hands on.

Tarrytown Mall; Rocky Mount, North Carolina

Rocky Mount is a city in eastern North Carolina, about 45 minutes east of Raleigh, and contains about 70,000 residents. Rocky Mount is known for being home of the first restaurant which would become the Hardee’s chain. It is also strategically located on I-95. In September 1999 Hurricane Floyd swept through Rocky Mount and caused major flood damage throughout the area. One of the casualties of the hurricane was Tarrytown Mall, the second enclosed mall in the state.

Here are some pictures of Rocky Mount underwater during the flood. Tarrytown Mall, which opened in 1962, sat under several feet of water for over a week. A relatively low spot in general, Tarrytown Mall was particularly susceptible to floodwater and as a result of the flooding completely destroyed the mall and sadly it never reopened. Here are a whole bunch more pictures of Tarrytown Mall as it sat abandoned.

Tarrytown Mall sat for over 6 years before Sam’s Club came and decided to build a club there, and resurrect the site from abandonment due to the natural disaster. First, they needed to remove all the asbestos from the 40+ year site. Then, in April 2006 most of the mall structure was destroyed, and by 2008 a new Sam’s Club was open in its place.

We visited Tarrytown Mall, or what was left of it, in August 2005, nearly 6 years into its tenure of abandonment. We know a Montgomery Ward store was at the site, but we know little else? If you can help us piece together the history of Tarrytown Mall, do so in the comments for this post. A few questions: What was Tarrytown Mall like immediately before the hurricane? Did it co-exist on the same level as Golden East Crossing, a competitor mall across town, or was it already on the way out? Let us know.

Universal Mall; Warren, Michigan

Warren, Michigan, Detroit’s largest suburb by population, is located directly north of the city of Detroit in Macomb County. As a result of the post-war industrial boom, Warren grew explosively from World War II into the 1970s, while the manufacturing industry around Detroit reached its peak. People moved en masse from the city to these inner-core suburbs including Warren during this period as they got better jobs and made more money, and also because of white flight. After the 1970s, however, Warren fell victim to suburban sprawl itself as even newer, more affluent communities developed to the north and west, and population has declined in Warren every decade since 1970. Unlike Detroit, though, Warren has kept a steady, middle class base. In fact, Warren is ranked first in the nation for resident longevity at 35.5 years, which has kept the community from falling into horrible disrepair like its ill-reputed cousin to the south.

By the mid-1960s, the suburban explosion had given Warren over 100,000 residents (compared with 22,000 in 1940) and the growth wasn’t about to stop, so retail developers eyed the city for a new, large-scale development to compete with other then-new Detroit metro malls like Northland, Eastland, and Macomb. Universal City, the mall which preceded Universal Mall, opened in 1965 at the corner of Dequindre and 12 mile Roads, in southwest Warren (the Oakland County community of Madison Heights is directly across Dequindre from the mall). It opened anchored by Montgomery Ward on the north end, and Detroit-based Federal Department store at its south end, with an enclosed section of shops linking the two anchors and a large Woolworths near the northern end as well. In 1979, Federal closed its doors and became Crowley’s, another long-running Detroit-based chain.

During the 1980s, even though growth had peaked in Warren about a decade earlier, an expansion was planned for Universal Mall to compete with existing area malls and newer centers which were emerging as category killers. The new wing hinged off the mall’s center court to the west (toward Dequindre) and featured many stores culminating in a new anchor, Mervyn’s. Following this addition, the mall was renamed and re-imaged (for the last time?) as Universal Mall in or around 1987.

The 1990s were a period of steady decline for Universal Mall, culminating with an occupancy rate of less than 40 percent by the end of the decade as shoppers preferred Oakland Mall and other super-regional competitors to Universal Mall’s value-oriented and local retailers. In 1997, Woolworths closed up shop nationwide, leaving a large vacancy in the northern part of the mall. In 1999, the entire Crowley’s chain went under and the store, which was a Detroit mainstay for decades, was replaced with Value City in 2000. In 1999 and 2000, mini-anchor stores A.J. Wright and Burlington Coat Factory opened in the mall as well, with Burlington replacing the dead Woolworths. So far, so good.

1999 also saw the mall’s ownership change hands, resulting in mild refurbishments to the three-decade-old facility while embarking on an intensive marketing campaign to let shoppers know of the updates. By 2001, occupancy rose past 80 percent again and things seemed to be looking up for Universal Mall, as the new owners attempted to reinvent the indoor shopping mall’s concept – from mid-tier regional center to an off-price destinational and neighborhood mall. The revival showed developers that the inner-core functional obsolescence of Universal Mall, and others like it, could be changed with a little tender loving care. Once again, so far, so good, and the mall stayed buoyant.

However, the period of revival was all too brief, as 2001 was the beginning of several major, repeat blows to Universal Mall. Long-time anchor Montgomery Ward shut their doors nationwide that year, including this store, which as of 2008 remains dark despite ruminations of renovation. As a result, stores in this northern wing began closing, and in 2006 western anchor Mervyn’s departed the Detroit area, closing this store and causing vacancies in the western wing. In March 2008, southern anchor Value City closed as that chain went through a round of bankruptcy closings, leaving Universal Mall without any of its traditional anchors (the theatres, A.J. Wright and Burlington Coat Factory are still open as of May 2008, but are located along the mall corridors).

It seems as though Universal’s days are numbered in its current state. In fact, in June 2007 the state of Michigan OK’d a brownfield designation to the largely vacant mall, which will freeze the mall’s property taxes at current rates, so revenue gained from any redevelopment or renovation which betters the mall will go straight to the owners instead of through them to taxes. These incentives should allow for the asbestos and lead removal at the site, demolition of the current structure and building of a new 600,000 square-foot retail center on the site. The new center, which will not be enclosed, will feature some sort of strip mall-looking thing, a lone 100,000 square-foot anchor building, and a 48,000 square-foot theatre complex.

The current decor at Universal Mall is archaeic: the cross-like design of the mall’s concourses, with each concourse culminating in an anchor (or movie theatre), is relatively simple, but the floor tiles, walls, and rows of windows near the ceiling are delightfully retro. Whatever updates or rehab was done in 1999 must have been simple and very cosmetic (ie. a coat of paint, repairing broken things and cracks), as most of the structure looks quite a bit more dated, aside from the western wing which was added in the late 1980s.

As of May 27, 2008, one of the western entrances to the mall was shuttered for redevelopment, and it looked like most of the handful of stores in the mall were also going out of business that week. Some stores, including the mini-anchors and the theatres, had no such notice of closing anytime soon. Also, the northern portion of the mall hallway after A.J. Wright to the former Wards was closed permanently for redevelopment. Indeed the mall must be closing soon, as this photoset from December 2007, just six months ago, shows an operational food court and chairs set up for diners. Today, the food court is completely empty and looks like it’s been prepared for pre-demolition.

The pictures featured here were taken on May 25, 2008. If anyone has any information about the redevelopment (I couldn’t find any current articles on the internet) or when the bulk of the mall is actually closing, feel free to drop a line here. In addition, you can check out a few digicam videos we made which are posted on YouTube. And, as always, feel free to leave your own comments, personal experiences, or memories that have to do with the mall in the comments section as well.