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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

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

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

March 2004:

August 2008:

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

Last summer, I took a rather extensive trip down to the mid-Atlantic to build up a large stock of photos and content to keep Labelscar going through the winter. I saw an awful lot (and was disappointed at the time that I couldn’t see more) and clearly overestimated how much I’d get done during the cold and supposedly slow winter months. So much for hunkering down with steaming cups of hot cocoa and cranking out three posts a day–I’m still working through that backlog.

One of the more curious malls I visited, and one that I initially planned to post right away, is the General Growth-owned Laurel Mall in Laurel, Maryland, a suburb about halfway between Washington, DC and Baltimore. This fading mall had signs then warning of an impending renovation and revitalization, something that was very clearly in dire need. While the mall was not in awful shape and still had a fair number of tenants, it seemed to be doing surprisingly poorly given the strategic location between two major metropolitan areas.

The 663,000 square foot Laurel Mall opened in 1977, although the present-day mall cobbles together pieces of two older outdoor shopping centers. Laurel Shopping Center housed a Giant Foods and Hecht’s, while a standalone Montgomery Ward was a block away. New York mall developer Shopco bridged the two with the large, two level enclosed mall in 1977, also adding a JCPenney store. By most accounts, the mall did fine through the ’80s and ’90s, although it was less-dominant than area malls like Columbia Mall and White Flint Mall. Then, in 2001, trouble began. Like many malls throughout the country, Laurel Mall was dealt a severe blow by the bankruptcy and closure of Montgomery Ward, and the simultaneous troubles of JCPenney made matters worse, causing the mall to lose two of its three marquee tenants within a year. Customers dwindled and favored other malls and the situation grew increasingly bleak, placing Laurel Mall in receivership a few years back. Today’s anchor stores are Macy’s, Burlington Coat Factory, and International Furniture Liquidators. Note that, as my photos were taken in July 2006, Hecht’s was still around.

According to a recent Washington Post article, the mall is due for a major facelift. The center’s foreboding parking deck, which creates an ugly (and unphotographable) facade along US1, will be demolished and replaced by an outdoor promenade with stores and restaurants. The interior of the mall will remain during Laurel’s reinvention, and will be given a facelift: new owner Somera hope to add a bookstore, movie theatre, and other lifestyle-oriented tenants, while also incorporating decorative elements such as a fountain (it’s outdoor, kids; don’t get too excited) and a clock tower reminiscent of the nearby B&O Railroad station.

It remains to be seen how it turns out, but this relatively charmless mall could certainly use something. Plagued by vacancies, a dingy appearance, and (possibly unsubstantiated) fears of crime, it seems worn out. It’s more successful (and slightly larger) than most typical “dead malls,” which is likely why its getting a deserved second chance. We look forward to seeing how the new plans progress, and are glad that, for once, a revitalization project will focus on maintaining the enclosed portion of the mall while modernizing the center.

Given how long it’s been taking me to produce original content lately, I should probably be naming this post “Chinese Democracy.” Instead, as Mr. Prangeway joked to me earlier, this post is about the “Mall of the Least Resistance;” a center with a relatively small photo set that I can put together before I collapse into a pile atop my keyboard. I swear I won’t be so busy soon; I miss you guys.

Prince Georges Plaza–retitled in 2004 as The Mall at Prince Georges–is a successful, mid-tier mall located in the inner-ring Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, not far from College Park. Originally constructed as an outdoor plaza in the 1950s, the mall was enclosed at some later date. Sadly, my “research” on this mall is turning up quite little, so I may have to defer to the peanut gallery to fill in some details. Unlike a few malls we’ve posted about previously in Prince Georges County, such as the groovy Iverson Mall or the rubble pile over at Landover Mall, this one is located in the suburbs closest to DC’s Northeast quarter, and is not terribly far from College Park (and the Beltway Plaza, another distinctive old mall featured here before).

Despite the mall’s visible age, it appears as though it received a substantial renovation relatively recently, making things bright and shiny (and perhaps a bit boring). A 2002 article about the planned Target store at the center notes they’d replace the space vacated by G.C. Murphy, implying that the space was likely vacant a long, long time before Target arrived. The store finally opened in October 2004, according to this article about the mall’s $6 million renovation, which they peg as happening in 2004. The center mostly employs the classic single-dumbell design, although there are a few things that mix it up. The strange loop in the front of the mall (complete with a truly strange back hallway that hides the bathrooms) and various tucked-away big box anchors are somewhat unusual, as is the way that two of the three anchors are situated at the back of the mall yet in-line with the main concourse–a sure sign that the center began its life as an outdoor plaza.

My photos are somewhat unremarkable, partially due to the busy mall’s narrow main concourse. I did, however, manage to get a just-in-time shot of the Hecht’s store before the great switcheroo of 2006.

Gimme some history, boys and girls, so that I can go to bed.

When I was down in Washington, DC over the fourth of July weekend, I swung by the now-closed Landover Mall in Landover, once the largest mall in Maryland’s large, sprawling Prince George’s County. I’d known the mall was troubled (and possibly dead), but I found that I unfortunately missed the boat on ever getting inside.

I do, however, think that my trip was relatively well-timed because I was able to get this set of shots of the half-demolished rubble. While peeling back the skin of the building, the excavation revealed some really neat artifacts–most notably, the fully-intact, formerly interior-facing “Garfinckel’s” sign from an anchor store that closed in 1990 and was never replaced!

The Landover Mall was built in 1972 and owned and operated by Lerner Enterprises, the owner of several popular mall-based retail chains. The mall was initially very successful due to its strategic location at the eastern edge of the Washington, DC beltway, and sported Hecht’s, Woodward & Lothrop, Sears, and Garfinckel’s as anchor stores. Even though the Washington, DC area is pretty heavily-malled, the Landover Mall’s location still seems strong, especially given that other nearby malls (such as the Iverson Mall, the Forest Village Park Mall, or the also-shuttered Capital Plaza Mall) are much smaller.

The mall’s decline began in the late 1980s, in a time when concerns were growing about the safety of the area and the development of newer centers further out in suburbia was booming. Lerner Enterprises’ relatively disengaged management style didn’t seem to help either. Garfinckel’s went out bankrupt in 1990, Woodward & Lothrop closed their store five years later. JCPenney briefly replaced them in 1998, but closed their store just three years later when they were unable to stem the tide of the mall’s decline. Hecht’s also fled the mall upon the opening of the outdoor Bowie Town Center in 2001, leaving Sears as the lone anchor store at the mall. The mall was finally shuttered in 2002, although Sears has persevered and was even still upon when we visited.
All of the outdoor, rubble photos on this page were taken by us on July 1, 2006, with the exception of the following two great shots taken of the mall interior in 2002, and the above image of the mall’s pylon lit up at night. These were graciously loaned to us by our friend Gary at the DC Grocery MSN Group. These photos are copyrighted (and not mine), so don’t steal ‘em and make me look like a jerk. They also have MANY more available on their site if you want to dig in deeper!

In recent times, Labelscar has gotten some fantastic submissions from readers, and this piece on the Salisbury Mall in Salisbury, Maryland is one of ‘em. CCMoore, a regular reader, sent us these notes and photos of the Salisbury Mall, which was displaced by a larger and newer center about 15 years ago. It seems that there’s increasing local pressure to raze the abandoned, derelict, and apparently somewhat crime-ridden mall site, so if you happen to be in the area, swing by and take a look before it’s too late. Without further ado, here’s what CC had to say:

“I’m only 26, so the Salisbury Mall predates me by about 12 years. I do, however, remember going there as a kid, and while it wasn’t the most exciting place to go in the early 90s, I have since come to appreciate its place in local Delmarva History.

I’ve done some research, so before I describe the malls current state, here’s a bit of history.

The Salisbury Mall opened on October 16, 1968 in Salisbury, Maryland. At the time it cost somewhere around $5 million to build, with $2 million invested in interior details and the parking lot. The land covers about 80 acres and the mall’s west wing spans about 1/10 of a mile. When it opened, it was anchored by two national chains, The
Hecht Co. and Sears. On its opening day only 16 of the 40 stores were ready for business and Miss America was on hand for the ribbon cutting.

I would imagine a place like the Salisbury Mall was a big deal in this area. Delaware and the eastern shore of Maryland aren’t exactly the most metropolitan of places. From the ads, Hecht’s especially seemed quite a showpiece. The mall also included a rather large McCrory’s and a Kinney’s Shoes.

The details from there are a bit sketchy. I’m still working out specifics, but this is what I know. The mall’s east wing was constructed in the mid-70s, which now made the mall in the shape of an H. The new section included another chain, Hutzler’s, a movie theater and more stores. The malls west section had a very classic look with pillared entrances where as the east section was more modern, though the entire building is made of white brick and stone.

The mall seemed to do fairly well into the 80s until a new mall, the Centre at Salisbury was built and opened in July of 1990. At that time both Sears and Hecht’s left, leaving both anchors empty, and they would remain that way. The west wing eventually emptied out and was closed off from the rest of the mall. I have been told the ceiling
leaked and the up-keep was far too expensive. Still the mall soldiered on. In around 1991 or 1992, there was a murder in the ladies bathroom which sent more business away.

As far as I know, Hutzler’s became Peebles and most of the stores left when their leases ran out. Some people tell me there were businesses in the mall up until about 2 years ago, but you wouldn’t ever know from the condition it is in.

I found it one night driving home from the beach and without any parking lot lights, it’s a scary sight at about midnight. It literally takes up about 2 or 3 blocks in a fairly urbanized section of the town. But within its perimeter, it’s just dead.

I have been there a few times. The west wing still looks like it did when it opened about 40 years ago, if you can look past the decay and age. There are plans to tear it down, which is a shame because the more I learn about it, the more I see how much history is contained within its walls.

I [have included these] pictures. I am working with some people to make a documentary about this mall and the surrounding area, because it really serves as a commentary on how fickle mall culture and commerce in general can be. About a mile
away is the city’s downtown district which felt the mall’s presence when most of its stores left for the new construction. Those same businesses then left the old mall when the new Centre was constructed. It’s very interesting and somewhat sad.”

Thanks again CC! Submissions like these are always welcome. As you might imagine, it’s *impossible* to be everywhere at once, and we’ve already missed tons of malls entirely. If you’ve got anything, we’d love to hear about it.

EDIT 8/19/2007: In the 10 months since we originally posted Chris’ photos and commentary, he’s been working on his own blog that’s entirely about the old Salisbury Mall. In addition to historic and current photos, he even has some shots of the interior, which is in a rather sad, Dixie Square-like state nowadays.

Downtown Silver Spring is one of the more interesting downtown revitalization efforts that I’ve come across, in a large part because it incorporates an enclosed mall with the rejuvenated streetscape. The development encompasses two separately owned and maintained parcels–the indoor, 5-level (yet small, at only 300,000 square feet) City Place Mall; and the outdoor “urban neighborhood” of Downtown Silver Spring.

Silver Spring, Maryland is located at the top of the District of Columbia diamond, just inside of the Washington Beltway, in affluent Montgomery County. Arguably the second-largest city in Maryland after Baltimore, Silver Spring’s downtown experienced the same post-war lows as many major American cities, but like many has seen its downtown spring back to life in the 2000s.

The neighborhood surrounding Downtown Silver Spring and City Place has its roots (obviously) in Silver Spring’s historic downtown retail district, which included Hecht’s, JCPenney, and Sears in the 1950s. By the late 1980s, however, the area fell into decline and Hecht’s vacated their large store in the center of downtown Silver Spring. The former Hecht’s was converted to a tall enclosed mall–City Place–in 1992, but the mall failed to attract major tenants and became known as a budget mall. This is largely still at least somewhat true today, as City Place counts Marshalls and Burlington Coat Factory as its anchors. In this decade, however, a large portion of the downtown area surrounding the City Place Mall has been redeveloped as an active outdoor streetscape, with a variety of retail, restaurant, and entertainment-oriented tenants. Several streets are closed to vehicular traffic and used as pedestrian malls, and the development has a symbiotic relationship with the existing enclosed mall. Today the Downtown Silver Spring portion of the development has tenants like a 20 screen movie theatre, Whole Foods Market, Borders Books and Music, and Pier 1 Imports.

If I have any complaint with developments like these, it’s that they tend to be far more homogenous than the downtowns they replace. While I applaud any project that brings activity and life back to our faded downtowns, I hate that it has to eternally revolve around Starbucks and Cold Stone Creameries and that the end result feels like Celebration, Florida. For example, little separates the end product at Downtown Silver Spring from much of the work done 40 miles up the road in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor or from the Newport on the Levee development in Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati. Even in their worst downswings, our cities derived their life from the unique businesses they hosted, from local restaurants to used CD and book stores. Developments like these are a start, but hopefully their visitors will fan out to surrounding blocks and enjoy the offerings of neighborhoods that aren’t leased by a single corporate parent.

Westfield is one of my least favorite of the major mall developers because of their tendency to make every mall look the same. However, a recent renovation at the Wheaton Plaza (or “Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton,” whatever) in Wheaton, Maryland merits a quick ‘n dirty post.

As this is the first Westfield mall that we’ve written about, it merits a rant: Seriously, what gives with Westfield’s annoying naming scheme? Don’t they realize that labeling every one of their malls as “Westfield Shoppingtown _____” is a disastrous attempt at over-branding, an effort that strips malls of one of their few marks of personality and likely saps the lone strands of personal or community “connection” that anyone might have a remote chance of feeling towards their local mall? It’s a waste of the only shred of potential goodwill that a large shopping mall could ever hope to engender as part of their communities. People routinely complain that every town in America looks the same; that we all have Wal-Mart and Home Depot and Applebee’s. Why not at least let each individual enclosed mall exist as its own place, with its own name and logo? Ever notice how the band Chicago put out, like, 30 records, and numbered (rather than named) every single one of them and nowadays, no one ever starts raving that “Chicago X was soo awesome, man, so much more awesome than Chicago VIII!”? I don’t work for Westfield, but if I did I would abandon their misguided branding practices completely.

I didn’t expect much from this mall, and honestly Wheaton Plaza is not exactly a unique snowflake. Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton is organized in a pretty conservative “T” pattern, with JCPenney and Target at each end, Macy’s about 1/4 up from one end on a small side hallway, and a dead Hecht’s store at the end of the “T” wing. I have no exterior shots due to the way the entire front of the mall is surrounded up close by a large parking deck (which is a common problem in the DC area, I’ve found), but I got a few cool pictures of the interior, which has a few snazzy upgrades, best displayed in the above photo of the Macy’s store. This new Macy’s store actually opened as part of the mall’s recent renovation that was completed in 2005. It sounds like the Wheaton Plaza, which opened in 1959 as an open-air shopping center, had long struggled against nearby behemoths like Westfield Shoppingtown Montgomery and White Flint, and this recent renovation brought the 1.3 million square foot mall situated just outside of the DC beltway up to par as a successful mid-tier mall, adding tenants like Express, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Hollister. It’s not as upscale as its sister malls, but it doesn’t need to be: Montgomery is the higher-end yet mass-market mall, White Flint corners the higher end of the market, and the Downtown Silver Spring complex serves the entertainment-minded consumers.

Wheaton did have one large vacancy, created recently when Hecht’s vacated their space at the rear of the mall. Unfortunately a little foresight would’ve saved Macy’s from constructing a brand new store only to then close the mall’s Hecht’s just months later, but this is the way of corporate mergers I suppose. I did manage to scrounge the following picture (NOT taken by me) online, for those who’d like to see every last May-signed store they possibly can before it’s too late:

If you’ve got the goods on the Wheaton Plaza’s history, comment away. I came up empty-handed this time.

Security Square Mall is a large, 1 million square foot enclosed mall located in the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. Until it came time to write this post, I didn’t actually realize that Security Square Mall is technically located in Baltimore, albeit an unincorporated section of Baltimore outside of the western edge of the I-695 beltway on Security Boulevard. Named for the massive Social Security Administration offices which are adjacent to the center, its location is decidedly suburban.

Built in 1972, the 120-store Security Square Mall is laid out in a large eagle-shaped pattern, with a long, curved main hallway crossed by a large straight hallway. Hecht’s anchors the northern end of the straight cross hallway, and the two ends of the long “wingspan” of the mall are Sears and Modell’s Sporting Goods. The Modell’s space was occupied by Montgomery Ward until the chain’s closure in 2001. The mall has been renovated twice, in 1988 and 1998. Judging by the extensive use of sepia-toned neon throughout the center, I’m guessing that the 1998 renovation was the more minor of the two. The Floridian color scheme and impressively animated shopping bag logo pin it pretty closely to the late 1980s.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Security Square Mall was the anchor at the opposite end of the “straight” wing from Hecht’s. Originally a JCPenney, the space was overtaken in 2003 by “Seoul Plaza,” a two level extension of the mall itself wherein the anchor store was converted to small stores and a common mall area. This “mall within a mall” still includes the escalators from the original JCPenney, and is leased entirely to stores selling Korean goods including a grocery store. For the life of me I don’t know why I didn’t take more pictures of this feature, but here’s the one I did take:

Once Baltimore’s premiere shopping destination, Security Square Mall today seems to suffer from the competition of even more dominant malls. The massive, high-end Mall at Columbia Town Centre is only about ten miles to the south, and the Owings Mills Mall–a large, two-level mall that has also struggled some in recent years–is located about ten miles to the north. Both of these other malls seem to benefit from being located in areas that are at least perceived to be safer. My own visit to Security Square was cut somewhat short (hence the shortage of photos of the exterior) because a particular group of mall patrons, unhappy with our presence, decided to make an unwelcoming comment of a racial nature. While I am certain that these young women did not speak for mall management or the vast majority of the mall’s patrons, it did hang like a pall on the visit and lead us to choose not to linger.

It is unfortunately a sad reality–painted very vividly in the shopping malls throughout the United States–that people of different races or economic classes are still so frequently segregated, even in where they shop. This is, however, a much larger topic for another day. Note this passage from an article on the mall on Security Management.com in 2001:

Crime notwithstanding, the ownership situation may have been the most damaging of the contributing factors, because it ushered in an era of neglect in which the proprietors displayed a lack of interest in the mall’s success. That neglect manifested itself in deteriorating physical conditions and expanding vacancies. It hurt morale among the management team. It was also noticed by shoppers and the community. As a result, business declined.

The situation began to change in 1997, however, when the mall was purchased by Capitol Investment Associates. The firm took a hard look at the facility, from leasing to property management to marketing, with an eye toward improving all aspects of the mall.

The article is right in that management has clearly made major upgrades to maintain the cleanliness of the mall, and these upgrades are noticeable. As you can see from the photos, Security Square is very well kept-up and mostly leased with first or second-tier tenants and it continues to be a successful mid-tier mall today.

The Beltway Plaza is a very strange, mid-sized mall located in the northeastern suburbs of Washington, DC, near (as its name so slyly suggests) the beltway. It has about 1,000,000 square feet of floor space and hosts around 110 stores, and was one of the more interesting malls that I discovered in Mid-Atlantic Adventure™ last week.

The Beltway Plaza appears to be very old, though I’m not sure of the exact vintage. It was originally constructed as an outdoor shopping plaza in 1960, and I would guess it was enclosed sometime in the mid-1970s to early 1980s as a result of the decor and the extraordinarily high ceilings, which were done away with in malls later on because of their high heating/cooling and maintenance costs. The mall’s fabulously retro-modern cloverleaf logo could also be an indication of its age. The Beltway Plaza is particularly odd because the center’s eastern end features a clump of anchor stores: Target, Marshalls, Burlington Coat Factory, and Value City, and the latter two are the only ones with mall access. These anchors are all jumbled up into a big, three-level pile loaded at one end of the mall, despite that the mall itself is only one level. That creates an odd situation where Value City is actually located in a kind of “loft” above the mall, which you can see in the pictures below. I thought that was pretty neat.

The other end of the long mall has a large “Y,” and features a Giant Supermarket with mall access, another true rarity. The Beltway Plaza also featured a Gold’s Gym in the center of the mall, with a large basketball court surrounded by glass walls protruding into the center of the mall corridor itself. Aspiring NBA stars looking for some attention could do much worse.

Unfortunately, despite some of the truly unique attributes of the Beltway Plaza, it seems that it may be on the endangered list. Located in a somewhat prosperous part of Prince Georges County just outside of College Park, the center is in a prime location for top-tier retail, and there is a proposal to blast a roadway straight through the center of the mall from the mall’s main entrance opposite Cunningham Dr. straight through to Breezewood Drive, creating a “Main Street-type shopping environment.” This sounds like a shame, especially considering this discount-oriented yet relatively mid-tier mall seems to be doing quite well as it is.

There does seem to be hope. The above appears to be only one proposal of many to improve the area around the Beltway Plaza Mall, and this document (which is a PDF!) details another, which would add some substantial aesthetic improvements to the area without de-malling, and in fact would expand onto the rear of the Beltway Plaza with a Main Street-style promenade instead.

I wasn’t able to find much about the mall’s history (such as its original anchor tenants, as the above were clearly not original to the center), so if you have any familiarity with the Beltway Plaza’s history or its future, please leave a comment.

I thought I might start with one of the most interesting malls that I found: The Iverson Mall in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland. Located along Maryland Route 5 about a mile or so outside of the District of Columbia, just over the border from D.C.’s notorious Anacostia neighborhood, this 526,731 square foot center is one of the oldest–if not THE oldest–enclosed mall in Prince Georges County, Maryland. The two-level Iverson Mall opened on September 21, 1967 with Montgomery Ward and Woodward & Lothrop as anchor stores, though as you might imagine neither still exists today. It also bucks the trend of most urban malls: according to this flyer (PDF warning, though it includes a directory and a photo, making it well worth clicking), it’s even the highest-grossing shopping mall in PG County, with a vacancy rate of only 2%. Unlike most older malls, the Iverson Mall website even–refreshingly–includes some information about its heritage, including a historic newspaper advertisement for the mall, a vintage photo of an old pylon, and an aerial shot that shows the mall’s weirdest architectural feature: a tunnel.

That’s right. Part of the reason why the Iverson Mall was such an incredible find was that–not only was it incredibly old and not only did it still boast some great ’60s vintage decor–but the two level mall and its rear parking garage are cantilevered right over Iverson Street, a four-lane divided parkway. The northern wing of the mall, which is the old Woodward & Lothrop store that is today home to a Value City, is the larger end of the mall and is two levels. It stretches all the way to Iverson Street, where the second level continues straight over the roadway while the first level exits straight out to the street itself. The mall continues south of Iverson Street, with a smaller section that once lead to Montgomery Ward and is today home to a furniture store and several other tenants that are supposed to be coming soon. It again has a lower level, which exits out onto Iverson Street. Essentially, to continue walking straight along the ground floor of the mall, it’s necessary to exit the mall, cross four lanes of traffic, and then re-enter the mall across the street. It’s only possible to stay inside of the mall by walking across on the second level. Take a look at the satellite photo (or the aerial photo above) if I’ve confused you. You won’t be sorry; it’s pretty neat!

From some of the exterior architecture (which I haven’t represented well here, unfortunately), it seems that large sections of the mall were built out of existing buildings that were sort of cobbled together, especially in the spaces closest to Iverson Street. Oh, and there are some more Iverson Mall photos here; in particular there’s a shot that better represents the groovy spiral staircase in the mall’s center, which I neglected to shoot.