Hickory Hollow Mall; Antioch (Nashville), Tennessee

Our second installment of hickory-themed malls in Tennessee brings us to Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville located 10 miles southeast of downtown. Thoroughly suburban, Antioch is home to housing developments from the post-war era to present day, with a large housing stock of starter homes intended for blue collar families. As such, Antioch is a diverse mix of residents from many economic levels, ranging from recent immigrants to native Tennesseeans. Recently, though, a demographic shift has brought more immigrants and minorities to Antioch than ever before, making it much more diverse.

As Antioch grew, a large, regional mall was developed in 1978 near the interchange of Bell Road and Interstate 24. Called Hickory Hollow Mall, it was Nashville’s second super-regional mall after north-suburban Rivergate and the largest mall in the south half of metro Nashville. Its location was somewhat strategic, taking advantage of proximity to the monied areas of south Nashville as well as being only 20 minutes from fast-growing Murfreesboro.

Our second installment of hickory-themed malls in Tennessee brings us to Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville located 10 miles southeast of downtown.  Thoroughly suburban, Antioch is home to housing developments from the post-war era to present day, with a large housing stock of starter homes intended for blue collar families.  As such, Antioch is a diverse mix of residents from many economic levels, ranging from recent immigrants to native Tennesseeans.  Recently, though, a demographic shift has brought more immigrants and minorities to Antioch than ever before, making it much more diverse.

As Antioch grew, a large, regional mall was developed in 1978 near the interchange of Bell Road and Interstate 24.  Called Hickory Hollow Mall, it was Nashville’s second super-regional mall after north-suburban Rivergate and the largest mall in the south half of metro Nashville.  It’s also only a few miles away from the much smaller and older Harding Mall, which was demolished in 2006.  Its location was somewhat strategic, taking advantage of proximity to the monied areas of south Nashville as well as being only 20 minutes from fast-growing Murfreesboro.

About the time Hickory Hollow originally opened in the late 1970s, it was anchored by Nashville-based Castner Knott, Nashville-based Cain-Sloan, and Sears.  JCPenney jumped on board in 1982, its own wing of in-line stores, giving the mall a T-shape.  The ceiling of the two-level mall is a very dated-yet-cool latticework of steel under glass, giving the mall natural light during the day.

In 1987, Cain-Sloan closed and became Dillard’s, and somewhere along the way a food court was constructed in the space connecting the Sears and JCPenney wings.

In the early 1990s, Hickory Hollow received another expansion and a facelift.  The old Dillard’s/Cain-Sloan building was demolished and moved outward, while the old location became more in-line mall space, giving the mall its signature cross shape.  This update was timely – four regional or super-regional malls opened in the Nashville area between 1990 and 1992:  Bellevue Center, located west of downtown, The Mall at Green Hills, located south of downtown, CoolSprings Galleria, located even farther south in growing Franklin and Stones River Mall, located in Murfreesboro.  Very quickly Hickory Hollow became the oldest and least convenient mall to the fast-growing and wealthy areas of metro Nashville.

In spite of the sudden onslaught of competition, Hickory Hollow held its own through the 1990s and even into the 2000s, retaining all its anchor stores until 2006 and enjoying a relatively low vacancy rate.  However, the types of stores popping up at Hickory Hollow very slowly changed from national, popular chains to urban mom-and-pop stores, athletic wear, and stores catering to a changing demographic.  Very slowly, Hickory Hollow began to decline.

Also in the late 1990s and 2000s, more anchor changes and closures took place, ultimately leaving Hickory Hollow with two of them empty by 2008.  In 1998, Castner Knott closed and was sold to Dillard’s.  Since Dillard’s already had stores in nearly every Nashville-area mall due to the Cain-Sloan acquisition in 1987, Dillard’s immediately sold the Nashville Castner Knott stores to Alcoa, Tenn.-based Proffitt’s.  Very soon, though, Proffitt’s determined the Nashville acquisitions were not profitable, and sold them to May Company in 2001, who curiously branded them as Washington, D.C.- based Hecht’s.  Why May chose to name them Hecht’s is somewhat of a mystery, considering May had far closer regional banners in Indianapolis-based L.S. Ayres and St. Louis-based Famous-Barr.

Between 2002 and 2003, Chattanooga-based CBL, Hickory Hollow Mall’s owner, decided to invest a little dough into a few upgrades in an attempt to slow the slide into obsolescence.  They added some stunning new entrances, carpeted parts of the mall, replaced railings and fixtures, and upgraded the food court.

Here’s a picture looking toward Sears from 2001, before the renovation:

And after the renovation, taken in 2010:

2006 was a pivotal year for Hickory Hollow Mall.  In the midst of its slow decline, anchor JCPenney decided to jump ship that year for a new outdoor retail development in Mt. Juliet called Providence Marketplace, which is located several miles north of Antioch along the I-40 corridor.  JCPenney wasn’t dead long, however, because Steve and Barry’s jumped in and opened almost right away.  Also in 2006, Hecht’s came under the ownership of Federated, who converted all the former May banners to Macy’s in September of that year.  Through the changes, all four anchors remained filled at Hickory Hollow Mall.

However, in the latter 2000s the decline at Hickory Hollow was further exacerbated by anchor woes as well as fleeing in-line stores.  In August 2008, Dillard’s gave up and closed their store, and in 2009 Steve and Barry’s went bankrupt nationwide, giving Hickory Hollow two dark anchors in as many years.  In addition, mini-anchor Linens ‘n Things also closed in 2008, and several more boxes on and around the outlots closed too.  Even worse, the mall’s appraisal value shrank to $30.2 million, down from $70 million in 2005.  Also, in 2009 U.S. News and World Report placed Hickory Hollow on its 10 most endangered malls list.  However, despite all these problems, Hickory Hollow was listed as being 82% leased in 2008.

As of 2010, Macy’s and Sears continue to operate at Hickory Hollow, but the ship is sinking fast.  Most of the former JCPenney corridor is completely dead, and there are notable vacancies throughout the mall.  In January 2010 alone, five national chains left the mall – Chick-Fil-A, The Childrens Place, Hot Topic, New York and Company, and Lane Bryant.  There are currently plans floating around for part of the mall to be leased by Nashville State Community College, but nothing has come to fruition yet.  In addition, plans for a WIC clinic to be added to the mall were proposed and dropped.  The city council voted against this clinic due to extreme opposition by neighborhood residents and mall patrons, who believed the clinic would kill the mall even faster than it is already dying.  Fair enough.

I think what plagues Hickory Hollow most is common to many tales of retail decline.  The neighborhood around the mall is not only perceived to be transient, but also lacking in safety.  There are even facts to support this, but what’s undoubtedly clearer is that neighborhoods with a solid base and ones which have cultivated a branding of coolness or wealth have fared far better.  The Mall At Green Hills is in one of these neighborhoods, and they just broke ground on Tennessee’s first Nordstrom.

This sullied image, combined with all the competition has given Nashville folks absolutely no reason to go to Hickory Hollow.  Because Hickory Hollow didnt reinvent or woo some coveted specialty retailer, the only people who are going to shop here are locals who live or work in the neighborhood.  Hickory Hollow may have began as one of Nashville’s premier super-regional malls, a destinational draw, but today it’s just a neighborhood center living on borrowed time in the shell of its former self.  Not a pretty picture.  One suggestion:  Ikea?   Or maybe Bass Pro?  This place is really well located right next to a major freeway, so the locational advantage is there – they just have to make the best use of it.  On the other hand, maybe retail isn’t in the cards here anymore, and a total redevelopment is in order.  I think that’s putting the cart a bit before the horse though – even though I can see the horse coming on the horizon.

We visited Hickory Hollow twice – in May 2001 and in April 2010.  Take a look at the photos before and after the mall’s 2002-2003 renovation.

May 2001:

April 2010:

Hickory Ridge Mall; Memphis, Tennessee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raleigh Springs Mall; Memphis, Tennessee

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis’ Raleigh Springs Mall is a pretty creepy place. This winter, in the midst of my cross-country drive, I stayed at a Sleep Inn on the Old Austin Peay Highway, about a mile south of this place. I had all of my most important worldly belongings in the car, so I was already a bit paranoid and unable to sleep because I had already gone through a few nights of worrying someone would steal away with my beat up pair of Chucks, a microwave with a broken LCD, and an HP computer with Vista installed (guess which one of these three things is crappier?). The stay was sort of unsettling, and the electrical storm we experienced while we were there didn’t help–the Days Inn right next door to us was actually hit directly by lightning at about 5am.

I was passing through fairly quickly, so I didn’t have enough time to visit many of Memphis’ retail offerings, but Raleigh Springs was convenient enough. I had known Memphis had lost at least one high-profile mall due to crime (or the perception thereof), the infamous Mall of Memphis, aka the “Mall of Murder.”  Raleigh Springs Mall, located on the other side of town from Mall of Memphis, opened in 1971 on the Austin Peay Highway north of I-40 as one of the first two malls in the greater Memphis area. JCPenney, Sears, Lowenstein’s, and Goldsmith’s were the original four anchor tenants at this Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation-built center. There was also a Woolworth’s store in the mall that was later replaced by a multiplex cinema.

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

For some time, Raleigh Springs Mall was the dominant mall for the Memphis area, but traffic was yanked away by newer, more glamorous centers such as Hickory Ridge Mall and the aforementioned Mall of Memphis over the years. In 1997, the opening of the Wolfchase Galleria–now the most dominant mall for the Memphis metropolitan area–and an increased perception of crime at Raleigh Springs (it’s far closer to Memphis proper than its newer cousin) helped fuel the mall’s downfall.

Dillard’s, who had acquired Lowenstein’s in 1982, closed their store in 2003. Federated Department stores, who had just acquired Goldsmith’s, the middle anchor, opted not to keep the store (or convert it to a Macy’s) and shuttered it the same year. The third strike also came in 2003: the JCPenney store–since downgraded to an outlet–scooted out, leaving Sears as the lone anchor tenant in the hulking structure.

Today, the mall is eerily quiet with little foot traffic, and as you can see in these photos, the expansive parking lot is mostly empty. Portions of the complex are in poor repair and only about 20 or 30 of the mall’s stores are occupied, many with secondary-type tenants. The interior of the mall is in reasonably good shape, the result of a renovation that (I am guessing) probably took place in the early 2000s.

Raleigh Springs Mall looks pretty forlorn for now, but things may be looking up. Wal-Mart has expressed interest in demolishing the vacant JCPenney space and building a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the site, though nothing has started yet. Hopefully it will at least have mall access! We know what happens when Wal-Mart turns their back on the interior of a mall.

Another link from MallMemories: http://www.mallmemories.com/pmwiki.php/Main/RaleighSpringsMall

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee Raleigh Springs Mall in Memphis, Tennessee

Harding Mall; Nashville, Tennessee

Harding Mall fountain in Nashville, TN

Howdy, folks.  It’s been a while.  Due to school, work, and a little R&R (not to mention some content generation for this website) on the east coast this past week we’ve been a bit busy.  Though fear not, we’ll churn up more interesting stuff for you to ponder well into the future.

Like the former Harding Mall in Nashville, Tennessee.

Opened in the 1960s, the 300,000 square foot Harding Mall was a small enclosed center featuring one major anchor and one junior anchor on the south side of Nashville.  In later years the major anchor was Dillards and the junior anchor was Marshalls, but we’re sure history dictated some changes here and there and that wasn’t always the case.  Over time, Harding Mall became eclipsed by larger, super-regional malls also in south Nashville like Hickory Hollow, The Mall at Green Hills, and Cool Springs Galleria.  All of the aforementioned are still moderately or extremely successful today, and draw shoppers from all over central Tennessee.  Harding Mall’s fate was sealed by this competition; it closed in 2005 and was promptly demolished following a few unsuccessful years repositioned with tenants catering to the spanish-speaking market.  By Summer 2006 it was replaced by a shiny new Wal-Mart Supercenter.  Not shocking, not even a unique situation, but a bit sad nonetheless. 

Harding Mall scored design points for its general shape and decorative accoutrements.  The mall space itself wrapped around the large Dillards anchor on three sides, creating a C-shape.  Marshalls hung off to one end, and a cool backlit fountain was somewhere near the middle of the mall.  The rest of the center was somewhat dated as well, and the logo is pretty neat too. 

We visited in May 2001 during the mall’s major downswing, and at a time when smaller, ancillary enclosed malls began to fall out of favor in lieu of larger behemoths like the others nearby.  Check out the pictures of the mall while it was still around below, and also take a look at some demolition photos posted here.  And, feel free to share a few of your own memories and opinions as well. 

Harding Mall pylon in Nashville, TN Harding Mall in Nashville, TN Harding Mall in Nashville, TN 

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Harding Mall in Nashville, TN Harding Mall directory in Nashville, TN

Fort Henry Mall; Kingsport, Tennessee

Fort Henry Mall exterior in Kingsport, TN

All too often we profile the underdogs here. Malls that couldn’t make it get all the attention and some of the interesting, successful centers get lost in the fray. Sure, empty, dated corridors are great, but we aren’t being fair here and we never intended to punish those who are currently winning the game of capitalism. Besides, they’ll all eventually be history anyway, right?

Today’s entry comes to us from the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia. With a population of nearly 500,000, the region is anchored by three cities: Kingsport, Bristol, and Johnson City. All three cities are in the northeast corner of Tennessee; however, Bristol is interestingly in both Tennessee and Virginia. Fort Henry Mall is located in Kingsport, which has a population of about 45,000. It is a successful two-level mall located on a prosperous strip and is nearly at capacity with stores. It’s currently anchored by JCPenney, Belk (2 locations) and Sears. One of the Belk locations was originally a Miller’s, a Hess’s, and most recently a Proffitt’s, which changed to Belk due to a buyout in March 2006.

Both the outside and inside of the mall are currently a hybrid of both very dated and modern decor, which unfortunately seem to be fighting and that’s not good. Outside, the anchors and most of the mall facade look ancient, which I think is cool but I’m sure puts off a few shoppers here and there. You know the type, they don’t walk into a place unless it’s glassy, shiny and sterile looking as a hospital. It appears, though, that Sears did update their logo with their very new logo. Going inside, the floors were dominated by pink tiles with purple borders, carpeting with a kaleidoscope of colors (none of which really matched), and peach colored railings. The ceiling was this mesh-looking latticework design, and sodium lamps hung down from it to light the mall (aided, thankfully, with some natural lighting and lighting from the stores). All in all, the design scheme inside the mall seemed somewhat schizophrenic and didn’t work at all for me. Maybe it works for you. For another strange color scheme, see my earlier Pekin Mall entry.

As for the mall this one destroyed, it was called Kingsport Mall, and was recently anchored by Montgomery Ward, Heilig Meyers, and Hills (later Ames). Talk about a sad destiny. All of those anchors went completely bankrupt and closed all stores in either 2001 or 2002. Needless to say, the Kingsport Mall, which never seemed to be on par with Fort Henry Mall in the first place, went down the tubes. In 2003 it was demolished and redeveloped into East Stone Commons, a very successful strip mall anchored by big box like Office Depot, PetsMart, Ross, Hobby Lobby, and Goody’s Family Clothing. It also has Cold Stone Creamery, which means it’s busy night and day. A tongue in cheek take on Kingsport featuring some of former Kingsport Mall’s pictures is featured here. Otherwise, check out my pictures of Fort Henry Mall featured below. They were taken August 2005.

Fort Henry Mall sign pylon in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall Proffitt's exterior in Kingsport, TN

Fort Henry Drive in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall Proffitt's exterior in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, TN

Fort Henry Mall Proffitt's in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, TN Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, TN