Livonia Marketplace

Livonia Marketplace

Livonia Marketplace entrance, Seven Mile Road
Opening date	2010
Owner	Konover Properties
No. of stores and services	TBD
No. of anchor tenants	2
Total retail floor area	325,000 square feet

Livonia Marketplace is a shopping mall in the Detroit suburb of Livonia, Michigan. Opened in 2010, the center is anchored by Sears and Wal-Mart. It occupies the site of the former Livonia Mall, which was an enclosed mall built in 1964. Livonia Mall lost the majority of its tenants in the 2000s, including its previous anchor stores of Crowley's (later Value City), Mervyns and Children's Palace. The mall was closed in May 2008, with only the Sears remaining from the old property.

History

Livonia Mall opened in 1964 as the second mall to be constructed in Livonia. Livonia Mall was one of the first two enclosed shopping malls to open in the State of Michigan and included two grocery stores, a doctors' office and a dental office. The mall was developed by Jack Shenkman as an enclosed mall. At the time of its opening, Detroit's suburbs were expanding, and new shopping malls were being developed in these suburbs. Livonia already featured an open outdoor mall in Wonderland Center (later Wonderland Mall), which opened in 1959 and closed in 2004.

Livonia Mall remained largely unchanged until the mid-1970s. A movie theater was added in the Crowley's wing. Also in 1981, a new wing ending in a Mervyns department store was added. Children's Palace, a toy store chain, was added to the west end of the mall in 1989. This store closed three years later and was eventually converted to a paintball arena which closed in the mid-2000s. Value City bought the Crowley's store and two other mall-based Crowley's stores (at Universal Mall and Macomb Mall) in 2000, operating these as Crowley's Value City but later removing the Crowley's name. Konover Properties bought the mall in 2005.

In the 2000s, Livonia Mall lost the majority of its stores due to competition from newer malls nearby, and thus became a dead mall. By 2007, Dollar Tree, Gamestop, Jo-Ann Fabrics and Foot Locker were the only national chains with a presence there (besides the anchor stores), and the remaining tenants were local, independent shops. The mall also lost its Mervyns store in early 2006 when the chain exited Michigan. Konover Properties announced plans in 2007 for a possible redevelopment of the mall, including the addition of a new big box retailer. Originally, plans called for the demolition of everything but the Sears and Value City stores. Value City subsequently closed in March 2008 when the chain went out of business, and the entire mall was shuttered except for Sears and Jo-Ann Fabrics on May 31, 2008. Demolition began in February 2009.

Redevelopment

In September 2008, the Livonia City Council held a meeting to discuss redevelopment plans for the mall. Demolition of the vacant mall began in February 2009, and concluded in August of the same year. The Marketplace opened in mid-2010 with a Wal-Mart supercenter as a second anchor. Wal-Mart opened in August 2010 along with RadioShack; other proposed tenants include Great Clips, a Verizon dealer, a Dots clothing store and a coney island restaurant.