Southwest Center Mall
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| Location | Dallas in Dallas County, Texas,  United States |
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| Opening date | 1975 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 3 |
| Total retail floor area | 1,084,528 sq ft (100,755.9 m2)[1] (100,755 m²) |
Southwest Center Mall (formerly known as Red Bird Mall) is a distressed shopping mall located in Dallas, Texas. Southwest Center Mall, originally owned by the DeBartolo family, opened in 1975. It was, and remains, the only major shopping mall located in the southern half of Dallas. The mall's original name, Red Bird Mall, came from the Red Bird area of Dallas in which it is located.
Initially, the mall was anchored by four department stores:
- Sears, which anchored the eastern end of the mall
- J. C. Penney, which anchored the western end of the mall
- Sanger-Harris (later Foley's, now Macy's), whose store was in the middle of the mall on the northern side
- Titche's (later Joske's, then purchased by and renamed Dillard's), whose store was in the middle of the mall on the southern side
Later, Montgomery Ward added a store near the Sears location, on the same side of the mall as Dillard's.but it was swiftly replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory Many of the stores in the mall were either opening their first stores in the southern sector of Dallas, or relocated from older shopping centers in the area.
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[edit] The decline
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) |
The mall did well in the beginning, despite its location in the relatively undeveloped southern portion of Dallas. Much of its early success can be attributed to the lack of competing malls and its location near the intersection of U.S. Route 67 and Interstate 20.As early as the mid-1980s, demographics began to change dramatically in the area surrounding Red Bird Mall, and at the same time a perception of crime began to brand the area – numerous car break-ins, vandalism, and robberies caused even loyal shoppers to begin taking their business elsewhere. And, in 1988, this became a lot easier, as a massive super-regional mall opened just 15 minutes from Red Bird Mall in Arlington Soon after its completion, the mall's customer base began to weaken due to what is known as "white flight."
DeBartolo attempted to remodel the mall to give it an updated look and In 1997, the mall was sold to NAMCO Financial, a California investment group. It was at this time that NAMCO to attract new tenants,gave the mall a small refurbishment and a new name – Southwest Center Mall – in 1997. A new food court, begun under the reign of DeBartolo, was finished and occupied in 1998 at the mall’s northwest entrance. With a price tag of $18 million, the food court took up the lion’s share of updates to the mall upon its change of hands and change of name. In addition, though, Dillard’s increased their store size from 100,000 to 150,000 square feet, and Sears renovated their entire store in 1998.But it did little to overcome the its lost customer base.changed the name to Southwest Center Mall in an attempt to rebrand it, but the company had no better success.
Montgomery Ward left the mall when it liquidated, and J. C. Penney closed its store in 2001.
NAMCO attempted unsuccessfully to sell the mall to General Growth Properties in 2004.
[edit] The future
The Parks at Arlington continues to draw traffic from Southwest Center, and a new open air mall known as Uptown Village [1] is complete in nearby Cedar Hill; it opened on March 12, 2008. Thus it is likely that Southwest Center Mall will continue to decline if not close completely.
[edit] Anchors
- Burlington Coat Factory (97,000 sq ft.)
- Macy's (196,000 sq ft.)
- Sears (205,153 sq ft.)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ International Council of Shopping Centers Southwest Center Mall. Retrieved Feb 19, 2007.
