NorthPark Center
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| Location | Dallas in Dallas County, TX,  United States |
|---|---|
| Opening date | 1965 |
| Developer | NorthPark Development Company |
| Management | NorthPark Management Company |
| Owner | NorthPark Development Company |
| No. of stores and services | 225 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 6 |
| Total retail floor area | 2,000,000 sq ft (185,800 m2)[1] |
| No. of floors | 3 |
NorthPark Center is an upscale shopping mall located in Dallas, Texas (USA). The mall is located at the intersection of Loop 12 (Northwest Highway) and US 75 (North Central Expressway). The center has over 235 stores and restaurants.[2]
History
In the early 1960s, developer Raymond D. Nasher leased a 97-acre cotton field on the edge of Dallas. NorthPark Center opened in 1965, as then the largest climate-controlled retail establishment in the world, and is now owned, managed, operated and leased by husband and wife David J. Haemisegger and Nancy A. Nasher (Ray's daughter).
Art in the mall
From its inception, NorthPark Center has made art an integral part of its interior landscape. NorthPark received the American Institute of Architects Award for "Design of the Decade - 1960s" as one of the first commercial centers in the United States to create space for the display of fine art.[citation needed] NorthPark was honored again in 1992 with the A.I.A.'s 25-Year Award for Design Excellence. NorthPark’s tradition of showcasing major works by world-renowned artists from Andy Warhol and Frank Stella to Jonathan Borofsky and Jim Dine continues with three recent acquisitions by NorthPark’s owners, David J. Haemisegger and Nancy A. Nasher: the monumental Ad Astra, 2005, a 48-foot (15 m)-tall, 12-ton, orange steel giant sculpture by New York artist Mark di Suvero; the enormous, 21-foot (6.4 m)-tall, large-scale, stainless steel and aluminum sculpture Corridor Pin, Blue (1999), by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; and 20 elements (2005), Joel Shapiro’s vividly painted sculpture of 20 wooden blocks of varying sizes joined together.
Architecture
Over the years, NorthPark Center has remained its original design. For the most recent expansion, NorthPark’s owners returned to Omniplan (Omniplan), the architectural firm that originally designed the center with white brick and highly polished concrete floors. The expansion turned NorthPark’s original U-shape into a square design surrounding a 1.4-acre (5,700 m2) landscaped garden known as "CenterPark". Featuring a series of lawns, 41-year-old live oaks and red oaks, and the art, CenterPark doubles as a peaceful area for all to enjoy and a new venue for private and community events. This is the only shopping center in the country built around a landscaped garden[3]. For more than 40 years, NorthPark Center has not suffered the dead mall fate of others its age. After a major expansion, at 2.35 million square feet, it's now the second largest mall in Texas and one of the five largest in the U.S., according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.[4][5]
Anchors and stores
With over 25 million visitors annually[6], NorthPark Center has consistently been named the top attraction in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex by the Dallas Business Journal, keeping NorthPark’s anchors at the top in sales volume.[7]
Anchors
- AMC Theatres 15 (88,500 sq ft.)
- Barneys New York - (88,000 sq ft.)
- Dillard's - Flagship store (299,500 sq ft.)
- Macy's - Macy's North Texas flagship store, in former Foley's space (250,000 sq ft.)
- Neiman Marcus (213,800 sq ft.)
- Nordstrom - Dallas's second flagship (203,000 sq ft.)
High-end stores
Surrounding the NorthPark area are two shopping centers: Highland Park Village which boasts Escada, Chanel, Rugby, St. John, Anne Fontaine, Carolina Herrera New York, Judith Ripka, Ralph Lauren, Hermès, Cole Haan, Frédéric Fekkai, Harry Winston, Jimmy Choo, Loro Piana, Luca Luca, Scoop NYC, Scoop Men, etc. and Galleria Dallas which has Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Marciano, Brooks Brothers, ZARA, Just Cavalli, Thomas Pink, Torneau and more. NorthPark is just minutes away from the master planned development Victory Park, Downtown Dallas, Uptown Dallas, Mockingbird Station, West Village, Forty Five Ten boutique, W Hotel, Southern Methodist University, Highland Park, and University Park.
Public Library
Located in NorthPark Center is Bookmarks a Dallas Public Library, a 1,993-square-foot library for children 12 years and younger is a one-of-kind design collaboration between award-winning Dallas architects Omniplan and design associates. Bookmarks is be the first children’s library in the United States located in a shopping center [12].
Television and film location
NorthPark's interior has been frequently used for television and film.
Dr. T and the Women, the Robert Altman film, has one scene in which the character Kate (Farrah Fawcett) visits stores in the area of the Neiman Marcus court, then is seen around the Dillard's court fountain--which she eventually finds herself in, frolicking and splashing in the buff.[13]
True Stories, a 1986 movie co-starring David Byrne, with one scene of a fashion show held at a mall in Virgil, Texas (the movie's fictional setting) during a town celebration; the interior portion of the scene was filmed in a mid-court area between Neiman Marcus and Dillard's. When the mall was reopened in 2006, The Dallas Observer used the mall's ambiance as documented in the film as a source of comparison. "The place looks like a tricked-out spaceship compared to the stark, cold NorthPark in which True Stories was filmed exactly 20 years ago. It looks like the old NorthPark--damned if you can tell difference between the old bricks and the new ones; this thing looks like it was built in a time machine--yet it's brighter too, a friendlier version of the same ol' place."[14] Amusingly, the exterior of Virgil's mall wasn't of NorthPark -- the producers used the outside of the former Big Town Mall in nearby Mesquite.[15]
In the mid-to-late 1960s, the mall played host to Sump 'n Else, a live afternoon teen dance program hosted by Ron Chapman that aired on local station WFAA-TV (Channel 8, ABC). Musical guests included Frank Zappa and Jefferson Airplane.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ [1] NorthPark Center. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/press_release/050307e.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/press_release/050307b.html
- ^ |title=Projects - NorthPark Center |http://www.cmcalamosteel.com/projects/northpark.aspx
- ^ |title=It's NorthPark's big day. High-end mall becomes Texas' largest with unveiling of $225 million expansion |http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050506dnbusnorthpark.d077d73.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/press_release/050307d.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/press_release/050307d.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/newstores/newstorelist.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/newstores/newstorelist.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/newstores/newstorelist.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/newstores/newstorelist.html
- ^ http://northparkcenter.com/press_release/052908.html
- ^ "The Mall Coming To A Theater Near You". Retail Traffic Magazine.
- ^ "The Mall: It's a Good Thing". Dallas Oberver's Unfair Park. May 2006.
- ^ "Review: True Stories directed by David Byrne". City Paper.