Southland Center (Michigan)

This article is about a shopping center in Michigan. For other shopping centers, see Southland (disambiguation).
Southland Center

Southland Center from the eastern Eureka Road entrance, November 2014
Location Taylor, Michigan, United States
Opening date July 20, 1970
Developer Dayton-Hudson Corporation
Management Rouse Properties
Owner Rouse Properties
Architect Victor Gruen, Louis G. Redstone
No. of stores and services 108
No. of anchor tenants 8
Total retail floor area 920,000 square feet[1]
No. of floors 1 (2 in JCPenney, 3 in Macy's)
Website http://www.shopsouthlandcenter.com/

Southland Center (also known as Southland Mall) is an enclosed mall located at 23000 Eureka Road in Taylor, Michigan (a Downriver community located southwest of Detroit), exactly halfway between U.S. Highway 24 (Telegraph Road) and the Interstate 75 freeway, presently anchored by Macy's, JCPenney, Best Buy, Shoe Carnival, Forever 21, Ulta, H&M and a 12-screen Cinemark movie theater. It is the newest of the Detroit area's four "land" malls (Northland, Southland, Eastland, Westland). Southland Center opened on July 20, 1970. It is owned and managed by Rouse Properties, one of the largest mall owners in the United States.

History

An interior entrance to the Macy's store in May 2015. This was taken before the store opened for the day.

Southland Center was designed by Victor Gruen Associates and Louis G. Redstone Associates, and the newly formed Dayton-Hudson Corporation (a merger of Dayton's of Minneapolis and Hudson's of Detroit) developed the mall.[2] When opened in 1970, Southland Mall was originally anchored by a three-level; 272,000-square-foot (25,300 m2) Hudson's at the center of the mall and junior-anchored by a Woolworth's dime store off the center court and a Kroger supermarket on the eastern side. A two-screen movie theater, located off the west court, opened just weeks after the rest of the mall. Kroger built a larger facility across Eureka Road in the mid-1970s, with the former store gutted and divided into several smaller stores, attached to a new wing ending in a new two-level; 215,000-square-foot (20,000 m2) JCPenney store in 1976. In 1986, the theater, by then a four-screen venue, was purchased by AMC Theaters. Then in 1988, a small addition was built onto the western side, including a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) Mervyns store.

Also in 1988, The Rouse Company acquired the mall from its previous owners.[3] A food court called Picnic In The Garden[4] opened around 1992-93 as part of an addition to the southern side (which also included two new store spaces that are presently occupied by Champs Sports and New York & Company) and featured a large triangular-shaped skylight.[5] AMC's four-screen theater closed in January 1999[6] and was replaced with a 22,500-square-foot (2,090 m2) Borders Books & Music a year later. Hudson's was renamed Marshall Field's in 2001 and Macy's in 2006. Also in 2006, Mervyns exited Michigan and vacated its anchor in the mall (that space was subsequently demolished in 2015) and the food court, which had lost all of its tenants in late 2005, was demolished (except for the skylight) and rebuilt into a 45,000-square-foot (4,200 m2) Best Buy store.[7] Later, in 2011, the Borders store shut down when that chain became defunct. Rouse Properties purchased Southland Center from the bankrupt General Growth Properties in January 2012 and in fall 2012 moved to add a number of new tenants; including rue21, Torrid and Taco Bell, to Southland Center, in addition, several existing tenants also renovated their stores.[8] Forever 21 moved from an existing store in the mall to the former Borders space in spring 2013.[9] Then, later in 2013, several smaller store spaces near JCPenney were demolished and replaced by a new 11,300-square-foot (1,050 m2) Shoe Carnival store (which relocated from a strip development across Eureka Road).

On July 2, 2014, Rouse Properties announced that the vacant-for-eight-years Mervyn's space would be replaced by a 12-screen, all-digital, Cinemark multiplex theater (which ultimately opened in April 2016 after several opening date changes), accompanied by several outdoor sit-down restaurants, including the first Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Michigan.[10][11] This is in retaliation to an announcement the previous day that MJR Digital Cinemas would be reopening the former AMC Star Taylor 10 multiplex theater across Eureka Road by the 2014 Christmas season, however, that plan never materialized. In addition, in the late summer of 2014, a complete renovation of the mall began. This project added new flooring and lighting, removed the fountain and replaced it with seating and electronic-device chargers and added several more tenants including Pink, Francesca's and Zumiez. This project was completed in the summer of 2015.[12] Ulta opened a location in the mall along the corridor between Macy's and Best Buy on August 29, 2014. H&M opened on October 1, 2015.[13]

Anchors

References

  1. ↑ "Center information". Rouse Properties. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ "Investor Group acquires Ridgedale Mall,Southland Mall from Ridgedale Center Shopping Mall". Alacra Store. 20 October 1988. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  4. ↑ 1998 Southland Center directory
  5. ↑ "Retail: Battling for shoppers: Metro Detroit's older malls fight for customers, survival: Competition, changing needs drive evolution in shopping". The Detroit News. 19 September 1999. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  6. ↑ "Taylor cinema closes doors: AMC execs say they can't compete with megaplex theaters". The Detroit News. 27 January 1999. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  7. ↑ "TAYLOR: Owners of Southland Center file for bankruptcy". Southgate News Herald. 18 April 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  8. ↑ "Southland Center adds youth-friendly tenants". The Detroit News. 18 October 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  9. ↑ http://www.freep.com/article/20120811/BUSINESS06/308110005/5-new-retailers-coming-to-Southland-Center
  10. ↑ "Cinemark coming to Southland Center as another theater chain picks Taylor". Southgate News Herald. July 2, 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
  11. ↑ "National chain Grimaldi's Pizzeria to locate at Taylor's Southland Center". Southgate News Herald. March 19, 2015. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Southland mall is battleground for rival movie theater proposals". Detroit Free Press. July 2, 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
  13. ↑ "H&M slated to open soon at Taylor's Southland Center mall". Southgate News Herald. September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.

Coordinates: 42°12′00″N 83°15′15″W / 42.200038°N 83.254201°W / 42.200038; -83.254201

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