Montgomery Mall

Montgomery Mall was a single-level, 700,000-square-foot enclosed regional shopping center in Montgomery, Alabama. The history of the shopping mall goes back to 1963 when W. L. Holcomb and Associates of Gulfport, Mississippi, were awarded a contract to construct a $7.5 million shopping center on 40 acres of land owned by E. P. Magnum. The original plan called for a gigantic regional center to be built on 90 acres of a 350-acre tract east of Woodley Road. The retail shopping center was scheduled to open in 1965 with Montgomery Fair as the lead tenant. Under the zoning plan submitted to the City Commission for approval in August 1963, the tract was designated as a business district. Commissioners confronted with pressure from downtown merchants and some residents of Woodley Park, Gladlane Estates, Elmsmeade, and Gay Meadows, killed the Holcomb establishment by rejecting the tract’s commercial classification when they adopted the new zoning ordinance. Montgomery Mall was planned to be the largest center in the area, designed on much the same principle as The Edgewater Plaza Shopping City in Gulfport, also constructed by Holcomb.

By early 1965, Montgomery Fair had announced its plans to occupy new facilities covering 171,000 square feet at the present mall site. S. E. Maxwell, president of Montgomery Fair, announced the firm would vacate the Court Street store it had occupied for 20 years. Although Montgomery Fair was moving along well with relocation plans, things were not going so well for Holcomb. They had run out of money to pay the general contractor, engineering, and architectural firms that constructed the Montgomery Fair store. A lawsuit was filed against Holcomb by general contractor Daniel Construction, Inc. for $2.9 million, the engineering firm of Barnard and Burk of MS. for $212,000, and architects August Perez and Associates for $9,500. By the end of 1965, Holcomb was in receivership with Anglo-American Properties, Inc. taking over the firm’s debts. Under a court order handed down by U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., Anglo-American had six months in which to pay the indebtedness. Daniel Construction would own the building if the payment was not made in time.

In mid-1966, Johnson ordered that the property, except the Montgomery Fair facility, be sold at public auction to satisfy the $3 million in debts owed by the Mississippi contractor. Daniel Construction bid $2.5 million for the long-term property lease, which involved approximately 68 acres of land that has been leased for 90 years by Holcomb. Later that year, in October 1966, the City Planning Commission approved a rezoning petition which allowed the shopping center’s planners to begin construction, expected to begin by January 1967. In March 1967, Daniel officials predicted that the shopping center would be open in the fall of 1968. However, various factors indigenous to the construction business delayed the final opening until 1970.

Montgomery Mall formally opened in April 1970, providing a completely enclosed air-conditioned shopping mall for its customers’ convenience. J. C. Penney’s and Montgomery Fair department stores anchored opposite ends of the shopping center. By the time of the formal opening, only 16 of the mall’s anticipated 50 stores were ready for business. In addition to the landscaped and enclosed area with its large fountain, rest areas, and soft music, there was also a supermarket, J. C. Penny’s auto center, and the Montgomery Mall UltraVision theater operating in a separate building on the 50-acre plot. The parking lot provided spaces for more than 3,500 cars.

In 1970, other major tenants at the mall included Lerner Shops, Singer Sewing Center, V. J. Elmore Variety Store, Hardy Shoes, Butler Shoes, Schwobilt Clothes, Renfroe’s Shoppe, Memory Lane Card Shop, Edison Brothers Shoes, and Morrison’s Cafeteria. That same year, the Montgomery Fair department store was sold and rebranded as Gayfers. An expansion of the mall began in 1987 and was completed in 1988, adding a third wing anchored by Birmingham-based Parisian.

In 1998, Glimcher Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, purchased Montgomery Mall for $70 million. At the time of purchase, the mall was at 95% occupancy and would continue to thrive for several more years with more than 100 tenants. Like many other shopping malls across the country, by the early 2000s, online shopping began to take off and retail shopping centers were in decline. Several stores began to close including Gap, Eddie Bauer, American Eagle Outfitters, and Ruby Tuesday. Piccadilly Cafeteria closed its Montgomery Mall location in March 2004. Another Piccadilly Cafeteria in nearby Eastdale Mall closed earlier the same year. Both J.C. Penney and Dillard’s, which acquired the Gayfers chain in 1998, closed their stores at Montgomery Mall in 2005. J.C. Penney relocated to a new store at Eastdale Mall, while Dillard’s moved to The Shoppes at Eastchase. Glimcher Realty did very little to attract new businesses and customers to Montgomery Mall.

Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear replaced the former Dillard’s in early 2005. Hibbett Sports also opened a store in the mall. Parisian closed the following year as did several other stores. In 2007, Montgomery mayor Bobby Bright criticized Glimcher Realty for a lack of maintenance, using the mall for a tax write-off, and said that they “never showed willingness” to improve it. Glimcher sold the shopping mall in May 2007 for $4.4 million. Steve & Barry’s, the mall’s final tenant, remained open until September 2008 when they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, which later converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation. Montgomery Mall permanently closed the same year.

In May 2011, Keith Corporation announced plans to purchase 440,000-square-feet of mall space, which included the former J.C. Penney store, for conversion to health offices. Today, much of the mall remains empty, although the anchor store buildings have been sold off and repurposed by the City of Montgomery and the School Board. The city invested $30 million for a new Public Safety/Police Precinct and Fire Station along with the Board of Education for two separate schools: Loveless Academic Magnet Program (LAMP) High School and Montgomery Preparatory Academy for Career Technologies (MPACT). In 2015, developers from Blue Ridge Capital along with city and county leaders announced the next step in the ongoing revitalization of the Montgomery Mall with a renaming of the complex to One Center. City leaders hope to continue to attract new businesses to the complex’s revitalization.

Thank you for reading. Please share the blog with your friends. I appreciate the support.

You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. For more amazing, abandoned places from across Alabama check out my books Abandoned Birmingham and Abandoned Alabama: Exploring the Heart of Dixie.