The Mall Of Memphis : Remembering the Marketplace of the Midsouth

Remembering the Marketplace of the Midsouth

Do YOU Remember The Mall of Memphis?

2008 is upon us and time continues to march on. This humble site hosted 1567 shoppers a month last year. While here, they viewed 11,330 pages. Every month. This site was busy. The Mall was not. There was no after Thanksgiving Black Friday at the Mall of Memphis this year. Not a single last minute Christmas shopper packed in frantically searching for that special gift this year. No parking lot battles for a space in overcrowded, bumper to bumper lots. Not this year.

Just four short years ago the Mall of Memphis shut it's doors forever - Christmas Eve 2003.

Dorothy Hamill performs at the Malls opening ceremonies.

The anticipation of the long awaited Mall faded soon after opening and it became a steadfast fixture of Memphis business. Or so it seemed. Even with 1.2 million sqft of enclosed retail space, many thousands of sqft in surrounding retail space (along the drives and entrances to the mall) and 13 full-service hotels with 1,700 rooms (within one mile of the door!), the mall doors at 4451 American Way closed to the public for the last time on Christmas Eve 2003, becoming the largest enclosed mall ever to cease operations in the United States.

Originally listed at 885,627 SqFt of retail space, expansions over the years increased the total to 1.2 million SqFt supported by 5,564 parking spaces scattered around the massive complex.

Today, everything has been completely demolished. Nothing remains but 90+ acres of grass, concrete medians outlining the entrances and memories.

What happened? Visit the Conclusions page for our take on the issue, What Does It Mean page for the lessons we should learn or just visit the Visitors page and tell everyone what YOU think happened. //// Shoppers in the mall right now: 8

The Mall of Memphis story is not unique to Memphis....

The thing that interests me about the death of shopping malls, and the greyfield phenomenon in general (if it can be characterized as such, which I think it probably can), is that the death of a mall can effectively signal the death of the only meaningful public/quasi-public/quasi-private space for the informal gathering of diverse groups of people in suburban neighborhoods or urban areas that have no other town center. Clearly, shopping malls mean a lot more to communities than just places to exchange money for goods and services. In a consumer and car-oriented culture like ours, the failure of a big mall can create a significant void for local communities - people naturally gather at malls for a variety of both sanctioned and unsanctioned activities, and when this gathering space is lost how can or should that gap be best filled? In other words, I guess I feel the failure of a regional shopping center is an important social issue, at some level, and not just an economic one. Where else, I ask, do both senior citizens and teenagers loiter in the same place?

I'm not saying "save the mall to save communities" or anything drastic like that, I just think that issues of collective identity in neighborhoods can be caught up in shared experiences of the built environment (like the omnipresent mall), which makes this an interesting issue for planners to think about.

by CanCon

and

The history of some malls around Cleveland, especially Randall Park Mall, Severance Center and Euclid Square, seem to mirror that of the Mall of Memphis.

In many cities where I lived, the perception of crime seems to have a much greater impact on malls than on traditional shopping districts or regular plazas. If a mall gets a reputation as being a crime center, even when it's undeserved, its fate is sealed.

by Dan

Cyburbia.com - The fragility of the traditional enclosed mall shopping center

We would take our allowance and blow it at the Mall of Memphis, playing video games and eating junk food. I can remember watching Rocky 3 at the Theater. I had my Cub Scout soap-box derby here also...