I do not typically feature a demalling, especially one that happened this long ago, but once a mall, always a mall, and in the case of Arborland in Ann Arbor, there is too much digital history to past this one up. What makes it more interesting is I was here and didn't even know it two years ago, and my proof is seen below, but first the timeline of pictures provided by Old News, and The Ann Arbor News, the archives these pictures are from, and the newspapers that they were printed in long ago will be documented below. These links will provide so much information, that I cannot re-document it here, so make sure to check out the links.
Arborland mall started out as a lifestyle center of sorts developed by Taubman Centers back in 1961, with original anchor stores J.C.Penney & Co, Kresge, Kroger, local chain Federal's and Montgomery Ward. Federal's shortly became Crowley's in 1980, another Detroit area department store chain.
After rival mall Briarwood opened near by, Arborland quickly became enclosed to stay on top of the competition.
Montgomery Ward and Crowley's both left in the 1980's, and Melvin Simon & Associates, now best known as just SIMON, bought the mall and began to convert it to a factory outlet mall, the discount equivalent to Briarwood, or other nearby malls. By this point, the former Wards store was a Burlington Coat Factory, and Service Merchandise took over the former Kresge storefront and Toy's R Us went into the former Crowley's. Marshalls opened in the former JCPenney store and a store opened in the converted Kroger store.
The mall was purchased again in the 1990's by another property manager, Freed and Associates, and the entire mall was raised in plan of creating what is seen in the newspaper article below. The Toys R Us store was rebuilt and the Marshalls and drug store remained.
Below, the pan shot of the center seen shows the Borders book store, which closed in April 2011, and the Circuit City, which closed in March 2009. The Borders became a Ulta Beauty and Five Below a year later, and the Circuit City was converted to Nordstrom Rack in 2013.
Here are my pictures from my trip back in March 2013:
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| I think the Hiller's has since closed because Kroger bought the Michigan chain earlier this year. |
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| Former Circuit City |
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| Former Borders Books |
Thank you for reading and remember to check out Trip to the Mall on Facebook.
Very interesting stuff and great shots. Thanks for covering this :)
ReplyDeleteMiss Ann Arbor
The clock shown on top would have dated to the original opening in 1961, and the numerals looked far different from what was shown in this pic. I think it was around the 1990's that the double-sided clock was rewired to only use 27 of the 45 bulbs originally laid out in the 6 x 9 grid. I considered it sacrilege that there was curvature to show a proper '7', but as it was rewired it came out looking like an upside-down 'L'. Likewise they used to show a proper '1', but it was changed to a stick 'I'.
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