Lansing Mall- (Lansing, Michigan)

          Being the capital of the state of Michigan, home of the Oldsmobile, education at Michigan State, the city of Lansing has a lot more to offer than meets the eye, since 2004, Oldsmobile production came to an end, and the job market to a hit because most jobs were in the plants and factories, but have bounced back with Lansing now being the production capital of the Cadillac CTS. The city of Lansing lives and breaths Oldsmobile, the REOlds Museum is downtown, REOlds chapter holds the annual Oldsmobile Homecoming each year in the suburb of Dimondale, and Ann Arbor's little brother is on the other side of downtown, in East Lansing, home of the Spartan's.

          There are a lot of people that call Lansing, Michigan there home, families that grow up in the area, businesses started here, and all the students that attend Michigan state, although,all these people need a place to shop and socialize, there are two malls in enclosed malls in Lansing, Lansing Mall, which is covered here, and Meridian Mall, in East Lansing, or Okemos, Michigan, and the Eastwood Towne center, an outdoor pavilion.

          The Lansing Mall is actually located in Delta Charter Township, suburb centered outside of downtown, the mall opened in July 1969 will original anchor stores Montgomery Ward, Detroit-based Federal's, and local chain Wurzburg's, based in Grand Rapids. Federal's later closed in 1972, and Wurzburg's was converted to Knapp's, a Lansing chain of department stores.

          JCPenney later took over the Knapp's store, and the former Federal's store was briefly a Robert Hall Village clothing store, this lasted until the department store chain Hudson's came in with an extension remodel of the mall's west side. In 1987, the north wing of the mall was added with a Mervyns and food court.

          In 1997, the mall was purchased by GGP, and was renovated heavily, including an expansion of the food court, and new stores such as Old Navy and Barnes & Noble were added come the millennium. In May 2001, the Montgomery Ward, the last original anchor store, closed resulting in the chains bankruptcy. Later the same year, Hudson's converted to Marshall Field's.

          The east section of the mall remained vacant until 2002, when Younker's opened it's first store in the area in the former Wards store. Dunham Sports was added next to the Old Navy store in 2004.

          Marshall Field's was one of the several nameplates owned by Federated and May Co. department store companies, as Macy's bough in 2003, by 2006, all regional and local department store chains owned by either one were converted to Macy's, including the Lansing Mall location.

          Steve & Barry's opened in the former Mervyn's store in 2007, only lasting a year before the entire chain closed up, space was occupied by TJ Maxx in 2009, as Old Navy closed the same year. In 2013, a new cinema was proposed to take up the former Mervyn's/ Steve & Barry's store, which opened in July 2014. 

Here are pictures of the mall taken in June 2015, the same day as the Oldsmobile Homecoming:

Former Hudson's/ Marshall Field's, now Macy's

Former Mervyn's/ Steve & Barry's, now a 12-screen cinema

Former Wurzburg's/ Knapp's, currently JCPenney

Former Montgomery Ward, currently Younker's

Love the Florida look of the palm trees in the center court.

Thank you for reading and remember to comment and post questions below.

TTTM

FIND: Old Super Kmart Center Floor Map

          Back in October 2014, I was on a trip to the Motor City, the largest city in Michigan, Detroit, for more than one reason, mostly to see several Kmart stores that were in line of closing, and others to get credibility for, one of which was a super center in the Detroit city limits, this was a Saturday, and the stores last day of operation, given Sears announced the stores closure back in July, its take an average 10-12 weeks to liquidate a typical Sears or Kmart store.

          Everything that was left, which wasn't much, was 90% off, and about 90% of the store was blocked off, other than the register bay's. I did not buy anything, given nothing was left for sale, but as I walked out, I ask's the on-duty "receipt highlighter" security if I could have the store map, given it was not for sale and Sears Corp. would not be needing it back.

          This is a Super Kmart Center map, the typical store layout of the late 90's, right before the bankruptcy, and like many, in there later years, were converted to a traditional store layout, that said, the "bakery", "deli", "produce", "drygoods", and "frozen food" sections of the map have been cut out. Also what I think was the Olan Mill's and maybe optical sections were also cut out.

Store #9814 which was 19990 Telegraph Road Detroit, Michigan 48219

          I found this to be rather interesting that the map was taped to another sign, a poster board with a "Big Kmart" introductory advertisment printed on it.

Dated February 1999, around the same time the End Cap Sign I have was produced, because it fits the style.

Thank you for reading and remember to comment and post questions below.

FIND: Builders Square Credit Card

          Looking at old charge cards for sale on Ebay, I came across a rather interesting one, a Builders Square Credit Card with the Kmart logo underneath. Builders Square was the home improvement division of Kmart Corporation, before selling them to a buyer in 1997, who also bought Home Quarters and Hechinger, and managed to not merge the chains together, and result, closing all stores by 1999. Most stores were bought and converted to The Home Depot.

          Interesting to see that JCPenney is on the back, and at the time, owned Eckerd pharmacy chain, before selling them to CVS in 2007.

Thank you for reading and remember to ask questions and comment.