Lafayette Square Mall- (Indianapolis, IN)

Lafayette Square Mall is a considerably dead mall in the backside of the Indianapolis suburb known as Pike Township, IN. The mall is one of the oldest, and first enclosed malls built in the city of Indianapolis, and has seen a lot of different stores over the last 40 years, major demographic changes, and now only the current anchor stores are Burlington Coat Factory and Shoppers World, both dreary discount clothing stores.

Indianapolis Road

The mall opened in 1968 with 90 inline stores, single screen movie theater, and over a million square feet with original anchor stores JCPenney, Sears, G.C. Murphy, Kroger supermarket, William H. Block, which actually opened in 1969.

The mall expanded in 1974 with the addition of a sixth anchor, Ohio-Based Lazarus. In 1978, the Kroger store closed and was demolished, and replaced with local department store chain L.S. Aryes, built near the JCPenney.

Competition sturred up in the 1970s with the addition of two more malls built in greater Indianapolis, built by the same company as Lafayette Square, Castleton Square opened in 1972 and Washington Square opened in 1974.

In 1987, Lazarus bought William H. Blocks department store chain and the Blocks store was converted to Lazarus, and the original Lazarus was converted to Montgomery Ward.

In 1993, G.C. Murphy 5&10 closed.

New, downtown mall, Circle Centre poised strong competition for Lafayette Square when it opened in 1995. The mall remodeled in 1998 when bought by Simon Property Group, adding a racing themed food court in the old G.C. Murphy.

Montgomery Ward closed in 2001 and only the first floor was replaced by Burlington Coat Factory.

Lazarus closed in 2002, and was replaced with a church, and in 2005, the demise of the mall didn't stop when an open-air center called Metropolis opened and JCPenney moved there. Also, in 2005, Old Navy closed. In 2006, L.S. Aryes was converted to Macy's with the Federated/ May Co. merger.

Former Sears

 Simon sold the mall in December 2007 and the mall was renovated again, but now as severe as in 1998. Shoppers World in 2007 in the former JCPenney, and was considered a mix of JCP and Value City.

In October 2008, Sears announced it would close its mall store, and in January 2009, Macy's announced it would also close.

Between 2010 and 2011, many of the national chain stores and restaurants all closed and were somewhat replaced with local shops and clothing stores.

There was a Steve & Barry's store in the mall from 2004 to 2008, before closing with the entire chain, prier, the store was a Waccamaw Pottery from 1997 to 2002.

Former L.S. Aryes/ Macy's

In 2012, America's Incredible Pizza closed with many other small stores

The mall has seen some major crime in the last years with fights and shootings around the holiday season and black friday.

Former Sears

Sears Auto Center

Former Lazarus/ Montgomery Ward

Former Waccamaw/ Steve & Barry's

"L.S. Aryes" labelscar

Former William H. Block/ Lazarus/ Church/ XScape Fitness/ America's Incredible Pizza

Former JCPenney

There is a lot of history to be told, but where will the mall go from here, any thoughts?

Feel free to post and comment below and thank you for reading.