Long a retail hub for central Arkansas residents, University Mall was a shadow of its former self by the time it closed 10 years ago.
At its opening as The Mall in November 1967, the indoor shopping center off South University Avenue in Little Rock had two anchor department stores open — Montgomery Ward and M.M. Cohn — and a J.C. Penney on the way.
Thirty-two other national and local retailers would open in the coming months. Dozens more would appear throughout the mall’s four decades.
'BEST POTENTIAL'
University Mall’s design, which incorporated the use of indoor air-conditioning, was viewed as “revolutionary” and came at a time when enclosed malls were still in their infancy. The concept of an enclosed mall had sprung up in the mid-1950s in the U.S.
The pedestrian walkways inside the retail center were “wide enough in some areas to compare with a four-lane interstate highway,” the Arkansas Gazette reported shortly before The Mall’s opening.
Interstate 630, now a major east-west connector crossing University Avenue, was also still largely in the works. Paving on the first section of I-630 was in progress in August 1968.
“A new look on the skyline of western Little Rock,” one newspaper headline read, heralding the $5 million University Mall project as “massive” in scope.
The late 1960s designation of University Avenue as being on the city’s west side marks one of the many contrasts from present-day Little Rock.
The Little Rock population in 1960 was nearly 108,000, according to U.S. Census Data. By 1970, around 132,500 people resided in Arkansas’ capital city. Based on census estimates in 2016, around 198,000 residents currently live in Little Rock.
The namesake of the University Mall’s developer, Melvin Simon & Associates (now Simon Property Group), said at the time of the project’s announcement that Little Rock offered “the best potential” he’d seen in a city of its size.
CHANGES IN STORE
Since 1960, patrons had been visiting Park Plaza, a block north of The Mall. No Dillard’s anchored what was an outdoor shopping center then, and fewer shops lined its walkways.
In March 1975, The Mall’s first cosmetic renovation was completed. That coincided with a name change, and the retail center became University Mall.
A second, $15 million facelift — announced in October 1987 and completed about a year later — gave University Mall its final appearance, including a tent-like structure over part of a new concourse that rose nine stories high.
The remodel added a second level and an additional 70,000 square feet of retail space to the existing 465,000-square-foot destination. J.C. Penney’s space became larger, and M.M. Cohn became a two-story department store.
The expansion also brought the number of store spaces to about 55, with the potential for up to 70.
Around the same time, Park Plaza’s then-owner, General Growth Properties Inc., announced plans for the shopping center to also become an enclosed mall.
That announcement tightened the market and set off a competition for tenants.
Park Plaza was rebuilt from the ground up and enclosed an area of 676,579 square feet at a cost of around $20 million. Once completed, it featured three stories of retail space and Dillard’s as an anchor.
UNDER PRESSURE
Evidence of University Mall’s eventual end came increasingly in the early 2000s and included a lawsuit against Simon Property Group from landowners who said the mall was in a state of disrepair and neglect.
The 2001 departure of Montgomery Ward, which declared bankruptcy in December 2000, left a large vacancy in the mall. M.M. Cohn closed in 2007.
By February 2002, the indoor center had an estimated vacancy rate of between 30 percent and 40 percent. Newspaper reports detailed that some of the tenants began to include military recruitment and workforce centers.
A looming lease set to end in 2026 left Simon Property Group discussing the site’s future with landowners.
“It’s too short to put major tenants in there. It’s too short to tear it down and rebuild it,” Little Rock lawyer Bill Patton told an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter in June 2004. His family was one of the landowners.
Developers had spent years determining the property’s next steps. Others eyed a redeveloped hub on the South University Avenue site.
The largest proposal, a 1-million-square-foot Summit Mall to be built by Simon Property Group off Shackleford Road, never came to fruition. The idea had been tossed around since the 1990s.
Instead, another shopping center, Shackleford Crossing, opened in the southwest section of the city in the spring of 2007 — just months before University Mall’s closing.
CLOSURE: 10 YEARS AGO
The last day for University Mall was Oct. 27, 2007. Demolition crews occupied the fenced-in site through early 2008, bulldozing the mall’s anchor stores and concourses.
As of October 2017, retail outlets such as a Target store still occupy the 28-acre property, which is now known as the Park Avenue shopping center. A parking deck on the property’s north side is the only remaining element of University Mall, serving as parking for residents of on-site apartments.