The mall's imposing new Food Court entrance, built as part of the 1989-
1990 renovation.
Photo provided by Jon Anthony
The interior of the Food Court, taken in 2004, after the mall corridors
had been closed off.
Photo provided by Russell Wells
The Food Court video wall, composed of eighty-seven individual TV
screens...a very '90s shopping mall feature!
Photo provided by Russell Wells
EASTWOOD MALL
Crestwood Boulevard / US 78 and Oporto Madrid Boulevard
Birmingham, Alabama
The second enclosed shopping mall in the Southeast opened in Birmingham, Alabama on August 25, 1960. Alabama's "Magic City" was apparently more progressive than its larger urban rival, Atlanta, Georgia, which did not have an enclosed mall until four years later [see COLUMBIA MALL, June 2008 archive].
Moreover, by opening a climate-controlled shopping center as early as 1960, Birmingham also beat such mega-cities as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.; all of whom opened their first regional-class, interior malls between the years 1962 and 1967.
EASTWOOD MALL was situated on a 33 acre tract, 4 miles east of downtown Birmingham. This million dollar "merchandise city of the future" was envisaged by local developer Newman H. Waters. Upon its grand opening, there were forty-three inline stores and services in the mall proper and its outparcels.
Originally encompassing 350,000 leasable square feet, the complex was anchored by a 1-level (80,000 square foot), dry goods-only J.C. Penney. There were also S.S. Kresge and J.J. Newberry 5 and 10s, Kroger and Colonial supermarkets, a Rexall pharmacy and a liquor store.
EASTWOOD, and its two thousand five hundred space parking area, were situated on a single level, with a two hundred-seat auditorium on a second level, at the northeast corner of the mall.
The J.C. Penney and Newberry 5 and 10 had second levels, as well, which were not used as retail space. There was also a Googie-style bowling alley, mini-amusement park and go-kart track as outparcels of the main mall.
The first addition to EASTWOOD, an eight hundred-seat, single-screen movie theater, opened December 25, 1964. This was the first phase of a 100,000 square foot, west end addition that was completed in December 1965. It included a cafeteria, furniture store and Goodyear Tire and Appliance Center, as well as a second level, which housed leased office spaces.
As this western addition was nearing completion, a 200,000 square foot expansion onto the east end of the mall was underway. This featured a 2-level (100,000 square foot), Birmingham-based Pizitz, a second cafeteria, 2-level Blach's apparel and nine additional stores.
With the completion of this east end addition in 1966, EASTWOOD MALL encompassed over 650,000 square feet of retail area and housed seventy stores.
In 1969, an outparcel strip center was built to the east of the mall, which included a new K-Mart. On the inside of EASTWOOD, changes were in the making. A Birmingham-based, Parisian department store had set up shop, the Hill's Food supermarket at the mall's west end had become a Winn-Dixie and Barber's Cafeteria had reopened under the Pioneer nameplate.
1969 also saw the completion of Birmingham's second fully-enclosed shopping center, the WESTERN HILLS MALL.
Around the time of EASTWOOD MALL's tenth anniversary, a minor facelift was given to the interior of the shopping center. A suspended ceiling was installed in the main corridor, sealing off the original segmented, skylight windows, and its common area was carpeted.
The Kroger closed in 1971, with its space being used for an expanded furniture store at the northwest of the mall. The theater was also divided into a 2-screen multiplex in 1974.
During 1975 and 1976, respectively, two new enclosed shopping centers opened in the region; BROOKWOOD VILLAGE and CENTURY PLAZA. The later was built to the northwest of EASTWOOD, across Oporto Madrid and Crestwood Boulevards.
Soon after, the EASTWOOD J.C. Penney relocated into the new CENTURY PLAZA. Parisian filled its old space with "Young World", which sold children's attire.
In March 1980, Pizitz also vacated EASTWOOD, moving into the former Loveman's anchor spot at CENTURY PLAZA. Service Merchandise took over the old EASTWOOD Pizitz store in September of the same year.
The mall held on for the remainder of the 1980s, even though it faced a major new shopping mall competitor in the area. RIVERCHASE GALLERIA, a 1.2 million square foot, superregional center, opened to much fanfare on February 19, 1986.
Competition from the RIVERCHASE development prompted the owners of EASTWOOD to begin a major renovation of the shopping center in 1989. The middle section of the mall was demolished and a dazzling, 2-story Food Court installed in its place.
A 2-level (130,000 square foot) Parisian was also built -diagonally- into the existing structure. Likewise, the exterior of the remaining mall was renovated. The new-style, 750,000 square foot, EASTWOOD MALL was dedicated in 1990.
The ultimate demise of the enclosed shopping mall in America was given impetus in 1997, with the opening of Birmingham's SUMMIT. This very upscale, open-air shopping mecca was one of the nation's first lifestyle centers. It signalled a new era in retail and, in effect, was the beginning of the end for many 1960s and 1970s-era enclosed malls. By the late 1990s, EASTWOOD MALL was struggling for tenants.
By 2004, the mall was almost completely vacant. Its interior corridors were closed and only those stores having outside access were still open for business. The Parisian location was among the last to go. This store, which was only fourteen years old, closed in January 2005.
By mid-2006, EASTWOOD was being bulldozed. Within months, the nation's seventh enclosed, regional-class shopping mall, and all its outparcels, was a pile of rubble.
Construction began on the new EASTWOOD VILLAGE in November 2006. This 360,000 square foot, open-air power center was built by Birmingham-based MAP Development. It is anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter, which opened October 22, 2007.
Other inline tenants in the 50 million dollar shopping venue include Old Navy, Ross Dress For Less and a Ruby Tuesday restaurant.
Sources:
http://www.mywebpages.comcast.net/ / Eastwood Mall / Website created and maintained by Russell Wells
"Eastwood Mall" article on "DeadMalls.com"
"Eastwood Mall" article on Wikipedia
www.bplonline.org/resources/DigitalProject/EastwoodMall(Birmingham Public Library)
"50 Million Project Half Leased" / Birmingham News / June 29, 2006 / Michael Tomberlin, staff writer
7 comments:
Thanks very much for this concise summary of the Eastwood Mall's history and, sadly, its demise. I was particularly pleased to see the floorplans that located several of the major Mall stores for all three incarnations--1960/1966/1990--of the Mall's footprint. I can, from memory, add several store names to the chart, but don't remember all the stores, even though I spent many, many hours there hanging out in the 1960s and early '70s. One store of note from the 1967 floorplan is Pasquales, our favorite pizza place. It was located in that shaded block, next to Winn Dixie and across from the Theatre. Thanks again and I hope other fans of Eastwood can fill in the blanks on all the stores.
Was a reason in this mall's demise the poor location? I know that Riverchase Galleria is very visible from the Interstate.
Jonah,
I suppose that the freeway access factor might have affected business at ESTWOOD early on. The segment of I-20 that it is located near to was not completed until 20 years after the mall opened.
From what I can tell by the information on EASTWOOD, CENTURY PLAZA being built right across the street DID NOT help at all. Also, RIVERCHASE coming along in 1986 was a fatal blow to the (then) 26 year-old mall.
As we can see by reading through the "mall museum" assembled here, there were several factors that negatively affected various mid-century malls in the USA....
LOCATION: Sometimes local demographics changed. Neighborhoods declined and took a local mall into the downward spiral.
COMPETITION: Let's face it, developers in the 1970s and 1980s overbuilt. By the early 1990s, there were way too many malls in most metro areas. Some went under, some did not.
UPSCALING: My personal belief is that shopping malls, as a collective whole, became too blasted upscale during the early 1970s.
Take the circa-1960 EASTWOOD. The original mall was a more mid-market -common folk- shopping center, with 5 and 10 stores, J.C. Penney, supermarkets and a liquor store.
There were some ritzy apparel stores...but this mall (and the other early malls in America) were conceived as 1-stop shopping meccas...everything under one roof....with a variety of middle market and high-end retailers.
In the early 1970s, shopping mall supermarkets and 5 and 10 stores began to disappear from the typical retail mix. More and more "luxury retailers" filled spaces....malls became too snazzy, expensive and upscale for the average citizen.
This provided a niche for Wal-Mart to take advantage of. The enclosed shopping mall, as we knew it, was on the way out.
Also, a marketing group somewhere decided that Americans no longer had the time to while away a day at an enclosed shopping center. The "power center" (open-air, featuring strips of "big box" stores lined up along a huge parking lot) became the next new thing.
Shoppers now did not have to deal with a conveniently-arranged, sealed off from inclement weather, sort of shopping center....No, "they* wanted to be out in the cold and rain (or stifling heat) and try to walk from one end of the wonderful, new "stretch mall" to the other....all the while trying not to get run down by all of the cars trying to find a parking space RIGHT IN FRONT of whichever store they were wanting to go into.
Doesn't make much sense to me...
Anyway, it appears that EASTWOOD's location was probably not the reason for its eventual demise.
Cheers,
I'm not sure if Interstate access played any significant part in the eventual decline and demise of the Eastwood Mall.
You have to remember that the completion of the Interstates in Alabama came fairly late--I-20 right there near the Mall wasn't completed from Birmingham all the way through to Atlanta until very late in the '70s or early '80s.
I think the story of the Mall's declne was the rise of competeing malls--Century Plaza right across the street and then Brookwood Mall in the more upscale Mt.Brook area of town. The former raided anchors like JC Penneys and Pizitz and the latter provided a newer, more upscale experience for shoppers beginning in the mid-'70s.
The second major factor was the demographics of the Mall's surrounding neighborhoods. Areas like Crestwood were teeming with kids in the 1960s, myself among them. The Mall was our hangout and, although, I doubt many of us had big bucks to spend, cumulatively, we must have pumped some serious money into the Mall's cofffers. And, even more so, did our parents.
The Mall benefitted from the decline of the downtown shopping districts at the time, so given the favorable demographics and the lack of competing malls in the area, the Mall really was the place to shop and hang out in the '60s.
That all changed when we kids grew up, went away to college, and generally, moved out of those neighborhoods, making the area an empty-nester dominated demographic.
The Galleria, coming later in the '80s certainly played its part in sealing Eastwood's fate, especially since the Baby Boomers had migrated down that way--the Shelby County area, south of where Eastwood formerly drew its customers from.
Being young--I left Birmingham when I was twenty four--I assumed the Mall would go on forever. But I guess nothing is forever, especially when it comes to the uncertainties of retail. I'm just glad I was able to enjoy the Eastwood Mall in its prime. It was a great place for a kid to while away many a carefree afternoon.
Tom Frieling
tfrielin@uga.edu
Tom,
Thanks for posting..and for the additional info on the rise and fall of Alabama's first interior mall.
This one os among the most dearly-remembered of the 200 various malls on the blog here.
I wish I could have seen it in its heyday (I drove by it in 1999 or 2000...and didn't even notice it).
I have a bunch of friends in Birmingham who grew up in the 80's and they all have very fond memories of that mall and that area and were quite upset about them tearing down Eastwood. The Irondale area is like a ghost town now with the abandoned Circuit City and the Toy R Us and several closed restaurants.
I use to sing in Birmingham on a regular basis earlier in the decade so one of our favorite places to stop when leaving downtown was the Olive Garden at the northwest corner of the parking lot. I would always get out of my car and look at Eastwood and was so sad that it was all but abandoned (I had no idea there were still stores operating there. YES, that is how abandoned it looked). I wish I had gone inside at least once before they bulldozed it.
I drove around Century Plaza the other day (April 2008) and cannot believe it is still open. It has this very eerie feel to it like you are watching something dying just as you look at it. I am going back to take pictures in the next few weeks. I just can't see this mall lasting much longer.
Kagami,
Thanks for posting.
I used to go to B'ham in the late '90s. I ate at a Ryan's that was adjacent to CENTURY PLAZA....
EASTWOOD was right across the road..I don't even recall noticing it.
How could I miss something that big?
Duh!
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