Gwynns Falls Parkway and Reisterstown Road
Baltimore (City), Maryland
Maryland's James W. Rouse Company was instrumental in the development of the state's first mall-type shopping complex. The center was built by the Mondawmin Corporation; a joint venture of Rouse and Baltimore's Harry Bart and Alexander Brown Griswold.
Ground was broken on a 46-acre plot, located 3 miles northwest of Baltimore's center city, on July 12, 1955. Formerly encompassing the Brown family estate, the site was developed as the 490,000 square foot MONDAWMIN CENTER. The mall moniker had been derived from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem about "Mondamin," the Native American spirit of the cornfields. Cartographers charting the city of Baltimore and its neighborhoods mistakenly added the w.
In the mid-1950s, a suburban-type shopping center located so near to a downtown core was quite a novel concept. James Rouse would later dub it "urban renewal." His open-air shopping facility was designed by Pietro Belluschi, Dan Kelley and Baltimore's Fisher, Nes, Campbell & Associates firm.
MONDAWMIN CENTER was a 3-level structure with Concourse, Lower and Upper floors. The Concourse housed 30,000 square feet of office space and included a service tunnel. The Lower floor included two supermarkets; both situated beneath a parking deck on the mall's west end. A portion of a Sears store was also beneath a section of the Upper Level Parking area.
An official dedication was held on October 4, 1956, with forty-seven operational stores. In attendance were James Rouse, Theodore R. McKeldin (R) (Governor of Maryland) and Thomas D. Alesandro (Mayor of Baltimore).
The original mall was anchored by the 3-level (189,500 square foot) Sears. Major stores included a (40,000 square foot) Penn Fruit supermarket, (33,000 square foot) Food Fair supermarket, (17,000 square foot) Oppenheim Collins and 2-level (35,000 square foot) G.C. Murphy 5 & 10. There were also Bond Clothes, Lerner Shops, National Shirt Shops, Sun Ray Drug and the White Coffee Pot Cafe.
Retail rivals included WESTVIEW CENTER (1958) {4.4 miles southwest, in Baltimore County}, REISTERSTOWN ROAD PLAZA (1962) {3.5 miles northwest, in Baltimore (City)} and SECURITY SQUARE MALL (1972) {4.8 miles west, in Baltimore County}.
It took nearly 3 years for all fifty-eight tenant spaces to be leased. Nonetheless, MONDAWMIN CENTER was a successful venture by the late 1950s. The open-air complex was reconfigured as a fully-enclosed structure in the early 1960s. An official re-dedication was held on October 2, 1963. Following this event, the complex was often promoted as simply MONDAWMIN.
The Rouse Company sold its interest in the mall in the mid-1960s. Sears pulled up stakes in February 1973. As a result, several other national chains bolted. The vacancy rate soared. As this store exodus was playing out, the vacant Sears was reconfigured as Metro Plaza, a 37-tenant mall within a mall. Pollack-Blum Furniture dedicated a (23,000 square foot) Metro Plaza store on May 6, 1974. Other tenants included Lee's Outdoor, True Value Hardware, Earl of Sandwich, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration and a relocated Central Savings Bank.
Still, the mall struggled. By 1977, MONDAWMIN was 25-percent vacant. The Rouse Company was hired to manage and retenant the shopping hub in December 1979. For this, the company was given 50-percent ownership in the facility.
A turnaround was soon underway. Nineteen new stores were signed, including Circus World Toys, Music Liberated, Waldenbooks, Mill Discount Fabrics and the Signature Hair Care Salon. The retenanting was capped off by the dedication of Baltimore's initial Charles Center-to-Reisterstown Plaza Metro system, on November 21, 1983. The 7.6 route mile subway included a station stop in the parking lot of the shopping center.
Rouse had acquired the 189,000 square foot Metro Plaza in December 1982. A 1.3 million dollar interior renovation was done to to the mall and Plaza in 1985. New flooring, skylights, landscaping and seating were installed. Moreover, the exterior of the complex was resurfaced and parking areas repaved.
By 1986, MONDAWMIN MALL and Metro Plaza were 97-percent leased. They rode a wave of success throughout the 1980s. However, by the late 1990s, the Mall and Plaza were -once again- in a downward spiral. The Rouse Company proposed a second redevelopment in 1999, but this never got off the ground. With the 2004 purchase of The Rouse Company, by Chicago-based General Growth Properties, MONDAWMIN was added to the GGP portfolio.
General Growth revived plans for a mall renovation, with construction getting underway in early 2007. The existing structure was refitted with widened mallways and glass entrances. New lighting, flooring, signage, restrooms and exterior landscaping were also installed.
The 68 million dollar project added three new stores. A (67,000 square foot) Shoppers Food & Pharmacy was dedicated on November 17, 2007. A 1-level (127,000 square foot) Target held its grand opening on July 23, 2008. Lastly, a (22,000 square foot) A.J. Wright welcomed first shoppers on August 8, 2008. MONDAWMIN MALL now encompassed 700,000 leasable square feet and contained 118 stores and services under its roof.
A.J. Wright was shuttered, along with the chain, in February 2011. Marshalls, another TJX Companies division, opened in the space on March 17, 2011. Target shuttered their MONDAWMIN store on February 3, 2018, followed by Marshalls, which went dark on January 12, 2019.
The vacant Marshalls morphed into a Planet Fitness gym in the summer of 2019. The Target space was reconfigured as the TouchPoint Empowerment Center, which opened in 2023. This facility provided local residents with tutoring and mentoring, workforce development and catering and events space. Moreover, retail area was established for local entrepreneurs.
Brookfield Property Partners, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, had acquired a share of General Growth Properties in 2016. In August 2018, Brookfield established 100 percent ownership of the corporation. Hence, MONDAWMIN MALL became part of the Brookfield retail center portfolio.
Sources:
The New York Times
The Baltimore Sun
The Evening Sun (Baltimore, Maryland)
http://www.therousecompany.com (Website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
http://www.baltimorestyle.com / "From Hope to Heritage: The Story of Mondawmin" / Jamie Michael Kendrick / Maryland Transit Administration / April 2002
http://www.ggp.com / General Growth Properties
http://www.stevenswain.blogspot.com
http://www.mtamaryland.com
https://pay.baltimorecity.gov / Baltimore City
https://www.pressreader.com
https://www.wbaltv.com
https://www.villagemondawmin.com
https://touchpointbaltimore.org/empowerment-center
"Mondawmin Mall" and "Baltimore Metro Subway Link" articles on Wikipedia
FAIR USE OF MONDAWMIN CENTER IMAGES AND TARGET TRADEMARK:
The graphics from The Baltimore Afro-American and the Target Corporation trademark illustrate key moments in the mall's history that are described in the article. The images are of lower resolution than the original (copies made would be of inferior quality). The images are not replaceable with free-use or public-domain images. The use of the images does not limit the copyright owners' rights to distribute them in any way. The images are being used for non-profit, informational purposes only and their use is not believed to detract from the original images in any way.
