Phoenix's Chris-Town Center

The first fully-enclosed shopping center in Arizona was built in the northern environs of Phoenix. Although signage on the front of the complex plainly reads "Chris-Town Mall" on this 1963 postcard, the shopping hub was officially promoted as CHRIS-TOWN CENTER at the time.
Photos from Phoenix Public Library Collection / Petley Studios, Incorporated 

While CHRIS-TOWN was Arizona's first fully-enclosed mall, the partially-enclosed BAYLESS SHOPPING CENTER was the state's first retail hub with an enclosed mall. This complex, in the west Phoenix suburb of Goodyear, opened in September 1958. It encompassed 73,200 square feet, with thirteen stores. CHRIS-TOWN encompassed over 600,000 square feet and contained fifty-three stores.
Photo from https://www.goodyearaz.gov / City of Goodyear Arizona

In this snapshot from May 1961, the retail hub is still in the throes of construction. Its Korrick's anchor store, yet to open for business, appears in the foreground.
Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / May 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona

Meanwhile, Bob's Big Boy, a freestanding mall outparcel, was up and running. The restaurant had opened in February 1961.
Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / May 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona 

Here we see an aerial view of CHRIS-TOWN CENTER, taken on its grand opening day, August 24, 1961. The complex was thronged with shoppers during its dedication, with over 130,000 in attendance. The resulting traffic tie up was considered the worst in the city's history.
Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / September 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona

Another grand opening day snapshot. Montgomery Ward, the mall's second anchor, appears in the foreground. The shopping hub also housed a dry-goods-only J.C. Penney among its fifty-three store spaces.

Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / September 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona

We switch back to color photos for the following spread. These reveal the true beauty of the original CHRIS-TOWN, which -to the author- qualifies as one of the most stunning Mid-Century malls ever built. Here we see the Court Of Fountains, which was situated at the center of the 1,000-foot-long "refrigerated mall."
Photo from Phoenix Public Library Collection / Petley Studios, Incorporated

Equally as breathtaking was the Court Of Flowers, the focal point of the mall's east end. The area featured lush tropical vegetation and a papier mache' bull known as Ferdinand. The Sidewalk Cafe snack bar is seen in the background.
Photo from Phoenix Public Library Collection / Petley Studios, Incorporated 

The Court of Birds, at the west end of the complex. The cages contained a variety of feathered creatures. Behind all of the hanging bird cages is a Woolworth's mall entry. Montgomery Ward's storefront appears on the right.
Photo from Phoenix Public Library Collection / Petley Studios, Incorporated

To get our bearings, we have a basic physical layout of the original CHRIS-TOWN CENTER. This drawing shows the mall proper and its three outparcel structures; the aforementioned Bob's Big Boy, a First National Bank branch and Convenience Center, which included an El Rancho Market grocery store.

Getting more detailed, we present a high-definition Complete Plan which shows all of the fifty stores and services that were in operation at the August 1961 grand opening of CHRIS-TOWN CENTER. Three spaces are still available for leasing.

We'll call the next two photos Chris-Town Christmas Past. The mall is shown as it was decorated for its very first yuletide season, in December 1961. A contemporary account related that the "Christmas Fantasyland" at CHRIS-TOWN was a display of beautiful "kaleidoscopic colors."
Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / December 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona 

Here we see the interior of the festively-festooned shopping hub, which featured giant-sized storybook characters, Santa in a snow-white igloo, a gingerbread house and mini-castle.
Photo from "The Webb Spinner" / December 1961 / Del E. Webb Corporation / Sun City Museum, Arizona

By 1979, the complex is quite a bit larger and encompasses around 1.2 million leasable square feet. The east anchor has been Broadway-branded and nearly doubled in size. J.C. Penney has also been enlarged and upgraded to a full-line store. Two wings (in medium gray) were added in the mid-'70s. A Southwest Wing includes a Los Angeles-based Bullock's. The Southeast Wing features a 6-screen multiplex on an upper floor.

We now zoom forward in time over 25 years. An early 2000s photo shows (what was) the Court of Fountains in CHRIS-TOWN CENTER. In 2006, it is a standard court area in the complex, which has been known as PHOENIX SPECTRUM MALL since November 2001.
Photo from www.labelscar.com / "Prange Way"

In 2005, the Southeast Wing -including its 6-plex cinema- was razed. It was replaced by the Harkins Christown 14, which debuted in July 2007. By this time, a freestanding theatre complex had also been shuttered and demolished.

Photo from www.christownspectrum.com

The shopping hub, promoted as CHRISTOWN SPECTRUM MALL since November 2007, had three official name changes by that time. It was also renovated and demalled to such an extent that it was unrecognizable from its original configuration. What few circa-1961 sections that remain are shown in black on this circa-2012 layout. Everything else was added between 1995 and 2007. 

The first phase of Phoenix's light rail system began revenue service in December 2008. The 19.7-route-mile Valley Metro starter line connected the southeast and north sections of the city. Its 19th Avenue-Montebello station was adjacent to CHRISTOWN SPECTRUM MALL.

Photo from Wikipedia / "Kinkisharyo"

By the 2020s, the shopping hub is promoted as simply CHRISTOWN SPECTRUM. In its present state, the complex covers around 1.2 million leasable square feet, contains sixty-five tenant spaces and has parking accommodations for over 4,300 autos. CHRISTOWN lost two anchor stores in the fall of 2020, when Costco and J.C. Penney pulled up stakes. The Costco spot was eventually filled by American Furniture Warehouse.

CHRIS-TOWN CENTER

West Bethany Home Road and North 19th Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona

Arizona's first fully-enclosed shopping center was built on an 86-acre tract, located 3 miles north of downtown Phoenix. CHRIS-TOWN CENTER named was after Chris Harri, who had maintained a farm on the property for several years.

The mall was designed by Welton Becket & Associates of Los Angeles and the Friedman & Jobush firm of Tucson. It was developed by the Phoenix-based Del E. Webb Corporation. In its original state, the complex encompassed over 600,000 leasable square feet on a single level. A small Mezzanine housed 10,000 square feet of office space and a 300-seat Community Auditorium. The parking area had space for over 5,300 cars.

CHRIS-TOWN CENTER opened for business on August 24, 1961, with fifty inline stores (out of an eventual  fifty-three). It was anchored by a 2-level (58,100 square foot) J.C. Penney, 2-level (146,100 square foot) Montgomery Ward and 2-level (86,800 square foot), Phoenix-based Korricks.

Charter tenants included Walgreen Drug, Hanny's men's wear, Guggy's Coffee Shop, Lerner Shops ladies' wear, Singer Sewing Center, Holiday Shoes, and S.S. Kresge and F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10s. A rear parking area Convenience Center included an El Rancho Market grocery store.

The mall proper was based around three central areas. J.C. Penney faced on the Court Of Fountains. Montgomery Ward opened on the Court Of Birds. Korricks mall entry ran along the east side of the Court Of Flowers.

An outparcel Piccadilly Cafeteria was added to the northeast corner of the mall site in the mid-1960s. It was joined by the National General Corporation Fox Chris-Town Theatre, which was a southwest parking area outparcel. This single-screen venue showed a first feature on February 8, 1967. It was renovated and re-opened, as the Fox Chris-Town 2, on December 25, 1970.

In 1966, Korricks was rebranded as a Los Angles-based The Broadway. As part of the transition, its floor area was enlarged to 149,100 square feet. Later in the decade, the existing Penney's was expanded into a 3-level (191,000 square foot) full-line store.

A mega-sized mall was built in the vicinity of CHRIS-TOWN in the early '70s. METROCENTER {4 miles northwest, in Phoenix} opened in October 1973. As a reaction, CHRIS-TOWN underwent a major renovation and expansion.

A corridor was cut though existing store space adjacent to S.S. Kresge, which connected into a new Southeast Wing. The mall's second theatrical venue, the United Artists Chris-Town Cinema 6, was installed in the Upper Level. The new theater showed first features on April 4, 1974.

On the periphery of the mall, the twin-plex movie house was expanded into the Mann Theatres Christown 5, which debuted on December 22, 1976. The venue was later reconfigured as the Harkins Christown 11, which was dedicated on November 22, 1996.

Meanwhile, the CHRIS-TOWN Woolworth had closed in 1974. A mall corridor was built through its space which connected into a Southwest Wing. This addition was anchored by a 2-level (149,800 square foot), Los Angeles-based Bullock's. A grand opening was held on November 14, 1977.

The completion of PARADISE VALLEY MALL {8 miles northeast, in Phoenix}, in 1979, put the hurt on CHRIS-TOWN. This resulted in a general decline of the mall during the 1980s and '90s, with several long-time tenants vacating the center.

Bullock's was replaced by Phoenix-based Diamond's on June 24, 1985. The store, rebranded by Dillard's in September 1986, was eventually demoted to a Dillard's Clearance Center. The Broadway, which had come under the Phoenix-based Broadway Southwest banner in 1979, was vacated in August 1992 and torn down in 1994. A 1-level (125,000 square foot) Wal-Mart was built on its space, which opened on January 3, 1995.

J.C. Penney moved to METROCENTER in 1997. Its former CHRIS-TOWN store sat vacant until it was bulldozed and replaced by a 1-level (137,000 square foot) Costco. This store began business in November 2002. The Montgomery Ward chain crashed and burned in March 2001. Its CHRIS-TOWN space was divided into four stores. One of these, a 1-level (30,000 square foot) Ross Dress For Less, opened in November 2002.

The shopping complex was renamed PHOENIX SPECTRUM MALL on November 19, 2001. Its Wal-Mart was expanded into a (251,300 square foot) SuperCenter in 2003. In March 2004, the mall was sold to a joint venture of Beachwood, Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty and New York City-based Coventry Real Estate Advisors. The former owner, Phoenix-based Grossman Company Properties, retained a small ownership share.

In October 2004, the Dillard's Clearance Center went dark. The building was not retenanted, but demolished as part of a demalling. This project  got underway in mid-2005. Nearly half of the 1,145,000 square foot shopping center was razed and replaced by new stores and services. The Harkins Christown 14 multiplex, built on the site of the shuttered Cinema 6, showed first features on July 13, 2007. A 1-level (98,000 square foot) J.C. Penney was dedicated on August 3, 2007, followed by a 1-level (173,900 square foot) SuperTarget, which held a soft opening on October 10th.

CHRISTOWN SPECTRUM MALL held a grand re-opening in November 2007. The shopping center proper now encompassed 830,500 leasable square feet and housed forty-four stores and services Phoenix's Valley Metro light rail system extended service to CHRISTOWN SPECTRUM MALL. The 19th Avenue-Montebello station, adjacent to the mall's west parking area, opened on December 27, 2008. In December 2015, Kimco Realty of Houston, Texas acquired the CHRISTOWN property. 

The complex was hit with a double whammy in 2020. Costco went dark on September 20th. J.C. Penney did a second retail retreat from the complex on September 27th. The (137,000 square foot) Costco building was retenanted by Englewood, Colorado's American Furniture Warehouse. The abandoned J.C. Penney was divided two ways. A (60,000 square foot) Hobby Lobby welcomed first shoppers on July 8, 2024.

Sources:

The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona)
http://www.barbarastew-art.com / "Chris-Town Retrospective" / JPB Publishing, Limited
Del E. Webb Corporation "Webb Spinner"
https://www.mcassessor.maricopa.gov / Maricopa County, Arizona
http://www.labelscar.com
https://www.cinematreasures.org
http://www.valleymetro.org
https://www.kimcorealty.com
https://christownspectrum.shopkimco.com
"Bullock's," "MetroCentrer (Phoenix, Arizona)" and "Paradise Valley Mall" articles on Wikipedia