As the year 2018 began, the outlook for METROCENTER was bleak. All primary anchors had bolted. Gayfers became the first (in 1999), followed by Dillard's (2004), Belk (2009) and Sears (2012). Burlington (Coat Factory), which occupied half of the old Gayfers space, remained. The City of Jackson moved offices into a portion of the Belk building in 2012, joined by a satellite facility of Hinds Community College.
Graphic from www.shopmetrocentermall.com (Website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
METROCENTER
US Highway 80 West and Robinson Road
Jackson, Mississippi
The largest shopping mall in the Magnolia State was built by a joint venture of Chicago's Homart Development and Montgomery, Alabama's Jim Wilson & Associates. The structure was designed by Birmingham's Evan Terry Architects.
METROCENTER occupied a 125-acre tract, located 4 miles west of the Mississippi State House. The super-sized shopping center was officially dedicated on March 1, 1978. The event was attended by Cliff Finch (Governor of Mississippi) (D), Dale Danks (Mayor of Jackson) and several local dignitaries and department store officials.
The dual-level, fully-enclosed shopping hub encompassed approximately 1,250,000 leasable square feet and initially contained 101 stores and services. When fully-leased, the mall housed 149. There were four department stores. On the south was a 2-level (288,100 square foot), Jackson-based McRae's. On the east, a 2-level (176,800 square foot), Mobile-based Gayfers. A 2-level (224,100 square foot) Sears was situated on the mall's north side.
These stores opened as part of the mall-wide grand opening. A 2-level (178,000 square foot), New Orleans-based D.H. Holmes filled the west anchor spot and welcomed its first patrons on October 13, 1978.
Charter inline stores included Gryder Shoes, Zales Jewelers, Size 5-7-9 Shops, Morrow's Nut House, Kay Jewelers, Jeans West, Logos Bookstore, Card America and Danny's men's wear. The Metro Convenience Center, in the southwest section of the mall site, housed Service Merchandise and the United Artists MetroCenter Cinemas IV. This movie multiplex showed its first features on December 15, 1978.
Access to METROCENTER was provided by the Interstate 220 spur expressway, which opened to traffic between 1979 and 1981. The mall was touted as the largest shopping complex between Atlanta and Dallas for many years. However, this distinction was relinquished to Birmingham's RIVERCHASE GALLERIA, when its Macy's anchor store was dedicated in March 1987.
METROCENTER had quickly outpositioned its nearest competitor, JACKSON MALL (1970) {3.7 miles northeast, in Jackson}. That shopping center languished until it re-opened, as the JACKSON MEDICAL MALL. A second METROCENTER rival was NORTHPARK MALL (1984) {10 miles northeast, in Ridgeland}. Encompassing 958,000 leasable square feet, it would eventually outposition METROCENTER. As a competitive measure, METROCENTER was renovated, with a food court installed in 2nd Level space. The Courtyard opened, with four vendors, on December 12, 1984.
By the early 1990s, METROCENTER had become notorious for thefts and burglaries, with a resulting loss of sales. Business was impeded further by two new lifestyle centers. DOGWOOD FESTIVAL MARKETPLACE & PROMENADE {11 miles northeast, in Flowood} opened in 2002, with RENAISSANCE AT COLONY PARK {10.9 miles northeast, in Ridgeland} following in 2008.
Anchor rebrandings at METROCENTER had commenced in May 1989, when the Holmes store received a Dillard's nameplate. Mercantile Stores, the parent company of Gayfers, was bought by Dillard's in August 1998. Instead of setting up a "double-header" (separate men's and women's stores) operation, Dillard's closed the METROCENTER Gayfers in April 1999.
Dillard's then consolidated its Jackson locations into two stores at NORTHPARK MALL, with the METROCENTER unit being shuttered in November 2004. Burlington Coat Factory opened, in the first floor of the vacant Gayfer's, on August 31, 2007. An attempt, in 2009, to lease the second floor of the Gayfers building as Metro Marketplace (a mall within a mall) was unsuccessful. McRae's was rebranded by Charlotte-based Belk in March 2006.
METROCENTER had been given a face lift renovation in 1993. The center became a holding of Addison, Texas-based Coyote Management in August 1997. They sold the complex to a joint venture of Los Angeles-based Jackson MetroCenter Mall and MetroCenter Mall-Atlanta in 2003. The complex continued its downward spiral. Los Angeles-based Cannon Commercial, Incorporated acquired the mall proper (sans anchors) in March 2005. Belk downsized into the first level of its store space in March 2008 and closed for good on June 6, 2009.
The City of Jackson purchased the vacant Holmes-Dillard's in December 2009, with the hope of reselling the property to a redevelopment entity. By November 2010, the shopping center was ready to be foreclosed on. However, its owners avoided this action by catching up on delinquent mortgage payments. Soon after, management was entrusted to the Jackson-based Overby Company.
In April 2010, construction commenced on the initial stage of the so-called "Retro Metro" project. Spearheaded by Jackson's David Watkins, it entailed the renovation of the vacant Belk into a (60,000 square foot) Metro Office Park. This would be leased by the City of Jackson. Municipal offices moved in between February and November of 2012.
The mega mall was to become the epicenter of a 213 million dollar redevelopment enterprise. This was to include condominiums, four parking garages, a multiplex cinema, 250-room hotel and indoor water park. The existing shopping concourse was also to be rebuilt into a Bourbon Street-style shopping promenade ala Canada's WEST EDMONTON MALL.
Most of these features were to be situated along a boulevard, which would have been cut through the southeast end of the mall, just north of the Belk-Metro Office Park structure. Unfortunately, hopes for this reinvention of the shopping hub were derailed when Sears shuttered its METROCENTER store on May 7, 2012.
In 2013, the unsuccessful Metro Marketplace was reconfigured as La Plaza de MetroCenter, a Latin-themed mall within a mall. This opened on the heels of the shopping facility being placed on the open market, which took place in October 2013.
METROCENTER was sold in November 2014; the buyer being a joint venture of Jackson's Overby Company, Colby Capital (of Overland Park, Kansas) and the Walter Morris Companies (of Wichita, Kansas). An exterior renovation was proposed, but never came to fruition.
In the meantime, new stores and restaurants opened in early 2017. These included Stamps, Big Apple Inn and Griffin's Fish House. Hinds Community College established an employment training center in the remainder of the McRae's / Belk building. The 2-level (160,000 square foot) educational facility opened in September 2018, soon after all inline mall tenants had been evicted.
Interior shopping concourses were shuttered in August 2018. The mall proper -sans anchor stores- was sold in December 2019, with the buyer being Jackson's Emily Sanders & the Seiferth Holdings, Limited Liability Company. Plans to re-open sections of the mall, such as the Food Court, were announced.
An April 2020 soft opening date was postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic. A rescheduled November 2020 soft opening never materialized. The Burlington store went dark on February 18, 2022, leaving the moribund mall with no operational stores. Film maker and visual artist Curtis Nichouls bought the vacant Dillard's building in April 2024. He planned to reconfigure the structure as a film studio, visual arts school and police precinct.
Sources:
The Jackson Free Press
The Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi)
www.shopmetrocentermall.com
www.cannonmgt.com
www.metro-marketplace.com
Hinds County, Mississippi property tax assessor website
www.jacksonmedicalmall.org
https://www.mississippifreepress.org
"Metrocenter Mall" article on Wikipedia
