West Peoria and North 35th Avenues
Phoenix, Arizona
Plans for Arizona's first mega mall were announced in November 1970. The project would develop a 107-acre cabbage, broccoli and melon patch located 13 miles northwest of Phoenix's Central Business District. METROCENTER would be built as a joint venture of Phoenix-based Westcor Incorporated and the Chicago-based Homart Development Corporation.
The shopping center plan was met with considerable community opposition. Residents signed an anti-mall petition. Members of the Deer Valley Residents Association initiated litigation in August 1972. Westcor retaliated with a counter suit. The original case was dropped in September 1972. Local ordinances were amended to accommodate the prospective retail venue, whose construction had commenced in June 1972.
METROCENTER was designed by the Flatow, Moore, Bryan and Fairburn firm, Chaix & Johnson Associates, Victor Gruen Associates and Charles Luckman. The mega mall encompassed an astounding (for the time) 1,391,000 leasable square feet and eventually housed over 180 stores. It was the first 2-level, 5-anchor shopping mall in the world.
Stores opened in several stages. A 2-level (187,000 square foot), Phoenix-based Diamond's and 3-level (165,000 square foot), Tacoma-based Rhodes were launched on October 1, 1973. A 2-level (106,000 square foot), Phoenix-based Goldwaters and 3-level (156,000 square foot), Los Angeles-based The Broadway were dedicated on October 22nd. The final anchor department store, a 3-level (242,600 square foot) Sears, welcomed its first shoppers on April 10, 1974.
Charter tenants in the 100 million dollar shopping facility included H. Cook Sporting Goods, See's Candies, Lerner Shops, Judy's ladies' wear, Guggy's Coffee Shop, Waldenbooks, Florsheim Shoes, a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour and Wyatt's Cafeteria.
A mall-within-a-mall concourse, known as The Alley, was located on the Upper Level, near Sears. The fourteen-unit facility included a US Post Office. Another six-unit concourse, known as Bourbon Street, was situated in the southeast corner of the complex, on the Upper Level. It included a McDonald's restaurant.
At the southwest corner of METROCENTER, on the Lower Level, was the Ice Capades Chalet skating rink, which was an Olympic-sized facility. On the floor above -overlooking the skating rink- was MetroPort, a five-unit food court. Configured as a simulated airport terminal, its vendors were "China Airlines" (Chinese cuisine), "Alitalia" (Italian),"AeroMexico" (Mexican), "Lufthansa" (German) and "Western Airlines" (American).
The seating area consisted of mock-up airliners; a simulated Lockheed L-1011 and Douglas DC-10. An imitation Boeing 747 fuselage housed the Metro Lounge cocktail bar. Patrons could look over the skating rink below by gazing out of aircraft port holes. To add to the illusion, the facility included genuine airliner seats, simulated runway lights, beacons and strobe effects.
Apparently, METROCENTER did not have any type of formal grand opening celebration. A "Salute to Arizona" fair was held at the mall, which began on April 6, 1974. The Ice Capades Chalet, MetroPort and Metro Lounge opened for business along with fifty new stores and services. The mall now housed 115.
The General Cinema Corporation opened the Metrocenter I-II-III on October 18, 1974. This 3-plex was located adjacent to the MetroPort, on the mall's Upper Level. A second motion picture venue was built in the mall's northeastern periphery. The Blair Theatres Metro Park Twin showed its first features on December 23, 1977.
Shopping hubs in the vicinity of METROCENTER included CHRIS-TOWN CENTER (1961) {4 miles southeast, in Phoenix}, BILTMORE FASHION PARK (1963) {6.6 miles southeast, in Phoenix}, PARADISE VALLEY MALL (1979) {7.8 miles northeast, in Phoenix}, WESTRIDGE MALL (1981) {7.8 miles northeast, in Phoenix} and -eventually- ARROWHEAD TOWN CENTER (1993) {7 miles northwest, in Glendale}.
The first of many METROCENTER anchor rebrandings was done to the mall's Rhodes store. It was briefly promoted as a Liberty House / Rhodes, with the singular Liberty House brand adopted on August 8, 1977. On October 15, 1978, the store re-opened with a San Antonio-based Joske's nameplate.
Dillard's acquired stores in the Diamond's chain in 1984. The METROCENTER location became a bona fide Dillard's in September 1986. Dillard's bought the Joske's chain April 1987. They shuttered the METROCENTER Joske's in July.
The building was remodeled and re-opened, as Dillard's Metrocenter West, on August 5, 1988. The store carried men's & home merchandise. The original Dillard's was also refurbished. It re-opened, as Dillard's Metrocenter East, on November 23, 1988. This half of the new Dillard's "double-header" sold women's and children's items.
Unfortunately, METROCENTER began to decline in the early 1990s. The double Dillard's store format was no longer viable. The "west" store was shuttered, with its merchandise consolidated into the "east" store. It morphed into a standard (women's & men's) Dillard's on July 22, 1996. The shuttered Dillard's Metrocenter West building was given a 12 million dollar renovation by J.C. Penney, who opened a store on February 1, 1997.
Meanwhile, the mall's skating rink, now promoted as the Ice Palace, closed for good on March 18, 1990. The area was refitted with the 4 million dollar Metro Midway & Discovery Center. Among the many features of this "theme park under roof" were a Space Raiders video tele-combat rocket ride, Metro Downs Derby Race and hand-painted carousel. The Discovery Center included a "bike ride with a skeleton" and giant-sized soap bubble. These attractions opened for business on July 13, 1990.
In March 1990, the first phase of a mall-wide face lift commenced. The MetroPort food court was refurbished and expanded. A 10-bay facility, which was renamed as the Food Fest, included Shogun Express, 1 Potato 2 and Pier 13 Fish & Chips. A new escalator now connected Food Fest with the Metro Midway below.
The food court redo was completed in the fall of 1990. A second phase remodeling, costing 20 million dollars, got underway in January 1993. Mall courts and concourses were refurbished with new marble tile flooring, vaulted skylights, landscaping, fountains, lighting and elevators. The interior of the shopping complex was redone in a Post-Modern version of Southwestern decor.
New stores were signed, such as Sam Goody music, City Styles unisex salon, Champs Sports, Lerner New York, Kid's Foot Locker, Copper Rivet jeans and Rave. A grand re-opening commenced on November 20, 1993. METROCENTER now contained 188 stores and services.
The in-mall 3-plex was acquired by Harkins Theatres in 1993 and renamed Metro Cinema 3. It was shuttered in September 1995, in anticipation of the construction of a Harkins 14-plex. This movie megaplex would incorporate the exiting 3-screen venue, as well as the entirety of the adjacent (lower level) Metro Midway & Discovery Center.
As it turned out, construction of the new megaplex required much more structural retrofitting than anticipated. The project, originally slated for a fall of 1996 dedication, took 3 and a half years to complete. Moreover, the finished venue had been downsized, omitting two auditoriums from the final plan. The Harkins Metro 12 held its (belated) grand opening on March 19, 1999.
By this time, the ownership structure of METROCENTER had changed several times. Originally developed by the Westcor and Homart concerns, the mall had stints when it was the property of a Westcor / Corporate Property Investors joint venture, Westcor / Simon DeBartolo joint venture and DVM Company / Rusty Lyon (of Westcor) joint venture.
In January 2005, the mall was sold to a joint venture of Somera Capital Management, AEW Capital Management and the Macerich Company (who had acquired Westcor in June 2002). A 32 million dollar, indoor-outdoor overhaul began in August 2005.
This project repaved the parking lot, added new exterior landscaping and signage, and rebuilt all mall entrances. Interior refurbishments included an updating of the Food Court, the installation of a family lounge, rocket ship-themed children's play area and new Community Room. These improvements were in place by November 2005.
Goldwaters' METROCENTER location had been rebranded as a Los Angeles-based J.W. Robinson's on February 26, 1989. It morphed into a Robinsons-May on January 31, 1993 and Macy's on July 2, 2006. The Broadway, which had come under the (Phoenix-based) Broadway Southwest division in 1979, was "Macy-ated" in May 1996 and shuttered in March 2005.
Macerich-Westcor sold their 15-percent ownership share in April 2010. AEW-Somera eventually defaulted on their mall loan, with the struggling center being sold out of receivership in January 2012. The new proprietor, New York City's Carlyle Development Group, enlisted Chicago's Jones Lang LaSalle as a management and leasing agent.
Carlyle envisaged a revitalization of METROCENTER that would consist of the following; restyled mall entrances and new outdoor patios, mixed-use residential and office components, a consolidation of some inline spaces (creating room for large big box-type stores) and a repurposing of the vacant The Broadway structure.
In June 2014, plans were announced for a new, 1-level (148,000 square foot) WalMart SuperCenter, which would replace The Broadway building (which had been vacant for over 7 years). Demolition got underway in late 2015, with WalMart opening its doors on October 11, 2017. By this time, the mall had lost Macy's, which was shuttered in June 2015. Sears pulled the proverbial plug on their 44-year-old METROCENTER store in September 2018.
The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the permanent closing of the already-struggling shopping complex. Remaining inline tenants pulled up stakes on June 30, 2020 and were given until July 15th to remove all merchandise from shuttered stores. The Dillard's Clearance Center went dark on April 15, 2023. This left only one operational anchor store; the WalMart Supercenter.
WalMart is being worked into a redevelopment known as METRO DISTRICT. When fully-realized, this facility will include retail, residential and restaurant components. Miami, Florida's Concord Wilshire Capital, Limited Liability Company is overseeing the 850 million dollar project.
Completion of a Valley Metro Northwest Phase II Extension will bring light rail service to the former mall site. The three-station -2-route-mile- expansion will run between the existing Dunlap / 19th Avenue stop and new Metrocenter station. Construction began in September 2020, with the line scheduled to begin revenue service in 2024.
Sources:
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona)
www.metrocentermall.com
www.bizjournals.com / Phoenix Business Journals
www.cinematreasures.org
www.carlyle-usa.com
http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2014/06/24/walmart-announces-plans-for-new-supercenter-at-metrocenter-mall
https://www.fox10phoenix.com
https://www.valleymetro.org
https://ktar.com
Mitch Glaser' MetroCenter memories
John Bueker's MetroCenter memories
John Bueker's MetroCenter memories
