Houston's Montclair Center Project

Gruen's second prospective retail center was to be built on a two parcel (23.7 acre total) site, located 6 miles west of downtown Houston. The plan envisaged for the MONTCLAIR SHOPPING CENTER was even more innovative than that of Detroit's circa-1950 EASTLAND.

The proposed Houston complex was to be anchored by two major department stores. This was unheard of in 1952, when what few suburban shopping malls that existed were centered on only one. Moreover, the complex was to feature a fully-enclosed and climate controlled "mall" area...yet another radical -and untried- concept.

The center would have straddled the two adjoining land lots, with Weslayan Street (which bisected the site) being routed beneath the mall structure. This design feature, along with a rooftop parking deck, made the construction cost for the center prohibitive.

Gruen and his backers were unable to commit two competing department stores to the project. The plan was abandoned, with a smaller-scale strip center eventually being built on the property.

 

Gruen's MONTCLAIR CENTER plan, several years ahead of its time, was perhaps too radical a concept for the conservative early 1950s. At the time, the idea of a single-anchor, open-air mall was only starting to catch on. Here, we had a plan for a bi-anchor, fully-enclosed shopping complex, years before one was built.