Lexington Mall

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The former Lexington Mall is located in Lexington, Kentucky along US 25/US 421 (Richmond Road). This relatively small defunct shopping mall was constructed in 1974 as a competitor to the Fayette Mall along US 27 (Nicholasville Road), however, it contained only two anchors. The Lexington Mall was smaller and had less offerings and was landlocked between residential development to the west and New Circle Road to the east, encompassing just 30 acres of land.

The shopping center held on for a number of years. Lack of general upkeep led to its demise: in 2000, several tenants pulled out cumulating with Dillard's, the last tenant in the shopping mall, to leave in September of 2005. A few weeks after that, demolition began on east anchor with a false stucco wall leaving a glaring gap. Before the last tenants left, there was a lawsuit pending with a Home Depot store built on the same lot, claiming it was in violation of the original planning and land-use agreements with the city and the Home Depot must be demolished, but the lawsuit became moot when Lexington Mall closed.

Currently it is owned by the Saul Centers Inc., a real-estate holding firm based in Bethesda, MD, that has, thus far, offered no detailed plans for redevelopment or adaptive reuse. The local government has expressed interest in using eminent domain to purchase the dead mall and turn it into a small park, but no progress on this point has been made.