Mall St. Matthews
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Mall St. Matthews is a Louisville, Kentucky shopping mall located at 5000 Shelbyville Road in the eastern suburb of St. Matthews.
Opened in 1962 and originally named The Mall, it was the first shopping mall in the state of Kentucky. Located next to the recently completed section of the Watterson Expressway, the mall had A & P, J.C. Penney, Kaufman-Straus, and Rose's as its anchor stores. The mall's features included a children's play area near Rose's (which is now a food court), an oversize chess set near Kaufman-Straus, and numerous fountains. The name of the mall was changed to The Mall in St. Matthews as other malls were built , but the mall gradually declined with stores moving to newer malls. In the late 1980s the mall was purchased by The Rouse Company which simplified the name to Mall St. Matthews and remodeled the mall to include a food court, built a new wing dedicated to stores owned by Limited Brands, and expanded the former Kaufman-Straus store (which had become both a Stewart Dry Goods and L.S. Ayres before closing) to accommodate a Bacon's department store which relocated from its free standing location at 3937 Shelbyville Road. As more retail stores wanted to move to the mall after these changes, a new wing was built which resulted in the re-routing of Sherburn Lane to the west of the new wing. The mall expanded again in the late 1990s to accommodate another department store, Lord & Taylor, but that store closed a few years later and is currently vacant except for a regional junior department store Dawahares.
The mall currently has over 1.1 million square feet and includes the anchor stores of J.C.Penney and separate Dillard's locations for the Women's department and the Men's and Children's departments. The mall is currently owned by the Chicago company General Growth Properties.
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| Malls in the Louisville, Kentucky area |  |
|---|---|
| Fourth Street Live • Green Tree Mall • Jefferson Mall • Lyles Mall • Mall St. Matthews • Mid City Mall • Oxmoor Center • Park Place Mall • River Falls Mall |
