Southwest Center Mall

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"Red Bird Mall" redirects here. For other uses, see Red Bird Mall (disambiguation).

Southwest Center Mall (formerly known as Red Bird Mall) is a distressed shopping mall located in Dallas, Texas.

[edit] History

Southwest Center Mall, originally owned by the DeBartolo family, opened in 1975. It was, and remains, the only major shopping mall located in the southern half of Dallas. The mall's original name, Red Bird Mall, came from the Red Bird area of Dallas in which it is located.

Initially, the mall was anchored by four of the major department stores in the area:

• Sears, which anchored the eastern end of the mall
• JC Penney, which anchored the western end of the mall
• Titche's (later Joske's, then purchased by and renamed Dillard's), whose store was in the middle of the mall on the southern side
• Sanger-Harris (later Foley's, now Macy's), whose store was in the middle of the mall on the northern side

Later, Montgomery Ward added a store near the Sears location, on the same side of the mall as Dillard's.

Many of the stores in the mall were either opening their first stores in the southern sector of Dallas, or relocated from older shopping centers in the area.

[edit] The decline

The mall did well in the beginning, despite its location in the relatively undeveloped southern portion of Dallas. Much of its early success can be attributed to the lack of competing malls and its location at the intersection of two major freeways (Highway 67 and Interstate 20).

The two major freeways surrounding the mall, however, were both a blessing and a curse. The mall became a hotspot for car thefts and break-ins, and so began the negative perceptions which ultimately contributed to the mall's decline.

These perceptions became so entrenched that several businesses in the area having "Red Bird" in their names changed their names so as to avoid being associated with the mall. Some speculate that nearby Red Bird Airport, owned by the City of Dallas, changed its name to Dallas Executive Airport to avoid the association. Officially, however, the name was changed to better market the airport's services and amenities to corporate and private travelers.

Competition further contributed to the mall's decline. Newer malls in Arlington, Grand Prairie, and nearby Cedar Hill have all attracted shoppers away from Southwest Center Mall.

DeBartolo attempted to remodel the mall to give it an updated look and to attract new tenants, but it did little to overcome the negative perception's associated with Red Bird. So, it sold the mall to NAMCO Financial, a California investment group, in 1997. NAMCO changed the name to Southwest Center Mall in an attempt to rid the mall of its bad reputation under the Red Bird name.

However, NAMCO had no better success. Montgomery Ward left the mall when it liquidated, and JC Penney closed its store in 2001. An attempt was made to convert it into an "Afro-centric" mall (the area surrounding the mall is predominantly African-American), but it too met with little success.

NAMCO attempted to sell the mall to General Growth Properties in 2004, but without success.

[edit] The future

The Parks at Arlington Mall continues to draw traffic from Southwest Center, and a new open air mall is being built in Cedar Hill which is scheduled to be completed in early 2008. Thus, it is likely that Southwest Center Mall will continue to decline if not close completely. Both Dillard's and Macy's plan to close their stores at Southwest Center when they open stores in the new Cedar Hill mall.