Summit Place Mall

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Summit Place Mall is a shopping mall located in Waterford Township, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. The mall is located on the northwest corner of Telegraph Road (US-24) and Elizabeth Lake Road on the border of the city of Pontiac. The 1,400,000 square-foot retail center was completed in several phases between 1963 and 1993. The Namco Corporation is the current owner and manager of the mall.

Summit Place Mall, at its peak, contained 180 specialty stores on one level along with six anchors. Today, the mall is less than half-full, and two of the six anchors are dark. Summit Place is now considered a 'dead mall', with a high vacancy rate that can be attributed to several factors.

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[edit] History of Summit Place Mall

  • 1963: Summit Place Mall made its debut as the "Pontiac Mall", a small regional one-story shopping center with approximately 30 tenants. Anchoring the original mall were Hudson's Budget Store (which would later become a regular Hudson's), Montgomery Ward, and Kresge. At that point, the mall was approximately 500,000 sq. ft.
  • 1973: Sears built a large two-story store on the north end of the site. The building and parking lot were both owned by Sears, as is their practice today. While the store was not yet attached to the mall, the mall would later connect to it.
  • 1988: JC Penney opened a 2-floor anchor store directly west of Montgomery Ward, and a small connecting wing was completed to attach the new store to the existing mall. Construction began on a massive expansion which would open a year later.
  • 1989: "Oakland Pointe Center", a large strip mall, opened directly across Telegraph Road from Summit Place. 1989 and 1990 would see the addition of more than one million square feet of new retail to the area, oversaturating the market.
  • 1989-1990: The mall's new expansion opened to great fanfare. Now dubbed Summit Place, the mall had grown to 1.4 million square feet and more than 200 tenants. The expansion continued north from the JC Penney wing, before curving northeasterly to a new Kohl's (which opened in 1988 as MainStreet), and then north again, connecting to the Sears that opened in 1973. Furthermore, the new wing also featured a food court called Picnic Place, which featured a wide variety of restaurants and an arcade. It was also around this time that Service Merchandise would open next to Hudson's, giving the mall a total of six anchors.
  • 1991: Summit Place's developers opened "Summit Crossings" (also known as "Summit West"), a strip mall on the west side of the site, anchored by Office Max, Sports Authority, Target, and Farmer Jack. As of 2007, only Target and Office Max remain in this strip mall, although Target will be moving to a new store in the near future.[1]
  • 1993: Summit North opened, also built by the mall's developers. Summit North contained Michigan's eleventh Best Buy store and a Builders Square home improvement store. The Builders' Square chain would file for bankruptcy less than a year later in early 1994. The location was soon shuttered, but it later briefly operated as a HQ (Home Quarters) for several years. The space has remained vacant far longer than any time in which a tenant was present. Occasionally, used-car auctions through local dealerships have been held either inside the building or in the parking lot. In 2006, however, Steve & Barry's opened in half of the former HQ.
  • 1994: Hudson's began an extensive top-to-bottom renovation of the store; this store would become very modern and fancy by many accounts.
  • 1995: Gander Mountain built its third Michigan store, loacted west of Best Buy in a new building.
  • 2000: Montgomery Ward declared bankruptcy and closed all stores. The store would see periodic use as a paintball arena, and would also host various mall events, but largely it would remain vacant.
  • 2001: The long-standing Hudson's changed its corporate name to Marshall Field's; the store at Summit Place was thus re-named. Don Pablo's, a free-standing restaurant located at Summit North, closed for business a few years after opening. The building has remained vacant since.
  • 2005: Steak & Shake closed its outparcel. Mall tenants Ruby Tuesday and Kerby's Koney Island (both long-standing tenants) also closed.
  • Early 2006: The mall's food court now consists of only two eateries, as the mall's Taco Bell is shuttered.
  • Summer 2006: A Church's Fried Chicken restaurant opens in a new outlot building facing Telegraph Road.

[edit] The demise of Summit Place Mall

The decline of Summit Place has not been attributed to any single factor. It is generally agreed upon by politicians and developers that there were several causes for the failure of Summit Place, including:

  • The closure of two anchors (Wards and Service Merchandise) via bankruptcies. It should be noted that prior to the closure, these two were among the best-performing stores in the region in their respective corporate chains.
  • A slump in the local economy beginning in the late 1990s, causing many stores to consolidate and/or close.
  • An over-estimation of the demand for retail space in the area, as developers saturated the market with additional construction in the 1990-1993 period.
  • Lack of access to a major freeway, which other regional malls have (such as Twelve Oaks Mall and Great Lakes Crossing).
  • The mall's unusual and occasionally haphazard layout, preventing easy traffic flow from one part of the building to another.

[edit] Summit Place redevelopment

Namco made plans early on to add a water park and entertainment complex to the mall after purchasing it from General Growth Properties. These plans have apparently fallen through due to lack of financing. Recent state legislative action has resulted in a law that will allow the owners of Summit Place to receive a tax abatement for redevelopment of the site. The proposed redevelopment calls for demolition of half of the mall, and the rezoning of much of the property to include housing.[2]

[edit] Anchors

[edit] Former anchors

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.labelscar.com/michigan/summit-place-mall#comments
  2. ^ http://theoaklandpress.com/stories/111805/loc_2005111801.shtml

[edit] External links

Metro Detroit shopping malls

Briarwood Mall • Brighton Mall • Canterbury Village • Eastland Center • Fairlane Town Center • Fountain Walk • Great Lakes Crossing • Green Oak Village Place • Lakeside Mall • Laurel Park Place • Livonia Mall • Macomb Mall • The Mall at Partridge Creek • Northland Center • Oakland Mall • Pointe Plaza • Renaissance Center • Somerset Collection • Southland Center • Summit Place Mall • Tower Center • Twelve Oaks Mall • Universal Mall • Village of Rochester Hills • Westborn Mall • Westland Center
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