Towson Town Center
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Towson Town Center is a large indoor shopping mall located in Towson, Maryland. It was the largest indoor shopping mall in Maryland prior to the completion of Arundel Mills in late 2000 in Hanover. The mall consists of two main parts, an older part and a newer part. The older part, which consists of the first two floors, was formerly an open-air mall that was built in the 1960s. The mall was enclosed by the late 1970s. Over the years, stores and attractions were added on to improve the traffic in the mall and make it more competitive with other malls in the area. One memorable effort was the introduction of "Gadgets," a theme restaurant with mechanical characters performing periodic shows on stage. It opened, and closed, in the early 1980s. Some of the original stores survived this era, but later closed, including Hess Shoes, Loewmeyer's, and Friendly's.
The third and fourth floors were built in 1992. While the third and fourth floors are directly above each other, access to floors three, two, and one, respectively, are in a downhill pattern, as entire mall property is on a slope.
At opposite ends of the mall are two department stores, one a Macy's, formerly Hecht's, and the other a Nordstrom. These are the largest stores inside the mall; the Macy's is located on the top three floors, while the Nordstrom occupies all four floors.
The mall also features a food court on the third floor as well as a Rainforest Cafe on the second floor, and a T.G.I. Friday's on the first floor.
A large parking garage is connected directly to the mall structure. A popular area high school teacher was murdered on one of the garage's upper levels in 2004, leading some to worry that the crime in inner-city Baltimore was gaining a stronger foothold in the suburbs. After the murder, several reports of mugging as well as muggers with guns lead to several security upgrades with many firsts in mall security.
[edit] Location
Towson Town Center is located at the intersection of York Road, Dulaney Valley Road, and Joppa Road, and is also bordered in the north by Fairmount Avenue. It can be accessed easily from the Baltimore Beltway by taking exit 27 and heading south.
The mall is very close to Goucher College, Towson University, the Johns Hopkins University, the Towson Sheraton, and the Towson library.
Public bus service to the mall is available on Routes 3, 8, 11, and 55, operated by the Maryland Transit Administration.
[edit] Anchors & Majors
- Abercrombie & Fitch (12,500 sq. ft.)
- Anthropologie (10,490 sq. ft.)
- Crate & Barrel (11,444 sq. ft.)
- Express (14,616 sq. ft.)
- Gap/Gap Kids (10,639 sq. ft.)
- H & M (19,632 sq. ft.)
- Macy's (194,157 sq. ft.)
- Nordstrom (213,000 sq. ft.)
- Nordstrom Rack (31,000 sq. ft.)
- Radcliffe Jewelers (10,495 sq. ft.)
- Rainforest Cafe (17,097 sq. ft.)
- TGI Friday's (10,000 sq. ft.)
- Victoria's Secret (12,577 sq. ft.)
