Metrocenter Mall

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For the mall in Gateshead, England, see MetroCentre.

Metrocenter is a large regional shopping mall in northwest Phoenix, Arizona. It is bounded roughly by Interstate 17, 35th, Dunlap and Peoria Avenues. A small amusement park, Castles N' Coasters, is located adjacent to the mall.

1 History
2 Anchors & majors
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

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Metrocenter was a joint venture of Westcor, a regional shopping center development firm headed by a group of real estate investors and developers led by Russ "Rusty" Lyon, Jr., and Homart Development Company, the real estate division of Sears, Roebuck and Company. The project was announced in November of 1970, the first site plans and artist renderings announced in the spring of 1972, and construction beginning in June 1972. The mall was opened for business in October of 1973, and when it opened as the first two-level, five-anchor mall in the U.S., it was the largest shopping center in Arizona to date (housing more shopping space than the entire Phoenix metropolitan area had in 1957) and was considered one of the largest shopping centers in the United States.

The original anchor tenants were:

Sears, opened spring 1974, still in operation
Rhodes, opened October 1, 1973, became Liberty House, Joske's, Dillard's Men's/Home, and J.C. Penney. Location is now vacant.
Diamond's, opened October 1, 1973, now Dillard's
Goldwaters, opened late October 1973, became Robinsons-May, now Macy's
The Broadway, opened late October 1973, which became Macy's, 156,000 sq ft (14,500 m²). location closed in the spring of 2005 and is now vacant.

The 1,400,000-square-foot (130,000 m²) mall was built on 312 acres (1.26 km²) in an area of Phoenix that was a sparsely populated residential district at what was then considered the northern edge of town (the area was actually an unincorporated part of Maricopa County which was annexed by the city of Phoenix because of the project). Lyon's firm correctly noted that population growth would favor northwest Phoenix. After the site was chosen,

"...from then on, it was a matter of appealing to the marketing acumen of the major department stores. They didn't take much convincing."^[1]

There was some initial opposition to the project from neighborhood residents who feared heavy traffic generated from major retailers as well as buildings which exceeded height limits. As a result, there were some delays in the rezoning of the land by the city of Phoenix, but residents' fears were eventually addressed to their satisfaction. A lawsuit filed by the "Deer Valley Residents Association" was dropped by late September 1972.^[2] (In later decades, a few mid-rise hotels and office buildings would be built in the nearby area.)

In June of 1972, the First National Bank of Arizona (now the Arizona operations of Wells Fargo Bank) made a $21 million loan to the developers, which was the largest commercial real estate loan ever made in Arizona up to that time.^[3] The total cost of Metrocenter was estimated at $100 million.

Metrocenter has over 200 stores on two levels, and has a gross leasable area of 1,391,859 square feet (129,307.9 m²)[4]. The mall is known for a fountain that shoots water up in the air periodically. These fountains were later removed in later years and replaced with kid's playground areas and resting/vending areas. In the first 10 years, there was a bar called MetroPort which had an airliner theme in a simulated airplane fuselage (this is no longer a feature of the mall) the portal windows overlooked an ice skating rink in the lower levels of the food court area. There was also a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor and a movie theater in the area overlooking the ice rink. Later the rink became a kiddie ride park (for a very short period) then was eventually taken over by Harkins Theatre when they expanded to 14 screens. Shoppers initially came from as far away as Flagstaff and Tucson to see and to shop at the large mall. Over the years, other retailers and shopping centers also opened on or near Metro Parkway, the ring road surrounding the mall. The Phoenix Public Library has a major branch location on this ring road.

Metrocenter became the model for later Westcor master-planned developments around Phoenix, such as Paradise Valley Mall. Metrocenter was originally thought to eventually be a source of between 4,000 and 5,000 jobs, and by 1983, towards the peak of its initial period of popularity, the mall employed about 8,000.

As the Phoenix area expanded several miles beyond the mall's original location in the years after its opening, upscale shoppers began to frequent newer malls such as Scottsdale Fashion Square and Paradise Valley Mall. This, along with the decline in the income level in the adjacent residential neighborhoods, hurt Metrocenter, and the mall suffered somehwat by the mid-1990s. Holiday crowds still jammed the ring roads, but the profile of the average Metrocenter shopper became more blue-collar rather than upscale. The mall's owners started an effort to revitalize the mall in the early 2000s. Although there are still a number of stores left over from when the mall was more middle-class (such as Anchor Blue American Eagle Outfitters and Guess), all new stores will cater to lower-income, predominantly Hispanic shoppers, with stores such as d.e.m.o. (which closed nationwide), Joyeria del Pueblo, and other stores that have a hip-hop theme.

In January of 2004, Metrocenter was sold by DVM Co., a joint venture of Simon Property Group and Rusty Lyon, Jr., to a joint venture of The Macerich Company and AEW Capital Management. The new ownership brought back the founding developer, Westcor, by now an Arizona retail giant and subsidiary of The Macerich Co., to manage the property (Lyon left Westcor some years earlier). A complete renovation to the exterior was completed in December 2005. On September 9, 2006, Robinsons-May became Macy's after the merger between the May Company and Federated Department Stores. Macy's anchored the mall as of February 2005, and later decided to shut down that location. Also, the interior is undergoing remodeling with new stores scheduled to debut in fall of 2006.

A 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m²) Sports Chalet store was signed in August 2006 to replace the vacant Van's Skatepark on the second floor of the mall near Sears.