North Hills (Raleigh)
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North Hills, formerly (and still unofficially) known as North Hills Mall or North Hills Mall & Plaza is a mixed use shopping area in Raleigh, North Carolina.
[edit] History
North Hills Mall originally opened in 1967, the first enclosed mall in Raleigh. The shopping center had originally opened a few years earlier as a small strip center, but was expanded into a mall. It had a simple rectangular design with two floors, the upper level opening onto Six Forks Road and the lower level facing a parking deck on Lassiter Mill Road. Anchors at that time were JC Penney and Ivey's. At the opposite end of the mall from Penney, there was originally a large fountain, although this was torn down and the space became part of a restaurant in 1979. A K&W Cafeteria was a popular destination at the south end of the mall for over three decades.
A "plaza" strip center was across Lassiter Mill Road, featuring the Cardinal movie theater and a Winn-Dixie grocery store. Five years after the center's opening, the larger Crabtree Valley Mall opened two miles away. The mall underwent extensive renovations in 1984, in which several new stores were brought in to fill vacant spaces. Around 1990, the Cardinal closed and was replaced by a Blockbuster video rental store. In 1990, Ivey's became Dillard's. In 2003, following the opening of Triangle Town Center, North Hills Mall, save for JC Penney and the existing parking deck, closed and was torn down, to be rebuilt as a small open air center.
A new parking deck was built under the new center, south of JC Penney. A new Target was built adjacent to that parking deck on the lower level, onto which the lower level of the existing JC Penney now opens. Directly above the Target is a 14-screen movie theater originally operated by Eastern Federal, now by Regal Entertainment. Other stores near the theater and JC Penney include Gold's Gym, REI, some office space, and the Renaissance Raleigh, a high-rise hotel under construction.
The plaza was refurbished to fit in with the reconstruction of North Hills but was otherwise unaltered. The Winn-Dixie closed and the site became a Harris Teeter.
There are plans underway to build an addition to the development, North Hills East, across Six Forks Road.
[edit] 1972 shooting
Although the original mall has been demolished and replaced with newer buildings, long time Raleigh residents still have horrifying memories of Memorial Day 1972, when a sniper opened fire and killed three people, wounding eight others, in the North Hills parking lot. Harvey McLeod hid himself between cars and rose up to methodically pick off innocent shoppers, then committed suicide by turning his .22 caliber rifle on himself. It was first thought that U.S. Sen. B. Everett Jordan, campaigning at the mall that day, was the target of the attack, but the McLeod rampage was random violence.
[edit] External links
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