Meridian Mall is a super-regional shopping mall located in Okemos, Meridian Township, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan, United States. It opened in 1969, the same year that its main competitor, Lansing Mall, opened on the other end of the Lansing metropolitan area. The mall, which originally featured J.W. Knapp Company and Woolco as its anchor stores, underwent a large number of expansions in the 1980s and 1990s, which added two more wings of stores. Meridian Mall features about 125 stores plus a food court. Anchor stores are J. C. Penney, Macy's, and Dick's Sporting Goods, with two vacant anchors both previously occupied by Younkers. Other major tenants include Bed Bath & Beyond, H&M, Launch Trampoline, Old Navy, Planet Fitness, and Schuler Books & Music. Meridian Mall is owned and managed by CBL & Associates Properties.
Video Meridian Mall
History
Meridian Mall was built by M.H. Hausman Company and opened to the public on November 6, 1969. The mall was built at the northwest corner of Grand River Avenue (M-43) and Marsh Road in Meridian Charter Township. Originally, the mall featured two anchor stores: Lansing-based J.W. Knapp Company, which also opened a store at Lansing Mall the same year, and Woolco, a discount department store then owned by the F. W. Woolworth Company. Major tenants at the time included the Meridian 4, a four-screen movie theater multiplex operated by American Multi-Cinema, along with a G. C. Murphy dime store, a Cunningham Drug pharmacy, and a Hamady Brothers supermarket. Two local restaurants, Schensul's Cafeteria and Elias Brothers Big Boy, also had locations in the mall at the time. The Hamady store was closed in 1972 and remained vacant until it was turned into a second movie theater complex four years later, resulting in a total of eight theater screens between the two complexes. In 1979, the G. C. Murphy store was closed and its space was divided into a new mall section consisting of twelve shops.
J. W. Knapp filed for bankruptcy in 1980 and sold its locations at Meridian and Lansing malls, plus a third at Westwood Mall in Jackson, to J. C. Penney. These openings resulted in the closure of a J. C. Penney store in downtown Lansing. A new wing was added to the south end of Meridian Mall in 1982, bringing in Detroit-based Hudson's as a third anchor. Woolco closed later in 1982 as the F. W. Woolworth company closed all of the Woolco stores. A year later, the Woolco space was subdivided between a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) Service Merchandise catalog showroom and a new mall corridor with space for up to fifteen more tenants. A 1987 expansion added another new wing ending in a Mervyns department store. The store opened concurrently with seven others in the state, one of which was also located at Lansing Mall, as part of the chain's introduction to Michigan. This addition at Meridian Mall included more than ten new storefronts, including Lerner New York, LensCrafters, Babbage's, and new locations for Gantos and County Seat.
1990s-early 2000s
On August 27, 1998, CBL & Associates Properties acquired Meridian Mall from Samuels & Associates. A $20 million mall renovation began in 2000. As part of the renovation, the vacated Service Merchandise building was demolished for a two-story Jacobson's department store, replacing one in nearby East Lansing. In addition, Bed Bath & Beyond built a store in the same wing, the food court was relocated to center court, and the Hudson's was expanded by 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2). The new food court opened in late 2001. Taking place of the previous food court the same year was Schuler Books & Music, which relocated from across the street. Galyan's, a sporting goods store based out of Indiana, opened next to the new food court in 2002.
Jacobson's declared bankruptcy in 2002 and closed. A year after closing, the former Jacobson's was converted to Younkers, which had also opened at Lansing Mall that same year. Due to space limitations in the old Jacobson's space, Younkers operated its men's and children's departments in a separate storefront adjacent to the former Jacobson's. This expansion displaced the mall offices, which operated out of a temporary location in the Mervyns wing until Steve & Barry's University Sportswear, which had been in the mall since 2001, relocated to the J. C. Penney wing in 2003.
Mid 2000s-2010s
In 2004, Dick's Sporting Goods acquired and renamed all of the Galyan's stores. Two more changes came to the mall's anchors in 2006; first, in early 2006, Mervyns closed all of its Michigan stores, and later the same year, Marshall Field's was one of several chains to be acquired and renamed by Macy's. Younkers announced in 2007 that it would add a second store in the former Mervyns space. The second store, opened in September 2008, comprised the men's, children's and home goods departments, while the women's departments were retained at the existing Younkers.
The former Meridian Mall Outer 6 AMC movie theater, known as the Meridian Mall 6 since the closing of the East theaters, closed its doors on September 5, 2011. The theater reopened in December 2012 as Studio C!, offering drinks and made-to-order food ordered and served from patron's seats.
In late 2013, plans were approved to add H&M and Gordmans to the mall sometime in 2014. Planet Fitness and Shoe Carnival both opened in the Macy's wing in late 2013.
On April 29, 2017, Gordmans closed their Meridian Mall location due to bankruptcy, Spirit Halloween took this place until November 2017. On January 16, 2018, it was announced that Launch Trampoline Park would be opening in the former Gordmans space in summer 2018.
It was further announced on April 18, 2018 that Bon Ton Stores will be closing doors and begin liquidating all 267 stores after two liquidators, Great American Group and Tiger Capital Group, won an auction for the company. The bid was estimated to be worth $775.5 million. This includes all remaining Younkers locations after 162 years of operation. According to national retail reporter Mitch Nolen, stores will close within 10 to 12 weeks.
Maps Meridian Mall
References
External links
- Meridian Mall web site
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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