Southland Center (Michigan)

Southland Center (also known as Southland Mall) is an enclosed mall located at 23000 Eureka Road in Taylor, Michigan (a Downriver community located southwest of Detroit), exactly halfway between U.S. Highway 24 (Telegraph Road) and the Interstate 75 freeway, presently anchored by Macy's, JCPenney, Best Buy, Shoe Carnival, Forever 21, Ulta, H&M and a 12-screen Cinemark movie theater. It is the newest of the Detroit area's four "land" malls (Northland, Southland, Eastland, Westland). Southland Center opened on July 20, 1970. It is owned and managed by Rouse Properties, one of the largest mall owners in the United States.

History

An interior entrance to the Macy's store in May 2015. This was taken before the store opened for the day.

Southland Center was designed by Victor Gruen Associates and Louis G. Redstone Associates, and the newly formed Dayton-Hudson Corporation (a merger of Dayton's of Minneapolis and Hudson's of Detroit) developed the mall.^[2] When opened in 1970, Southland Mall was originally anchored by a three-level; 272,000-square-foot (25,300 m²) Hudson's at the center of the mall and junior-anchored by a Woolworth's dime store off the center court and a Kroger supermarket on the eastern side. A two-screen movie theater, located off the west court, opened just weeks after the rest of the mall. Kroger built a larger facility across Eureka Road in the mid-1970s, with the former store gutted and divided into several smaller stores, attached to a new wing ending in a new two-level; 215,000-square-foot (20,000 m²) JCPenney store in 1976. In 1986, the theater, by then a four-screen venue, was purchased by AMC Theaters. Then in 1988, a small addition was built onto the western side, including a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m²) Mervyns store.

Also in 1988, The Rouse Company acquired the mall from its previous owners.^[3] A food court called Picnic In The Garden^[4] opened around 1992-93 as part of an addition to the southern side (which also included two new store spaces that are presently occupied by Champs Sports and New York & Company) and featured a large triangular-shaped skylight.^[5] AMC's four-screen theater closed in January 1999^[6] and was replaced with a 22,500-square-foot (2,090 m²) Borders Books & Music a year later. Hudson's was renamed Marshall Field's in 2001 and Macy's in 2006. Also in 2006, Mervyns exited Michigan and vacated its anchor in the mall (that space was subsequently demolished in 2015) and the food court, which had lost all of its tenants in late 2005, was demolished (except for the skylight) and rebuilt into a 45,000-square-foot (4,200 m²) Best Buy store.^[7] Later, in 2011, the Borders store shut down when that chain became defunct. Rouse Properties purchased Southland Center from the bankrupt General Growth Properties in January 2012 and in fall 2012 moved to add a number of new tenants; including rue21, Torrid and Taco Bell, to Southland Center, in addition, several existing tenants also renovated their stores.^[8] Forever 21 moved from an existing store in the mall to the former Borders space in spring 2013.^[9] Then, later in 2013, several smaller store spaces near JCPenney were demolished and replaced by a new 11,300-square-foot (1,050 m²) Shoe Carnival store (which relocated from a strip development across Eureka Road).

On July 2, 2014, Rouse Properties announced that the vacant-for-eight-years Mervyn's space would be replaced by a 12-screen, all-digital, Cinemark multiplex theater (which ultimately opened in April 2016 after several opening date changes), accompanied by several outdoor sit-down restaurants, including the first Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Michigan.^[10][11] This is in retaliation to an announcement the previous day that MJR Digital Cinemas would be reopening the former AMC Star Taylor 10 multiplex theater across Eureka Road by the 2014 Christmas season, however, that plan never materialized. In addition, in the late summer of 2014, a complete renovation of the mall began. This project added new flooring and lighting, removed the fountain and replaced it with seating and electronic-device chargers and added several more tenants including Pink, Francesca's and Zumiez. This project was completed in the summer of 2015.^[12] Ulta opened a location in the mall along the corridor between Macy's and Best Buy on August 29, 2014. H&M opened on October 1, 2015.^[13]

Anchors

• Macy's (292,000 sqft)
• J. C. Penney (216,000 sqft)
• Best Buy (45,000 sqft)
• Forever 21 (22,500 sqft)
• Shoe Carnival (11,300 sqft)
• Ulta Beauty (10,000 sqft)
• H&M (24,150 sqft)
• Cinemark Theatres

References

External links

• Official site
• Official site on the Wayback Machine (archived August 29, 2000)
• Southland Center's page on the Rouse Properties website

Shopping malls and districts in metropolitan Detroit
Enclosed shopping malls	Briarwood Mall Eastland Center Fairlane Town Center Great Lakes Crossing Outlets Lakeside Mall Laurel Park Place Macomb Mall The Mall of Monroe Oakland Mall Renaissance Center Somerset Collection Southland Center Twelve Oaks Mall Westland Center
Open-air centers	Green Oak Village Place The Mall at Partridge Creek Twelve Mile Crossing at Fountain Walk The Village of Rochester Hills
Street-side shopping districts	Greektown (Monroe St.) Lower Woodward (Merchant's Row) Eastern Market (Russell St.) Grosse Pointe (The Village on Kercheval Ave.) Birmingham (Old Woodward Ave.) Royal Oak (Main St.) Rochester (Main St.) Northville (Main St.) Plymouth (Main St.) Dearborn (Michigan Ave.) Wayne (Michigan Ave.) Wyandotte (Biddle Ave.) Belleville (Downtown on the Lake on Main St.)
Strip and power centers	Arborland Center Brighton Mall Fairlane Green Gateway Marketplace Lincoln Park Shopping Center Livonia Marketplace Novi Town Center Southgate Shopping Center Tel-Twelve Mall Universal Mall Wonderland Village
Defunct	Great Oaks Mall Livonia Mall Northland Center Summit Place Mall Meadowbrook Village Mall Winchester Mall Wonderland Mall
Cancelled	Pavilions of Troy
See also: Tourism in metropolitan Detroit

Coordinates: 42°12′00″N 83°15′15″W / 42.200038°N 83.254201°W / 42.200038; -83.254201