Carolina Circle Mall was a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

in the northeast section of

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; ) is a city in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 299,035; it was estimated to be 307,381 in 2024. It is the List of municipalitie ...

US 29 U.S. Route 29 or U.S. Highway 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida, to Ellicott City, Maryland, just west of Baltimore, Maryland, in the Eastern United States, connect ...

and Cone Boulevard.

History

Carolina Circle Mall opened in 1976, two years after the opening of Four Seasons Mall in southern Greensboro. Carolina Circle Mall was anchored by

Belk Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, a ...

, Ivey's and

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...

. Belk opened its doors in February 1976, and Montgomery Ward's, Ivey's and twenty-two other stores opened in August of that year. It was Ivey's first department store in Greensboro. The mall encompassed . Carolina Circle Mall also featured the only ice skating rink in Greensboro, located in the central corridor of the mall. The mall also had a movie theater and out-parcel stores such as

Toys R Us A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and ...

and a

Kmart Kmart ( ), formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and Territories of the United States, its territories. It operates four remaining Kma ...

across Cone Boulevard. Another major tenant was a

Piccadilly Cafeteria Piccadilly Restaurants is an American chain of cafeteria-style, casual dining restaurants in seven, mainly southeastern United States with the majority located in the Gulf Coast region. They are owned by Piccadilly Holdings LLC. In addition to ...

and a restaurant and bar called Annabelle's. The mall continued to enjoy success and friendly competition with Four Seasons and other retail establishments in town throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the late 1980s, Carolina Circle Mall's vacancy rate rose when Four Seasons was expanded. To keep up, Carolina Circle Mall was renovated. A

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food Vendor, vendors and provides a common area for self-serve di ...

replaced the ice rink in 1988.

Decline

By 1990, Carolina Circle Mall was clearly in decline. A skateboarding park adjacent to the mall drew complaints, as incidents such as drug use increased around the mall's property. A growing number of gangs combined with rising crime in the area kept shoppers away from Carolina Circle Mall. The vacancy rate increased throughout the 1990s. Mainstays such as Waldenbooks,

Camelot Music Camelot Music was a mall-based American retailer of prerecorded music and accessories and was one of the largest music retailers in the United States based on store count. Camelot specialized in the sales of prerecorded music, especially vinyl ...

and

Radio Shack RadioShack (formerly written as Radio Shack) is an American electronics retailer that was established in 1921 as an amateur radio mail-order business. Its parent company was purchased by Tandy Corporation in 1962, which shifted its focus from ma ...

left the mall. Belk downsized its department store, leasing the lower level to the

U.S. Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...

. By 1998, Belk and

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an American department store chain with approximately 267 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The company a ...

(formerly Ivey's) closed their doors, with Dillard's having previously downgraded to a clearance center leaving Montgomery Ward as the sole anchor and only a handful of inline tenants left. By 2002, with Montgomery Ward in bankruptcy, the closure of that chain signaled the closure of the entire mall.

Post-closure

After the mall closed in 2002, there were many ideas thrown around as to what it should become. Government offices, a branch of Guilford Technical Community College, and a sports complex and indoor fitness facility were some of the ideas that were pitched. Linder Investments purchased the property, and turned some of the parking lots into soccer fields, however the mall structure itself remained vacant and boarded up after constant vandalism. By June 1, 2005,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

had purchased part of the property, and demolition began on Carolina Circle Mall. By 2006, Walmart opened with a strip of new stores. Part of the Ring Road was removed. A

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. ( ) is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States. As of October 28, 2022, Lowe's and i ...

store replaced the Kmart across Carolina Circle Mall in 2007.

References

External links

Carolina Circle City Blog

{{Piedmont Triad malls 1976 establishments in North Carolina 2002 disestablishments in North Carolina Buildings and structures demolished in 2005 Demolished buildings and structures in North Carolina Demolished shopping malls in the United States Shopping malls in Greensboro, North Carolina Shopping malls established in 1976 Shopping malls disestablished in 2002