Centro del Sur Mall is 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 ...

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...

. At the time of its inauguration in 1962,Carmelo Rosario Natal. ''Ponce En Su Historia Moderna: 1945-2002.'' Published by Secretaría de Cultura y Turismo of the Government of the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce. Ponce, Puerto Rico. 2003. p. 58. it was Puerto Rico's largest mall and “the most modern mall in the Caribbean.” It is located at the intersection of Puerto Rico routes

PR-163 Puerto Rico Highway 163 (PR-163) is a major two-way thoroughfare in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The road has both of its wiktionary:terminus, termini as well as all of its length entirely within the Ponce city limits. The road runs east to west from it ...

(

Avenida Las Américas Avenida Las Américas, is a major thoroughfare in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Most of its length is signed as Puerto Rico Highway 163 (PR-163). The highway has both of its termini as well as all of its length entirely within the Ponce city limits. I ...

) and PR-1 ( Bulevar Miguel Pou). Its original building cost was $2,500,000 ($ in dollars). It has been enlarged several times; including in 1991, in 2005, and again in 2010; this last time to accommodate the megastore Burlington.

History

Opening: 1960s

On June 27, 1962, developed by IBEC Realty Company, Centro del Sur inaugurated with anchors

Kresge’s Kmart ( ), formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and its territories. It operates four remaining Kmart big-box department stores � ...

, Barker’s, and

Grand Union A grand union is a rail track junction where two double-track railway or tramway lines cross at grade, often in a street intersection or crossroads. A total of sixteen railroad switches (sets of points) allow streetcars (or in rarer install ...

. At the time it consisted of 120,000 square feet of retail space with 18 establishments such as

Farmacias Moscoso Farmacias Moscoso, commonly known as Moscoso, was a Puerto Rican pharmacy chain that evolved into a large company from its creation in Ponce, Puerto Rico during 1898. It was first known as Droguerías Moscoso. History Origins The first Moscoso ...

Thom McAn Thom McAn is an American brand of shoes and was formerly a retail chain. Its shoes have been sold in Kmart and Sears stores. It consists of leather-dress, casual, and athletic shoes (under its Tm Sport label). Until the 1990s, Thom McAn had hun ...

Banco de Ponce Banco de Ponce was the Puerto Rican bank with the largest number of branches in the United States and second largest bank in deposits and number of branches in Puerto Rico during the twentieth century. Founded in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in the e ...

, Elegance, Mayfair, and One-Hour Martinizing. The $2,500,000 shopping center which took two years to be built, being in plans since 1960, it was considered at the time the most modern shopping center in the Caribbean. It was constructed by engineer Santiago Castrodad, and featured a 436 foot long shopping corridor with benches, gardens, and a central fountain with colored lighting that served as main attractions at the mall. The shopping corridor was about 40 feet wide and over 21 feet high, with its drastically angled accordion-type roof. Barker’s made its debut on the island with this new store at the shopping center. Centro del Sur

1980s-1990s

In June 1987, the

store at the shopping center would close, leaving employees who had worked at the store for over 20 years without jobs. In 1994, a space previously occupied by

New York Department Stores New York Department Stores was a chain of department stores operating in Puerto Rico. History Origins In the 1930s, there were only small merchants in Puerto Rico. The island had not yet begun the industrialization process. People made their ...

became an extension of the main mall which then accommodated

Marshalls Marshalls, Inc. is an American chain of discount store, off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store (stores operating with HomeGoods combined), ...

, Tiendas Ferco, Me Salvé,

Postnet POSTNET (Postal Numeric Encoding Technique) is a barcode symbology used by the United States Postal Service to assist in directing mail. The ZIP Code or ZIP+4 code is encoded in half- and full-height bars. Most often, the delivery point is ad ...

, and six other local tenants. This also triggered a complete reconstruction of the mall's entrance and facade. The combination of the re-tenanting and remodeling the center proved to be very successful as sales figures increased consistently. In 1995, the Malecón Ave. overpass was completed providing new and better access to the shopping center and approximately 150 additional parking spaces for a total of 1,350 parking spaces.

2000s

In 2005, a 20,000 square foot expansion for the Marshalls Megastore was to be completed by July of that year. In the late 2000s, the mall was anchored by a Marshalls Megastore,

Farmacias El Amal Farmacias El Amal, was a regional pharmacy chain operating throughout Puerto Rico. At its peak, it operated more than 60 pharmacies across Puerto Rico. The chain was privately held and was founded in 1973. Its largest competitors were Walgreens, Km ...

, and a Pitusa. Rincón del Sabor the food court at the mall had food options for all tastes, such as Subway, AKA Los Tacos, Mr. Pretzels, Crave, Goodies, Charlie’s Pizza, Country Deli, and Villa China’s chinese exquisite food. Tenants at the time were establishments such as Me Salvé, Almacenes Kress, Marianne, Rave, Madison, Jeans.com,

Payless Shoe Source Payless ShoeSource Worldwide, LLC (formerly known as Payless ShoeSource Inc.), was an American multinational discount footwear chain. Established in 1956 by cousins Louis and Shaol Pozez. Payless was a privately held company owned by Blum Capita ...

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 ...

Foot Locker Foot Locker, Inc. is an American multinational retailer of footwear, sportswear, urban youth apparel and accessories headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operating in over 40 countries. Although established in 1974, and ...

, La Defensa, Kay-Bee Toys,

Rent-A-Center Rent-A-Center is an American public furniture and electronics rent-to-own company based in Plano, Texas. The company was incorporated in 1986 and as of 2014 operates approximately 2,972 company-owned stores in the United States, Puerto Rico a ...

, and

Western Auto Western Auto Supply Company—known more widely as Western Auto—was a Chain store, specialty retail chain of stores that supplied auto part, automobile parts and accessories operating approximately 1,200 stores across the United States ...

2010s, and on

On June 24, 2010, it was reported that a new 69,595 square foot

Burlington Coat Factory Burlington, formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory, is an American national off-price department store retailer, and a division of Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation with more than 1,100 stores in 47 states and Puerto Rico, with it ...

store would be located in the section of the mall that formerly housed

, Pitusa, Farmacia El Amal, Madison and

, with the latter two stores being relocated to another section of the mall. Located in Ponce, the 220,304 square foot Centro del Sur Mall had enjoyed additional exposure and traffic as the result of renewal efforts in the southern city's historic section at the time. On March 27, 2011, the

store at the mall finally inaugurated. In October 2012, a Burlington Baby Depot store opened at the mall.

Notability

Centro del Sur made history as Puerto Rico's largest mall until the 1968 opening of

Plaza Las Americas A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

in San Juan. Randall Peffer, of

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History 20th century Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen Wheeler, Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 19 ...

, calls Centro del Sur "the place where shopping addicts head to when they need 'mall fixes'". During the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city of Ponce, the mall gained prominence for being the mall closest to the

Ponce Historic Zone The Ponce Historic Zone (Spanish: ''Zona Histórica de Ponce'') is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico, consisting of buildings, plazas and structures with distinctive architectures such as Neoclásico Isabelino and the Ponce Cr ...

Design

A unique characteristic of this mall is its zig-zag

prefab Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some research ...

reinforced concrete roof which is not found in any other mall in Puerto Rico. The mall's main corridor is oriented in a north-south axis, with a shorter east-west axis and a smaller east-west hallway. Centro del Sur is the first and only mall in Puerto Rico with a truss zig-zag prefab concrete roof system.

Tenants

Centro del Sur has over 50 stores and more than 30 kiosks and food court vendors. An area for community events at the mall is unique among malls in Puerto Rico. The Mall has been southern Puerto Rico's regional outlet for a number of major national departmental chains including Kresge, Barker's,

and Burlington. The mall is managed by Commercial Centers Management.

Location

The mall is located on the southwestern corner of Miguel Pou Boulevard ( PR-1) and Las Americas Avenue (

). The main branch of the

Ponce Public Library The Ponce Municipal Library, formally, ''Biblioteca Municipal Mariana Suárez de Longo'' (English: Mariana Suárez de Longo Municipal Library), and also known as Biblioteca Publica de Ponce (English: Ponce Public Library), is the library system ...

is within walking distance west of the mall, and Urbanizacion La Alhambra, Puerto Rico's first upper-class suburban development,. is located diagonally across from the Mall to the northwest. This puts it just outside the

. A limited-access highway,

PR-12 Puerto Rico Highway 12 (PR-12), also called Avenida Malecón, and Avenida Santiago de los Caballeros, is a 6.4-kilometer, limited-access highway entirely located within the city limits of Ponce, Puerto Rico, and connecting Puerto Rico Highway 14 ...

, also known as Avenida Santiago de los Caballeros, and which opened to the public in 1995, was built just west of the mall providing easy access to it. The mall is flanked by several outlying banks, and restaurants which together bring the total effective retail area within the plaza to over 350,000 square feet The mall is also readily accessible via taxi service with the Union Taxi terminal depot located at the mall's main eastern entrance.

Accolades

Centro del Sur Mall was the venue used by

Melina León Melina León (born Yamillette Aponte Yunqué on 12 July 1973 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican merengue singer and actress. From an early age she performed with several groups including ''The Rubi'', ''Girls of Puerto Rico'' and ...

to debut her new album “Corazón de Mujer” Other talent shows have also taken place here. On 24 December 1966, the mall became the first public place in Puerto Rico where

Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...

landed via a helicopter to hand out gifts to waiting children, a marketing and advertising stunt. Today, the yearly “Miss Centro del Sur” event takes place instead.''Miss Centro del Sur''
Accessed 9 February 2018.

References

{{Ponce, Puerto Rico Buildings and structures in Ponce, Puerto Rico Shopping malls in Puerto Rico Shopping malls established in 1962 1962 establishments in Puerto Rico