Charlottetown 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 ...

located in

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. The area’s first enclosed shopping mall, it opened on October 28, 1959.

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Lenox Square Lenox Square is a shopping mall in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is adjacent to Phipps Plaza, both of which are owned by Simon Property Group. Lenox Square spans of gross leasable area and has 198 tenants, makin ...

opened two months earlier, but it was an open-air mall at first. The mall was situated on a parcel on the southeastern fringes of Charlotte's "center city" area.

Rouse Company The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James W. Rouse in 1939. Beginnings: Moss-Rouse Com ...

was the mall's developers.

Stores and design

The center featured one

anchor store In North American, Australian and New Zealand retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are ...

: Bon Marché, an

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad River, French Broad and Swannanoa River, Swannanoa rivers, it is the county seat of Buncombe County. It is the most populou ...

–based department store with no connection to the Seattle-based retailer of the same name. Other major tenants included

Colonial Stores Colonial Stores was a chain of grocery stores once found throughout much of the South. Most were transformed to Big Star Markets in the 1970s and later most became Harris Teeter or A&P. History David Pender Grocery Company The chain evolv ...

supermarket, Rose's five and dime, Eckerd Drug and Milton's, a posh Ivy League haberdasher. The mall was mostly one-story, although the "Central Mall" (middle of the mall) featured a second level with an auditorium and an

S&W Cafeteria S&W Cafeteria was a Charlotte, North Carolina–based chain of cafeteria-style restaurants. The chain specialized in low-cost, Southern-style food. Branches were located in the Southeastern United States from Washington, D.C. to Atlanta, Georgia. ...

. The "Central Mall" also featured a fountain, bird cages, and tropical foliage.

Logo and Advertising

Charlottetown Mall had a distinctive crown logo that was on all of its public trash cans and on the door handles at all the entrances/exits. This logo was designed by Dorr M. Depew, owner/operator of Depew Advertising, the Charlotte firm that provided graphic and advertising support for the new mall. Depew also wrote and produced radio commercials for the new mall, using Edwin Franko Goldman's well-known concert march "On The Mall" as the musical background.

Fate

By 1964, Bon Marché had closed at the mall; their store was quickly replaced by

Ivey's Ivey's (J.B. Ivey & Company), a former department store chain, was acquired by Dillard's, Inc. in 1990. Ivey's was based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was founded in 1900 by Joseph Benjamin (J. B.) Ivey. History J. B. Ivey opened the first Iv ...

. Two other malls which opened in Charlotte – SouthPark Mall and Eastland Mall (in 1970 and 1975, respectively) soon grew to draw business away from Charlottetown Mall, causing the older, smaller mall to decline. Charlottetown was first renovated in the 1980s, when it was converted into an

outlet center An outlet store, factory outlet or factory store is a brick and mortar or online store where manufacturers sell their merchandise directly to the public. Products at outlet stores are usually sold at reduced prices compared to regular stores due ...

(though several traditional stores were retained) and renamed "Outlet Square".

converted its store to an outlet store before closing altogether. Eventually, the former Ivey's was taken over by

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 ...

. The mall was renovated a second time in 1989 and renamed "Midtown Square," and two parking garages were added. Unfortunately, neither of the renovations resuscitated the rapidly dying mall. The

was converted to a

Big Star Markets Big Star was an American supermarket chain founded in 1937 as part of the David Pender Grocery Company. History The Big Star stores were self-service supermarket operations which began to replace the small full-service stores Pender's had operat ...

, and later to

Harris Teeter Harris Teeter Supermarkets, LLC., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte. , the chain operates 262 stores in ...

before closing in 1988. After several years in a state of being a "dead mall," Midtown Square had closed. The mall and the cinemas, which had also shuttered, were bulldozed back in 2006. Subsequently, a mixed-use complex was constructed on the sites of the old cinema and shopping mall. The retail segment included a two-story anchor store, with the Home Depot Design Center occupying the first floor and Target on the second. Additionally, the complex featured 198,000 square feet (18,581 square meters) of additional retail space, along with condominiums, offices, and restaurants. The project had been developed through a joint venture by Charlotte-based Pappas Properties / Collette Associates and Birmingham-based Colonial Properties Trust. It opened in early 2008.

External links

uptown magazine: Uptown Charlotte's intown neighborhoods

Metropolitan, "Charlotte’s First Urban Mixed-Use Community"
{{Charlotte malls Defunct shopping malls in the United States Shopping malls in Charlotte, North Carolina Shopping malls established in 1959