Universal Shopping Center, formerly Universal Mall and Universal City, is a redeveloped open-air power center located in

Warren, Michigan Warren is a city in Macomb County, Michigan, Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit, Warren borders Detroit to the north, roughly north of downtown Detroit. The population was 139,387 at the ...

, a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

. The first phase opened in mid-2009 with

Target Target may refer to: Warfare and shooting * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artille ...

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 ...

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), ...

, and

Petco Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. is an American Pet store, pet retailer with corporate offices in San Diego and San Antonio. Petco sells pet food, products, and services, as well as certain types of live small animals. Founded in 1965 as ...

History

Development was announced in 1962 for a site formerly occupied by a farm.

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". ...

was confirmed as the first anchor tenant at this point. The original mall opened in 1965 as Universal City with Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, and

Federal's Federal Department Store, or Federal's, was a department store chain based in Detroit. History Federal's was founded in 1929. In 1961, Federal's merged with Kobacker's of Columbus, Ohio and in 1969, it bought Shifrin-Willens Jewelers. The chain ...

as its anchor stores. In 1980, Federal's went out of business and was replaced that same year by

Crowley's Crowley Milner and Company, generally referred to as Crowley's, was a department store chain founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1909. After several years of financial difficulties, the company ceased operation in 1999 and its assets were sold. I ...

. The opening of Crowley's coincided with a mall-wide renovation that included installation of new floors, ceilings, and seating areas throughout the concourses. Forbes-Cohen, the mall's original owners, sold it to

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; ...

in 1980. Seven years later, Westfield Group sold it to Schostak. A western wing with

Mervyns Mervyn's was an American middle-scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris (1920–2021). It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, bath products, furniture, jewelry, beauty product ...

was added to the mall in 1988, and shortly afterward, the eastern wing was renovated to include a movie theater and food court.Universal Mall history
In 1997, the F. W. Woolworth chain closed the last of its stores, leaving a large vacancy in the northern wing. Three years later, Montgomery Ward closed the last of its stores as well. Also in 1999, Value City acquired the

location at Universal Mall and two other Detroit-area malls and renamed them Crowley's

Value City Value City Department Stores was an American department store chain with 113 locations. It was founded in 1917 by Ephraim Schottenstein, a travelling salesman in central Ohio. The store was an off-price retailer that sold clothing, jewelry, and ...

before dropping the Crowley's name entirely. Many of Universal Mall's major chain tenants either moved to other malls, or closed up entirely. By the end of the 1990s, Universal Mall's occupancy was below 35%, and it became a

dead mall A dead mall, also known as a ghost mall or zombie mall, is a shopping mall that has low consumer traffic or is deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in North America are considered "dead" when they have no surviving anchor store or successor ...

.Universal Mall may be demolished
Universal Mall Properties acquired the mall in 1999, and mall renovations began soon afterward.

opened that year, displacing the former Woolworth and most of the other stores in the northern wing; A.J. Wright opened a year later in a space formerly occupied by

Ben Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the most influential intellectuals of h ...

in 1997. Plans were also made to divide the former Montgomery Ward space into smaller shops. Eventually, occupancy at Universal Mall rebounded to 75%, although by 2007 it had declined to 48% (in part due to the closure of Mervyns' Michigan operations in 2006).Crain's Detroit Business
/ref> The mall was closed in June 2008 and demolition began on the 23rd of that month, leaving only the Burlington Coat Factory, AJ Wright, theater and former Value City. The rest has been replaced by a strip containing 35 tenants,Universal Mall is coming down
/ref> including

and

. The last remaining tenant held over from when the mall was enclosed was

Cinemark Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (stylized as CineMark from 1998 until 2022 and in all caps since 2022) is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1977 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the A ...

, which operated the movie theater since it opened in 1991 until it closed in mid-2016. It reopened as a location of MJR Theatres in late 2016.MJR to take over Cinemark theater in Warren
/ref> AJ Wright has since re-branded as

References

{{Shopping malls in Michigan Shopping malls in Macomb County, Michigan Shopping malls established in 1965 Demolished shopping malls in the United States Warren, Michigan 1965 establishments in Michigan