The Mall in Columbia, also known as the Columbia Mall, is the central

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

for the

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It has over 200 specialty stores and the anchor stores are AMC Theatres, Lidl,

Main Event Entertainment Main Event Entertainment is an American chain of family entertainment centers. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, it operates 50 locations in 17 states, predominantly in the Southern United States, and feature attractions and features such as bowling ...

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

, and

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...

. Restaurants include PF Chang's,

Maggiano's Little Italy Maggiano's Little Italy is an American casual dining Restaurants fall into several industry classifications, based upon menu style, preparation methods and pricing, as well as the means by which the food is served to the customer. This article ...

and The Cheesecake Factory. It is located in the Town Center area of the city and attracts shoppers from surrounding counties in Maryland.

History

Architect

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

designed

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

Columbia exhibit building, and was initially selected to design the neighboring mall centerpiece. Gehry was later rejected by Rouse for lack of experience, and the firm of Cope, Linder, & Walmsley was contracted for the project. The Mall opened in 1971 with two major anchor stores: Hochschild Kohn's (which was replaced by

Hecht's Hecht's, also known as Hecht Brothers, Hecht Bros. and the Hecht Company, was a large chain of department stores that operated mainly in the mid-Atlantic and southern region of the United States. The firm originated in Baltimore, Maryland. By 20 ...

in the mid-1970s) and Woodward & Lothrop (a.k.a. Woodies, which closed in late 1995 and was replaced by JCPenney in July 1996), as well as a

McCrory's McCrory Stores or J.G. McCrory's was a chain of five and dime stores in the United States based in York, Pennsylvania. The stores typically sold shoes, clothing, housewares, fabrics, penny candy, toys, cosmetics, and often included a lunch cou ...

and Lerner's, which were minor anchors. Howard Research and Development was probed shortly after opening for purchasing bulk energy contracts on electricity while charging market rates to tenants. Of the original 102 stores, those still in operation at the mall as of January 2020 include: Edward Arthur Jeweler and GNC. The Mall has undergone several major expansions since its opening, with the Sears wing opening in 1981, along with an expansion of approximately and about 55 specialty stores. In 1997, the Hecht's store (now Macy's) added a third level. The Lord & Taylor wing opened in November 1998 (along with two new parking garages); the Nordstrom wing opened in September 1999. Also at this time, 20 to 30 stores opened in a new wing near Hecht's. The interior was renovated by replacing the floors, lighting, skylights and air conditioning units by the end of 1998. A Cheesecake Factory restaurant opened on The Mall property near the movie theaters in late 2005. The Mall's Hecht's store became Macy's on September 9, 2006. The Mall was sold to General Growth Properties by

in 2004.

A December 2007 decision by local General Growth Properties managers to abandon The Mall's traditional "

Poinsettia The poinsettia ( or ) (''Euphorbia pulcherrima'') is a commercially important flowering plant species of the diverse spurge family Euphorbiaceae. Indigenous to Mexico and Central America, the poinsettia was first described by Europeans in 1834 ...

Tree" Christmas display sparked a grassroots movement by several hundred Columbia residents for the return of the display which had come to be viewed as a local tradition. The story was picked up by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and the publicity led mall managers to reverse their decision and return the popular display in 2008. Part of what makes the "tree" unique is its watering system and plant specifications. In 2017, the large water fountain within which the "tree" had been installed each year, was replaced with at-grade flooring. In early 2013, construction began on an addition to the outdoor "Plaza at The Mall in Columbia" to replace the

L.L. Bean L.L.Bean is an American privately-held retail company that was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean. The company, headquartered in the place in which it was founded, in Freeport, Maine, specializes in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment. ...

store (which closed in May 2013) with additional stores and restaurants. The first phase of the outdoor expansion opened in November 2013. On April 28, 2015, Howard County Police announced an increased presence at village centers and malls following protests and riots the day before that affected General Growth's

Mondawmin Mall Mondawmin Mall is a three-level shopping mall in West Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The mall was a development of the Mondawmin Corporation, a firm set up in 1952 by James Rouse and Hunter Moss under the Moss-Rouse Company. When it first ope ...

in Baltimore. In May 2018, a

facility opened on the south side of the mall, featuring 22

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

lanes and over a hundred virtual reality video games. The late 2010s saw multiple classic chain anchors retreat from brick and mortar after being disrupted by digital retailers in recent years. In October, 2018, it was announced the Sears store would close and become German supermarket chain Lidl. In August 2020, it was announced high-end department store Lord & Taylor would close all of its locations after 195 years of business.

Key dates

*1971: The Mall in Columbia opens in August. *1981: A new wing that includes a food court and Sears is added. *1998: Lord & Taylor opens along with two new parking garages. *1999: A new wing that includes 40 stores, a third parking garage, and Nordstrom is added. *2000: L.L. Bean opens outside of the mall. It is only the third retail location for the Maine-based outdoors catalog company. *2001:

PF Chang's China Bistro P. F. Chang's China Bistro is an American-based, casual dining restaurant chain founded in 1993 by Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang that serves Asian fusion cuisine. Centerbridge Partners owned and operated Chang's until acquired by the private ...

, Z'Tejas (replaced by

Uno Chicago Grill Uno Pizzeria & Grill (formerly Pizzeria Uno and Uno Chicago Grill), or more informally as Unos, is a franchised pizzeria restaurant chain under the parent company Uno Restaurant Holdings Corporation. Uno Pizzeria and Grill is best known for its ...

in 2004), and Champps Restaurant & Bar open in the Plaza at The Mall in Columbia. *2003: AMC Theatres opens a 14-screen movie theater next to Champps Restaurant. *2013: L.L. Bean closes and makes way for an expansion of the Mall's outdoor plaza. *2014: outdoor expansion to the mall opens, deemed "The Plaza at The Mall in Columbia". *2017: The center court fountain is removed, and Sears downsizes to the first floor. *2018:

facility opens on the south side of the mall on the second floor of the Sears anchor space, and Sears closes. *2019: The food court fountain was drained and filled with plants, and a glass elevator was installed outside of Main Event Entertainment. *2020: Lord & Taylor closes. *2021: Lidl opens in the remaining Sears anchor space.

Current anchors

*JCPenney (since 1996) *Nordstrom (since 1999) *AMC Theatres (since 2003) *Macy's (since 2006) *Main Event Entertainment (since 2018) * Lidl (since 2021)

Former anchors

*Woodward & Lothrop (1971–1995, now JCPenney) *Hochschild-Kohn (1971–1974), *Hecht's (1975–2006, now Macy's) *Sears (1981–2018) *Lord & Taylor (1998–2020)

Incidents

2014 shooting

On January 25, 2014, at around 11:15 a.m., 19-year-old Darion Marcus Aguilar entered the Zumiez store on the second floor of the mall, armed with a Mossberg 500

12-gauge The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

with a pistol grip, and fired six to nine shots, killing two employees—21-year-old Brianna Benlolo and 25-year-old Tyler Johnson—and shot another person before committing suicide. Four others were injured unrelated to the shooting. Police arrived within two minutes to find an extensive amount of ammunition and crude explosive devices next to Aguilar's body, which were disabled safely. All of the injured were treated and later discharged from the Howard County General Hospital.

2015 shooting

Former Jessup correctional officer Hong Young was arrested on March 2, 2015, on suspicion of shooting at the Columbia

AMC theater AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

building and gunfire incidents at the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

, Arundel Mills Costco, Inter-county Connector and

Laurel Laurel may refer to: Plants * Lauraceae, the laurel family * Laurel (plant), including a list of trees and plants known as laurel People * Laurel (given name), people with the given name * Laurel (surname), people with the surname * Laurel (mus ...

Walmart.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mall In Columbia Brookfield Properties Buildings and structures in Columbia, Maryland Shopping malls in Maryland Tourist attractions in Howard County, Maryland Shopping malls established in 1971 1971 establishments in Maryland