The Blue Hen Mall (now the Blue Hen Corporate Center) is a defunct shopping mall on Bay Road in

Dover, Delaware Dover () is the capital and second-largest city of the U.S. state of Delaware. It is also the county seat of Kent County and the principal city of the Dover, DE, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Kent County and is part of ...

. The mall opened in August 1968, and was the main mall in the Dover area until the

Dover Mall The Dover Mall is a shopping mall located on U.S. Route 13 in Dover, Delaware. The anchor stores are Boscov's, Old Navy, Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, and AMC Theatres. There are 2 additional anchor spaces, with one serving as a Macy's fulfillme ...

opened in 1982, leading to its decline. In the 1990s, the mall was converted into a

corporate center A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...

. The mall has now been converted into a combination of

medical care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profess ...

and state office facility. Tenants include DE Department of Labor, VA Outpatient Offices, and

Bayhealth Medical Center Bayhealth Medical Center is a healthcare system serving the central and southern portion of Delaware in the United States. Locations Bayhealth Medical Center operates two hospitals: Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus in Dover and Bayhealth Hospital ...

History

Blue Hen Mall Dover, DE April 2019 - 48145255251

The Blue Hen Mall opened in the late 1960s, at which time it was the only enclosed mall in Delaware. The opening of the retail hub shifted several businesses away from downtown Dover.

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 ...

relocated from Loockerman Street in downtown Dover to an anchor space at the mall in 1968.

Woolco Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its ...

also anchored the shopping center. This store was shuttered in early 1983. It soon reopened as a

Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

variety store. At its height, Blue Hen Mall housed over 50 shops.

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

was interested in relocating to the Blue Hen Mall from downtown Dover, but could not agree with management as to where to place the store in the shopping center. As a result, Sears decided to relocate, along with other department stores, to the new

which opened in 1982. Following the opening of the Dover Mall, many stores relocated from the Blue Hen Mall, turning it into a

dead mall A dead mall (also known as a ghost mall, zombie mall, or abandoned mall) is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in North America are considered "dead ...

. It was also called by some of the local people as the "Blue Hen Chicken Mall." It was mainly used in the late 1980s when the mall was not popular anymore. At this time, the Blue Hen Mall was owned by Jardel Company, Inc. and

Penn Mutual Penn may refer to: Places England * Penn, Buckinghamshire * Penn, West Midlands United States * Penn, North Dakota * Penn, Oregon * Pennsylvania ** Penn, Pennsylvania * Penn Lake Park, Pennsylvania * Penn Township (disambiguation), several muni ...

. Roses closed its Blue Hen Mall location in 1991. JCPenney relocated from the Blue Hen Mall to the Dover Mall in August 1993. In the 1990s, the Blue Hen Mall was converted into the Blue Hen Corporate Center, with the retail space becoming office space. A

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

call center and an

Aetna Aetna Inc. () is an American managed health care company that sells traditional and consumer directed health care insurance and related services, such as medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans, ...

office facility served as the anchors of the corporate center. The Bank of America call center eventually closed and Aetna left the Blue Hen Corporate Center in 2009. In 2008, the property was sold by Blue Hen Venture LLC to Pettinaro Enterprises LLC for $17.4 million. Currently, the Blue Hen Corporate Center has several office vacancies. In September 2013

Bayhealth Bayhealth Medical Center is a healthcare system serving the central and southern portion of Delaware in the United States. Locations Bayhealth Medical Center operates two hospitals: Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus in Dover and Bayhealth Hospital ...

rented the space and relocated all of its information services resources from Kent General Hospital and Milford Memorial Hospital to the former Aetna space. Bayhealth did a complete renovation of the space, including new office furniture, computers and phone systems for its employees and contracting staff. 24x7 helpdesk for the entire hospital system is operated out of this new space as well. In January 2022

announced that is had completed acquisition of the 2 original anchor store spaces (JCPenney & Woolco/Roses) and plans to renovate and create a "Dover Medical Neighborhood with specialty clinical services and administration space.”. The former Bank of America call center was recently used for the Governor's Central Delaware Career Expo in 2022. https://governor.delaware.gov/careerexpo/ The building showed signs that a renovation was going to begin soon.

List of anchor stores

References

{{Philadelphia Malls Shopping malls in Delaware Defunct shopping malls in the United States Buildings and structures in Dover, Delaware Shopping malls established in 1968 Office buildings in Delaware 1968 establishments in Delaware