Hunt Valley Towne Centre, formerly Hunt Valley Mall, is an outdoor shopping mall in northern

Baltimore County, Maryland Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...

with 58 stores. The development was constructed following the closure of Hunt Valley Mall (other than its anchor stores) in 2000. The new centre started operating in 2003. The anchor stores in existence today include

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized as "DICK'S Sporting Goods") is an American sporting goods retail company, based in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company was established by Richard "Dick" Stack in 1948, and has approximately 854 stores an ...

, Burlington Coat Factory and Wegmans. Wal-Mart was located at Hunt Valley mall until late October 2007, when it moved two miles south to Cockeysville, Maryland. It was replaced by

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

, which closed in May 2012 as part of a nationwide downsizing. Near a gazebo located in the main street area of the center, there is a memorial to Chuck Thompson. Hunt Valley's official mascot was Hunter the Valley Bear prior to redevelopment.

Hunt Valley Mall

Hunt Valley Mall was planned as early as 1979, but its construction was opposed both by local residents, citing spreading suburbification and the potential for runoff into Loch Raven Reservoir, and by the Baltimore County government, who preferred that development be focused in Owings Mills and White Marsh. Despite this, and the Baltimore County executive at the time, Donald Hutchinson, refusing to attend the opening ceremony, the mall opened on September 17, 1981. It was developed by Myles H. Tanenbaum and Kravco Company of

King of Prussia, PA King of Prussia (also referred to as KOP) is a census-designated place in Upper Merion Township, Pennsylvania, Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its populatio ...

, and designed by Leonard Kagan of

RTKL Associates RTKL was a global architecture, urban design, planning and design firm. The firm was founded in 1946 by Archibald Rogers and Francis Taliaferro in Rogers’ grandmother’s basement in Annapolis, Maryland, Annapolis and grew to be one of the large ...

. Some of Hunt Valley's "sister malls" were

Valley Hills Mall Valley Hills Mall is a two-story regional shopping mall located in Hickory, North Carolina. It is currently managed by JLL. It is anchored by Belk, Dillard's, and J. C. Penney. History The mall opened in 1978 as the second mall in Hickory, th ...

Beachwood Place Beachwood Place is a shopping mall located in Beachwood, Ohio, an affluent Greater Cleveland suburb roughly from downtown Cleveland. It is accessible from I-271 and close to I-480. It is anchored by Dillard's (), Nordstrom (), and Saks Fifth Aven ...

, White Marsh Mall, Charleston Town Center and

Stratford Square Mall Stratford Square Mall is a shopping mall that opened on March 9, 1981, in Bloomingdale, Illinois, a northwestern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The There are 6 vacant anchor stores that were last occupied by JCPenney, Carson Pirie Sc ...

, after which it was modeled. The mall had space for four anchor tenants, but Sears and

Bamberger's Bamberger's was a department store chain with branches primarily in New Jersey and other locations in Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. History 1892–1912 Newark was known for ma ...

, which became Macy's in 1986, were the only ones to open, leading the mall to a fate that paralleled

Seaview Square Mall Seaview Square Mall was a shopping mall located in Ocean Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. It has been repurposed as a power center and was renamed Seaview Square Shopping Center in 2012.Ocean Township, New Jersey. Other major department stores were in negotiations with the mall, such as Hutzler's, which was slated for the location across from the food court, and JCPenney. Hunt Valley Mall's non-anchor stores included Hair Cuttery, Chess King, CVS, Piercing Pagoda, Kay Bee Toys, Sun Coast Video, Listening Booth Music, Florsheim Shoes, Hess Woman's Apparel, Art Explosion, Merry Go Round, Hudson Trail Outfitters, Deb, Paul Harris, The Wild Pair, Sir Walter Raleigh Inn and others. There were two sets of escalators as well as a prominent glass elevator at the center of the mall surrounded by a fountain. Formerly the Hunt Valley mall, the space was re-established into what is current day Hunt Valley Town Centre. Small zigzag-shaped waterfalls were at opposite ends of the mall. When Macy's closed, the building was subdivided into Dick's Sporting Goods and Burlington Coat Factory on the upper and lower floors, respectively. The passenger elevator, freight elevator, and escalators inside the store space were removed prior to the stores moving in (one of the escalators was kept and reused). Once they did, the stairs at the rear mall entrance were replaced with escalators, which remained in place after redevelopment. Burlington takes up the entirety of the Macy's building's second floor.

Downfall and rebirth

Hunt Valley Mall never recovered from its inauspicious opening. Its success over the following two decades was limited, and as a result, many of the merchants failed by the end of the 1990s. Competition from the new White Marsh Mall, as well as

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and The Mall in Columbia did not help matters either. This resulted in plans being made to convert the mall into an outdoor town center with big-box stores. WalMart opened during this period, taking up the second floor of the Macy's building next to Dick's. The mall finally closed in 2000, and demolition began to turn the former mall site into Hunt Valley Town Centre.

Hunt Valley Town Centre

Hunt Valley Town Centre opened in 2003 In October 2007, WalMart relocated two miles south to Cockeysville. The space was then occupied by Best Buy, but closed in May 2012.

Bob's Discount Furniture Bob's Discount Furniture is an American furniture store chain headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut. The company opened its first store in 1991 in Newington, Connecticut and is ranked 12th in sales among United States furniture stores acc ...

then took over the space in 2015. All three of these spaces utilized one of the original escalators from Macy's, traveling in the down direction. It resides in the current Bob's south entrance. On June 23, 2017, the original Sears store in the Hunt Valley Towne Centre, an original part of the Mall that was one of 235 properties Sears Holdings spun off into Seritage Growth Properties in 2015, closed, as part of Sears' announcement of closing 20 stores across the United States. In 2018, Part of the first level of the former Sears became Michaels and HomeGoods. On December 7, 2020, it was announced that

Ashley HomeStore Ashley (formerly known as Ashley HomeStore and still known as Ashley Furniture HomeStore in some countries) is an American furniture store chain that sells Ashley Furniture products. Opened in 1997, the chain comprises over 2000 locations worldwi ...

will open a new location in the former Sears, expected to take up a sizable chunk of the second floor. On February 9, 2021, it was announced that OneLife Fitness would open a new 55,000 square-foot two story gym in the former Sears. Part of the new location will be built off of the existing Sears building. It will include a boutique studio for barre, spark and apex classes, a large cardio area, an indoor lap pool and a kid's club. A 310-unit apartment building is expected to break ground on one of the parking lots of the Sears building.

Transit connections

In 1997, the Baltimore Light Rail was extended north from its then-terminus at Timonium station to

Hunt Valley station Hunt Valley station is a Baltimore Light Rail station located at the Hunt Valley Towne Centre shopping complex in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The station opened in 1997 as the terminus of a northern extension of the Light Rail system. It has a singl ...

in the parking lot of Hunt Valley Mall. There were hopes that this would increase business to the struggling mall. Increased lighting, security officers and off duty police were added to ward off any additional crime. Prior to the light rail's extension, the mall was served by Maryland Transit Administration Bus Route 9. Today, this route operates to the nearby International Circle.

In fiction

Hunt Valley Mall was an inspiration for the fictional "S'Wallow Valley Mall and Pizza Court" in '' Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie''.

References

External links

Hunt Valley Town Center on Google Street ViewHunt Valley Towne Centre website
{{Shopping malls in Maryland Cockeysville, Maryland Hunt Valley, Maryland Shopping malls in Maryland Shopping malls established in 2000 Baltimore County, Maryland landmarks Tourist attractions in Baltimore County, Maryland 2000 establishments in Maryland