Carolina Circle Mall was a

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 ...

in the northeast section of

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...

US 29 U.S. Route 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida to the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland in the Southern United States, connecting the Florida Panhandle to the Baltimore-Washington ...

and Cone Boulevard.

History

Carolina Circle Mall opened in 1976, two years after the opening of Four Seasons Mall in southern Greensboro. Carolina Circle Mall was anchored by

Belk Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, a ...

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 ...

and

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

. Belk opened its doors in February 1976, and Montgomery Ward's, Ivey's and twenty-two other stores opened in August of that year. It was Ivey's first department store in Greensboro. The mall encompassed . Carolina Circle Mall also featured the only ice skating rink in Greensboro, located in the central corridor of the mall. The mall also had a movie theater, and out-parcel stores such as

Toys R Us A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include Toy block, toy blocks, Board game, board games, and Doll, dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed sp ...

and a

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

across Cone Boulevard. Another major tenant was a Piccadilly Cafeteria and a restaurant and bar called Annabelle's. The mall continued to enjoy success and friendly competition with Four Seasons and other retail establishments in town throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the late 1980s, Carolina Circle Mall's vacancy rate rose when Four Seasons was expanded. To keep up, Carolina Circle Mall was renovated. A food court replaced the ice rink in 1988.

Decline

By 1990, Carolina Circle Mall was clearly in decline. A skateboarding park adjacent to the mall drew complaints, as incidents such as drug use increased around the mall's property. A growing number of gangs combined with rising crime in the area kept shoppers away from Carolina Circle Mall. The vacancy rate increased throughout the 1990s. Mainstays such as

Waldenbooks Waldenbooks, operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain, from 1995 as a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a ...

Camelot Music Camelot Music was a mall-based American retailer of prerecorded music and accessories and was one of the largest music retailers in the United States based on store count. As of May 31, 1998, the company operated 455 stores in 37 states nationwide ...

and

Radio Shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

left the mall. Belk downsized its department store, leasing the lower level to the

U.S. Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the Federal government of the Uni ...

. By 1998, Belk and Dillard's (formerly Ivey's) closed their doors, with Dillard's having previously downgraded to a clearance center leaving Montgomery Ward as the sole anchor and only a handful of inline tenants left. By 2002, with Montgomery Ward in bankruptcy, the closure of that chain signaled the closure of the entire mall.

Post-closure

After the mall closed in 2002, there were many ideas thrown around as to what it should become. Government offices, a branch of Guilford Technical Community College, and a sports complex and indoor fitness facility were some of the ideas that were pitched. Linder Investments purchased the property, and turned some of the parking lots into soccer fields, however the mall structure itself remained vacant and boarded up after constant vandalism. By June 1, 2005,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

had purchased part of the property, and demolition began on Carolina Circle Mall. By 2006, Walmart opened with a strip of new stores. Part of the Ring Road was removed. A Lowe's store replaced the Kmart across Carolina Circle Mall in 2007.

References

External links

Carolina Circle City Blog

{{Piedmont Triad malls Shopping malls in Greensboro, North Carolina Shopping malls established in 1976 Shopping malls disestablished in 2002 1976 establishments in North Carolina 2002 disestablishments in North Carolina Demolished shopping malls in the United States