Crabtree Valley Mall is a regional

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

located in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Sout ...

. At , it is the largest enclosed mall in the

Research Triangle The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...

area. Crabtree Valley contains over 200 stores and is 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 ...

and

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 ...

History

Crabtree Valley Mall opened in August 1972 at the intersection of

US 70 U.S. Route 70 or U.S. Highway 70 (US 70) is an east–west United States highway that runs for from eastern North Carolina to east-central Arizona. It is a major east–west highway of the Southeastern, Southern and Southwestern United States. E ...

NC 50 North Carolina Highway 50 (NC 50) is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It goes from Topsail Beach in the south to Creedmoor in the north, connecting the cities of Warsaw, Newton Grove, Benson, and Raleigh. ...

(Glenwood Avenue) and the I-440 Beltline. Original anchors were Hudson

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 ...

, Miller & Rhoads and

Thalhimer's Thalhimers was a department store in the Southern United States. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the venerable chain at its peak operated dozens of stores in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and one store in Memphis, Tennessee. Thalhimer ...

. From the start, the mall pulled shoppers from all over central and eastern North Carolina. Many of them came to the Hudson Belk, which is still the largest store in the complex and serves as a Belk flagship. The mall was remodeled in the mid-1980s and added many specialty stores and a food court. It faced little competition in its market until the 1990s, when

Cary Towne Center Cary Towne Center was an indoor shopping mall in Cary, North Carolina. It was anchored by Belk, Dillard's, Macy's, JCPenney, and Sears. History Cary Village Mall Originally planned in 1972, the mall was first proposed as the adjacent Cary Vill ...

in nearby

Cary Cary may refer to: Places ;United States * Cary, Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolitan area * Cary, Indiana, part of the Indianapolis metropolitan area * Cary, Miami County, Indiana * Cary, Maine * Cary, Mississippi * Cary, North Carolina ...

doubled in size and spawned a companion mall, Crossroads Plaza. In response Crabtree embarked on a major expansion starting in 1993. G.C. Murphy, Miller & Rhoads, and Piccadilly all closed down during this period. Thalhimer's converted to

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 ...

, and began planning for a new, larger location at the mall. In 1993 a 40 by section of the parking deck collapsed just three months after it had been completely rebuilt. Sears closed its Crabtree store in 1994 and opened a new location adjacent to it that August. The old Sears became small shop space and connected to a new, larger Hecht's which opened in August 1995, and the former Thalhimer's/Hecht's became a

Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as ...

which closed in 2006, and the upper level is now a Belk Men's store since 2007 and the lower level became more shops and an H&M in 2010. Hecht's was replaced by

in September 2006 as part of Federated Department Stores, Inc. absorbing

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ...

brands which also includes Hecht's after acquiring the company in 2005. On August 22, 2018,

announced that its store would be closing as part of a plan to close 46 stores nationwide. The store closed on November 25, 2018. This left the mall with two remaining anchors

and

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 ...

. In June 2019, it was announced that the former Sears space will be redeveloped into a 30 story tower. The cost estimates for the initial portion of the redevelopment project were cited at about $290 million, with expectations to create more than 1,300 jobs.

Crabtree Special Police

Crabtree Valley Mall was the only mall in the

area that had its own private police force. The force was sworn in under North Carolina General Statutes Chapter 74E, more commonly known as the

Company Police Company police, also called '' private police'', are privately paid law enforcement officers who work for private security companies or private military companies rather than a municipal, county, state, or national agency. Malaysia In Malaysia, ...

Act, which gave them the power of arrest, and required them to be state certified officers as any municipal police agency. Crabtree Police officers were not allowed to carry firearms while on dut

The force was disbanded in April 2020 after a change in mall management.

Flooding

Crabtree Valley Mall is situated in a low spot along Crabtree Creek (Neuse River), Crabtree Creek, a tributary of the

Neuse River The Neuse River ( , Tuscarora: Neyuherú·kęʔkì·nęʔ) is a river rising in the Piedmont of North Carolina and emptying into Pamlico Sound below New Bern. Its total length is approximately , making it the longest river entirely contained in ...

that begins near Morrisville and winds through

Umstead State Park William B. Umstead State Park is a North Carolina state park in Wake County, North Carolina in the United States. It covers nestled between the expanding cities of Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, North Carolina. It offers hiking, bridle, and bike t ...

as well as western and North Central Raleigh. Because the watershed around the mall has become increasingly covered with impervious parking lots the creek floods easily following major storms. Such floods occurred frequently in the mall's early years, but diminished with the construction of

Lake Crabtree Lake Crabtree is a reservoir in Cary, North Carolina. In order to alleviate the possibility of flooding, it was constructed in 1989 by the Natural Resources Conservation Service via damming the Crabtree Creek. It is currently within the Lake C ...

and large retaining basins upstream of the mall. However, the problem has returned and lower levels are still likely to flood during heavy rains in the summer months. Heavy rains caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto flooded the lower level parking lots of the mall on June 14, 2006, as well as a great deal of the bottom level of anchor stores, forcing the mall to close for the day. A similar situation occurred with

Hurricane Fran Hurricane Fran caused extensive damage in the United States in early September 1996. The sixth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season, Fran developed from a tropical wave near Cape Verde on ...

in 1996, when flood waters flowed through the first floor of the mall and caused a few stores to remain closed for nearly two months. The lower level of the parking structure along with small parts of the main building have also flooded in 2013, March 2016 and, on July 16, 2016 when during an intense storm Crabtree creek rose 8 feet, closing some roads that surround the mall and flooding parking lots.http://www.weather.gov/rah/July162016Flooding The storm left dozens stranded and cars flooded.

References

External links

Crabtree Valley Mall
{{Raleigh-Durham area malls Shopping malls in Raleigh, North Carolina Shopping malls established in 1972