 | |
| Location | Warren, Michigan, USA |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°30′07″N83°04′59″W / 42.502°N 83.083°W /42.502; -83.083 |
| Opening date | 1965 |
| Developer | Forbes-Cohen[2] |
| Owner | Signature Associates[1] |
| No. of stores and services | 35 |
| No. ofanchor tenants | 4 |
| Total retail floor area | 600,000 square feet (55,741.8 m2) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Public transit access |  SMART 494, 740 |
Universal Shopping Center, formerlyUniversal Mall andUniversal City, is a redeveloped open-airpower center located inWarren, Michigan, asuburb ofDetroit. The first phase opened in mid-2009 withTarget,Burlington Coat Factory,Marshalls, andPetco.
Development was announced in 1962 for a site formerly occupied by a farm.Montgomery Ward was confirmed as the first anchor tenant at this point.[3] The original mall opened in 1965 as Universal City with Montgomery Ward,Woolworth, andFederal's as its anchor stores. In 1980, Federal's went out of business and was replaced that same year byCrowley's. The opening of Crowley's coincided with a mall-wide renovation that included installation of new floors, ceilings, and seating areas throughout the concourses.[4] Forbes-Cohen, the mall's original owners, sold it toWestfield Group in 1980. Seven years later, Westfield Group sold it to Schostak.[5]
A western wing withMervyns was added to the mall in 1988, and shortly afterward, the eastern wing was renovated to include a movie theater and food court.[6]
In 1997, the F. W. Woolworth chain closed the last of its stores, leaving a large vacancy in the northern wing. Three years later, Montgomery Ward closed the last of its stores as well. Also in 1999, Value City acquired theCrowley's location at Universal Mall and two other Detroit-area malls and renamed them Crowley'sValue City before dropping the Crowley's name entirely.[7] Many of Universal Mall's major chain tenants either moved to other malls, or closed up entirely. By the end of the 1990s, Universal Mall's occupancy was below 35%, and it became adead mall.[8]
Universal Mall Properties acquired the mall in 1999, and mall renovations began soon afterward.Burlington Coat Factory opened that year, displacing the former Woolworth and most of the other stores in the northern wing;[6][9]A.J. Wright opened a year later in a space formerly occupied byBen Franklin in 1997.[6][10] Plans were also made to divide the former Montgomery Ward space into smaller shops.[11] Eventually, occupancy at Universal Mall rebounded to 75%,[6] although by 2007 it had declined to 48% (in part due to the closure of Mervyns' Michigan operations in 2006).[12]
The mall was closed in June 2008 and demolition began on the 23rd of that month, leaving only the Burlington Coat Factory, AJ Wright, theater and former Value City.[13] The rest has been replaced by a strip containing 35 tenants,[14] includingPetco andTarget.[15] The last remaining tenant held over from when the mall was enclosed wasCinemark, which operated the movie theater since it opened in 1991 until it closed in mid-2016. It reopened as a location ofMJR Theatres in late 2016.[16] AJ Wright has since re-branded asMarshalls.
| Enclosed shopping malls |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Open-air centers | ||
| Street-side shopping districts |
| |
| Strip and power centers | ||
| Defunct | ||
| Cancelled | ||
See also:Tourism in metropolitan Detroit | ||