Highland Mall
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| Location | Austin, Texas, USA |
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| Opening date | 1971 |
| Closing date | 2015 |
| Management | General Growth Properties (retail space only) |
| Owner | Austin Community College District |
| No. of stores and services | 130+ |
| No. of anchor tenants | 0 (space for 4) |
| Total retail floor area | 575,334 sq. ft. |
| No. of floors | 4 (Dillard's Womens only; the rest of the mall is 2 floors) |
| Website | HighlandMall.com |
Highland Mall was a shopping mall located in north Austin, Texas, on Airport Boulevard west of I-35 and north of US Route 290. Opened in 1971, Highland Mall was Austin's first suburban shopping mall. Highland Mall was jointly owned by General Growth and Simon Property Group until 2011. Austin Community College began acquiring the surrounding land in 2010, assumed ownership of the last parcel it did not already control in August 2011. On April 29, 2015, Highland Mall officially closed its doors.
In addition, the Greyhound bus terminal for Austin is located immediately southeast of the mall.
Two of the mall's seven retail sectors are closed. Press reports describe the mall as "in decline" and say it is "likely to be demolished in 2010" to make way for a mixed-used development.
On June 26, 2009, Yahoo! reported that it was one of "America's Most Endangered Malls":
While gleaming new stores have been springing up in some parts of Austin, this 38-year-old mall along I-35 has struggled to keep stores open--and avoid embarrassing controversies. Anchor JCPenney left in 2006, and this year Dillard's sued the mall's owners, claiming they let the mall become a "ghost town." The owners countersued, claiming that the suit is part of a scheme to help Dillard's get out of its lease early.
As Austin has grown and expanded in the years since Highland Mall's opening, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods, once considered somewhat upscale, have moderated; the mall is the closest major regional shopping center serving the eastern portion of the city, which has traditionally been populated primarily by working-class African American residents. Highland Mall has been known in recent years for large crowds of visitors to the mall during the Texas Relays (a major track and field event held at the University of Texas at Austin), generating controversy and allegations of racial discrimination, or at the least, a less-than-welcoming attitude, on the part of mall management towards the visitors, mainly younger African Americans, many who visit from out-of-state. During the 2009 Texas Relays, management decided to close the mall several hours earlier than normal, presumably in an attempt to control the crowds and promote safety, prompting protests from the local chapter of the NAACP and a possible boycott of the mall (all part of a larger controversy over perceived negative attitudes in Austin towards the Texas Relays and its largely younger Black fan base, which uses the Relays as a social event comparable to the controversial Freaknik events in Atlanta in the early 2000s).
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