Meridian Mall (Michigan)

Meridian Mall

Meridian Mall entrance sign along Grand River Avenue
Location	Meridian Charter Township (Okemos), Michigan, United States
Opening date	1969
Developer	M.H. Hausman Co.
Management	CBL & Associates Properties
Owner	CBL & Associates Properties
No. of stores and services	125
No. of anchor tenants	5
Total retail floor area	997,128 sq ft (92,636 m2).
No. of floors	1 (2 in Younkers Women's and Dick's)

Meridian Mall is a super-regional shopping mall located in Okemos, Meridian Township, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan, United States. The mall is near Michigan State University. It opened in 1969, the same year that its main competitor, Lansing Mall, opened on the other end of the Lansing metropolitan area. Meridian Mall features about 125 stores plus a food court. Anchor stores include JCPenney, Macy's, and two Younkers stores. Meridian Mall is owned and managed by CBL & Associates Properties.

Meridian Mall was built by M.H. Hausman Company and opened to the public on November 6, 1969. The mall was built at the northwest corner of Grand River Avenue (M-43) and Marsh Road in Meridian Charter Township. Originally, the mall featured three anchor stores: Lansing-based J.W. Knapp Company (Knapp's), a Woolco discount store, and a G.C. Murphy dime store. Tenants at the time included a movie theater, Cunningham Drug, Hamady Brothers supermarket, Schensul's Cafeteria, and Elias Brothers Big Boy restaurant. In 1979, the Murphy store was closed and its space was divided into a new mall section consisting of twelve shops.

J. W. Knapp filed for bankruptcy in 1980 and sold three of its four stores to J. C. Penney: the location at Meridian Mall, plus another at Lansing Mall and a third at Westwood Mall in Jackson. These openings resulted in the closure of a J. C. Penney store in downtown Lansing. A new wing was added to the south end of Meridian Mall in 1982, bringing in Detroit-based Hudson's as a third anchor. Woolco closed later in 1982 as parent company F. W. Woolworth Company phased out the Woolco stores. A year later, the Woolco space was subdivided between a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m²) Service Merchandise catalog showroom and a new mall corridor with space for up to fifteen more tenants. A 1987 expansion added another new wing ending in a Mervyns department store. The store opened concurrently with seven others in the state, one of which was also located at Lansing Mall, as part of the chain's introduction to Michigan. This addition at Meridian Mall included more than ten new storefronts, including Lerner New York, LensCrafters, Babbage's, and new locations for Gantos and County Seat.