Park Central Mall
| Location | Phoenix, AZ |
|---|---|
| Opening date | 1957 |
| Management | Park Central Management |
| No. of stores and services | 20+ |
| No. of floors | 1 |
Park Central Mall was the first shopping mall in Phoenix, Arizona, It is located in Encanto Village, on Central Avenue and Osborn Road.
Today it exists as a mixed-use, business park primarily occupied by regional administrative offices for non-profit hospital operator Dignity Health (formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West), and regional offices for UnitedHealth Group. The property currently is known simply as Park Central.
Park Central Shopping City, as it originally was known, was first envisioned by Ralph Burgbacher and his older brother, A.J. Burgbacher. The two men purchased the 46-acre (190,000 m2) Central Avenue Dairy in the 1950s. At the time Phoenix was a much smaller city, and the mall's location, 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the state capitol was an early edge city, which in time came to be known as "Uptown" Phoenix. Other developers criticized the brothers, believing a development out in the "dairy farm" area was futile, but development proceeded and the open-air mall was completed in 1957. When the mall opened, the primary anchors were a twin-level Goldwater's, twin-level Diamond's, and a J.J. Newberry five and dime store. Goldwater's and Diamond's soon closed their older, downtown stores favoring their new midtown location in the mall. When J.C. Penney closed its downtown location in the mid-1960s, the downtown area never would regain its status as the retail draw it once was. The original Phoenix-based Playboy club was across Central Ave. to the East; it closed in the mid-1980s.
As Phoenix quickly grew, the area around Park Central Mall saw an increasing number of mid-rise and high-rise office buildings built along Central Avenue, and eventually became known as the central business district. Part of this mid-1960s transition included the new addition of a twin level J.C. Penney store at the mall, and a covered parking deck on the northeast end of the property, to help combat the hot summertime temperatures.
Unable to compete with newer enclosed shopping malls, Park Central, still an open-air facility, had lost most of its major retailers by the very late 1980s. The first major anchor to leave was Robinson's, which had purchased and converted the Goldwater's store years earlier, closing the location down just before the end of the decade. The second major anchor to leave was J.C. Penney, closing just at the start of the 1990s. Finally the last anchor, Dillard's, which had purchased and converted Diamond's a few years prior, became a discount Dillard's Clearance Center and remained open in that format until the mid-1990s.
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