Rockville Mall
| Location | Rockville, Maryland |
|---|---|
| Opening date | 1972 |
| Closing date | 1995, replaced with Rockville Town Center |
| Website | City of Rockville, Rockville Town Center website |
Rockville Mall was an indoor shopping mall in Rockville, Maryland. Opened in 1972, the mall originated as part of an urban renewal project. Much of it was demolished in 1995, and later replaced with Rockville Town Center.
In 1962, Rockville became the first small city in Maryland to undertake a federal urban renewal program. Forty-six acres in the town center were bought; old and new buildings were demolished, and street patterns were changed. In their place rose the residential Americana Centre, more County buildings, high-rise offices, and a large shopping mall with 1,560 spaces of underground parking. A decade after the project began, the 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2), 40 shop Rockville Mall opened in 1972, on 13 acres (53,000 m2).
Although designed originally to have Sears and JC Penney as the two anchors, no second lease was ever signed. The sole anchor at opening was a branch of the Washington, D.C.-based Lansburgh's department store chain. Within a year, Lansburgh's closed and was replaced briefly with a branch of Lit Brothers, followed by a W. & J. Sloane furniture clearance center and Franklin Simon & Co. store. Those stores closed with the bankruptcy of City Stores in 1979.
The mall was renamed in 1978 as the Commons at Courthouse Square and by 1981, 35 of the 55 store fronts were vacant. That year, despite the opening of the adjacent Montgomery County Executive Office Building, tenancy eventually dwindled to a handful, the property's New York-based owner, Rockville Development Associates, went bankrupt, and the mall was closed.
In 1983, Eisenger-Kildane of Gaithersburg, Maryland, spent $50 million attempting to redevelop it as a more entertainment-oriented facility. It was reopened as Rockville Metro Center, reflecting the connection at its east end to the newly opened Rockville Metro station across Maryland Route 355. This renovation brought in the late 1980s a large United Artists theater complex and "Breakers," a billiards parlor. Though these businesses, at the east end of the mall closest to the Metro station, attracted some traffic, the remainder of the mall lacked attractive tenants and therefore remained largely vacant.
...
Wikipedia