Century Plaza Revisited: Irondale, AL

I previously mentioned on my Brookwood Village post about the "two malls in Irondale" that failed.  One of those, of course, is Eastwood Mall, which I was too late to ever see.  The other, though, I covered in 2007.  That was Century Plaza...a fading mall just across the street from Eastwood Mall that initially seemed poised to take a boost from the closure and demolition of Eastwood.

When Eastwood was failing, the mall only featured one major department store anchor, which was Parisian.  Service Merchandise had long since left the mall, and Books-A-Million held on as the one other junior anchor there.  Eastwood at that point was hopelessly doomed, but at that point Century Plaza was troubled but still modestly successful.  With Rich's, McRae's, JCPenney and Sears it seemed to be doing okay.  I really doubt that anybody really saw it coming, but at the time Russell Wells tipped me off that the mall was not doing well as Rich's suddenly departed the mall in a small round of closings in 2004 that also included the store at the former Cobb Center Mall in Smyrna, GA and a store in Ohio.  Rich's was the most interesting part of the mall featuring a built-in anchor tenant that extended back behind stores on the upper floor to an odd side entrance on the upper level of the McRae's/Belk wing.  Unfortunately, that was long closed and sealed off when I arrived.

Rich's one outside entrance looks dated and forelorn over the parking lot with its filthy tinted glass windows shielding the glass entrance fronting a dark store.  The first photo shows a mall sign with the letters removed showing the Century Plaza name.  Clearly, nothing on the outside has ever been updated since the day it opened.  No signs, barricades or any other information indicates that a massive shopping mall was closed for good.

The blame game on the failure of the mall has been everything from the economy to racism to excess competition, but even if those were factors, the real factor was that a lifestyle center killed it.  In 2006, a new lifestyle center opened in Trussville known as the Pinnacle at Tutwiler Farm.  What a cute name!  Too bad it killed a huge mall!  Perhaps it wasn't planned that way, but here's how it happened.  First, the center lured away JCPenney.  Also included in the center was Parisian in a new prototype store.  While Parisian was not at Century Plaza, it was at Eastwood, and it was the death knell for that mall.  Belk, however, did open in the old McRae's.  The problem was, though, is that when Belk bought out Parisian they couldn't leave fast enough.  With Rich's already gone and two other major anchors hotfooting it for the latest retail craze, this left a mall with quite a few chain stores taken by surprise and a lonely Sears flanking the west end of the mall.  In reality, the mall did not look all that dead.  At least 50% of the stores were still operational.

One of the biggest problems that Century Plaza faced was that it was so completely, hopelessly dated on the outside.  Its brutalist trappings were nothing short of severe with its bright red brick, dark glass and plain, simple lines.  When I first saw it I thought it was the ugliest mall I had ever seen, but on the inside I was pleasantly surprised.  This store opened as Loveman's, but also housed Pizitz (1980-1986), McRae's (1986-2006) and Belk (2006-2007).

An overview of the JCPenney with a mall entrance on the left.  If that was a third level, it looked to be very small.  The entrance to JCPenney was on the right.

A backside entrance to JCPenney.  This aspect of being so plain, dark and somewhat cheap looking riled up frustrated boomers to quickly apply the bulldozer therapy to the less successful of 70's retail creations, though the stucco clad replacements actually ended up looking far trashier.  This would have happened here, but the timing of the mall's closing could not have been worse.  Who knows what will end up happening to the mall.

A close-up of a secondary outside entrance to JCPenney, which obviously was where store services were.

I do have to say, though, that the jump of the anchors I am sure had some basis in race.  Race relations are historically more strained in Birmingham than Atlanta, and the city's high crime and poverty haven't helped mend those fences.  When I was in the mall last, it was much like in Western Hills Mall where I was likely the only white "shopper" in the mall.  The neighborhood there, too, was aging and less prosperous than more outlying areas, so a once prime mall in the 70's suddenly was not so prime despite an otherwise excellent location with high visibility.  For two more years after my visit, the mall was fading quickly and garnering national attention for the modern "dead malls" phenomenon.  When Sears finally announced that they, too, were closing, the mall quickly announced that they would do the same.  Its owners, General Growth Properties, were likely caught off guard themselves, and the company's recent bankruptcy was likely influenced by the sudden failure of Birmingham's first mega mall.

A cavernous entrance labeled simply "Entrance 2" looms next to the vacant restaurant.  Rich's began just to the right forming the entire wall on the right extending into the mall.

Another entrance on the other side of Rich's.  The sidewalks still lack the inevitable weeds that will soon take over the cracks no longer disturbed by pedestrians that once sought the shopping mecca found within.  This could have been avoided if the unnecessary lifestyle center had not been built.

Sadly, as Sears closed so did the rest of mall on May 31, 2009.  Today, Century Plaza is a hulking shell of bright red brick with no cars and no shoppers.  Despite its 80's interior renovation, it is obvious today how truly dated the mall was.  Its mall entrances look no different than the day it opened, and outside it is completely uninviting architecturally in any way.  While the mall was always beautiful inside, it was clearly a dated center that was low on the list of priorities of everyone involved.  In less than 10 years it went from a decently thriving mall to an abandoned hulk much in the same fashion as Regency Mall in Augusta, GA did almost a decade before.  Today, it seems there are no plans for the mall much in the way there has been nothing concrete for Regency since the day it closed.  However, unlike Regency, its absence of life is very visible, so it presents a major challenge for the Birmingham area as a whole.  It is always sad to see such a substantial place as this completely die, but the timing could not have been worse.  Only time will tell what becomes of a cornerstone of Birmingham retail history.

Brookwood Village Mall: Homewood, AL

The average big city American shopping mall, prior to the Lifestyle Center craze, was a pretty exhausting center from the outside.  If featured a huge four to six anchor center surrounded by an enormous parking lot that was typically torturous to walk across in boiling or freezing weather due to the crowds and walking distance.  Inside, the mall was so vast that you could literally walk yourself to death to go from store to store after that.  This was the natural setup for a mega mall with plenty of available land, but in the case of Brookwood Village in a suburban city of Birmingham, this was far from the case.

Brookwood Village is decidedly smaller than many malls built in the 70's, and it features one of the strangest layouts for a mall in one of the most scenic settings.  Situated in a narrow valley between two long, steep hills, the mall itself is wedged between one of those hills and Shades Creek.  Building the mall itself was a challenge, because unlike most malls, the available parking area was hardly existent.  Not only that, but the fact it was built along a creek bed led to the site being situated on poor soils that called for the entire mall being built on piles driven deep in the ground to support its own weight.  To accommodate for the parking situation, a two level partially underground parking deck was constructed under the mall to offset the limited parking on the outside.  This resulted in the majority of the mall itself being elevated over the parking deck with only a small basement level shopping area in the middle to tie the parking deck to the mall itself.  The mall was built by local family as well, the Shepherd family.

Looking at mall with the Belk entrance behind me toward Macy's.  The first photo is from the opposite court in front of Macy's.

A basic view along the mall looking toward Macy's.  From here, the mall looks like a simple one-level mall, but this is not the case.

When the mall opened in 1973, it featured Birmingham's very first installment of Atlanta-based Rich's on the east end and Birmingham-based Pizitz on the other.  It was intended to be a more upscale mall, and this image was enhanced by the presence of upscale junior anchor Gus Mayer on the lower level, which is still there today.  Since the mall obviously featured only regional department stores when it opened, the shakeup in the mall anchor-wise left it completely different today from when it opened.  While Rich's simply went to Macy's in 2005, the Pizitz location went through a big cycle of anchors much like other locations in the city.  First, McRae's took the spot in 1986 after buying out the Pizitz chain.  The store would last the longest as McRae's, and it was probably pretty interesting to look at since Rich's and McRae's used the exact same font in their logo.  After Belk bought McRae's in 2006, instead of converting to Belk right away, it was converted to Parisian as a divesting of some stores in the buyout.  Apparently, Belk did not want the more upscale locations initially.  A year later, the store did become Belk anyway, which to all appearances is appropriately an A-class store.  It arrived in late 2007, and the A-class designation is closer to Parisian in merchandise quality and offerings.

A look at center court atrium.  The first photo shows tables for food court seating leading up to a large window overlooking the main entrance and lifestyle wing in front of Shades Creek.  The second photo looks back toward the food court in the back side of the atrium.  The main mall crosses over in the middle in the upper level bridge here.  The lower level is also clearly visible here from the atrium as well.  Note the escalators down to the subterranean parking deck level from the lower level.

Aside from the anchors, what is also interesting is the Books-A-Million in the mall.  Most Books-A-Million (sometimes called BAM!) locations today are generally one level stores that provide decent book stores to mid-sized markets overlooked by Barnes and Noble and not yet tapped by struggling Borders.  This one is different, though.  It has a distinctly upscale look inside, and it is the only two-level Books-A-Million I have ever seen.  Since Books-A-Million is based right in the area, this is likely the flagship store.  According to Evans Criswell, this store was originally a Book & Co. store, a division of Books-A-Million.  In all, I was definitely impressed, and inside it reminded me of the late 70's with its rich black coloring enhanced by bluish lighting.  The rest of the mall, however, is overall mid-market these days despite its appearances and the presence of a few upscale stores such as Z Gallerie.  It is undoubtedly a bit strained by so much competition since it was built, especially the wildly popular The Summit in nearby Mountain Brook, which was the very first lifestyle center in America.  The redevelopment of Todds Mall that created Vestavia Hills Shopping Center nearby has also attempted to steal some its thunder, though recently the center has been struggling.  Nevertheless, the mall did not look in any danger from so much competition around, so the owners have successfully kept overzealous competition at bay.

Macy's mall entrance definitely has the look of a 70's Rich's mall entrance including the sign suspended over glass like this.  Of all of the modern Macy's mall entrances, I think I like this one the most by far.  It is classy and sophisticated.  Note the escalators to the parking deck in the first photo.

From the base of the escalators to the parking deck level is this parking deck entrance to Macy's.

A look at the escalators down from the main mall (top) down to the two levels of parking decks below it.  The top level parking deck is divided by the mall's lower level.

Walking across the upper level parking deck, I came to this parking deck level entrance to Books-A-Million, which is a two level store.  Its upper level connects directly into the mall as an inline tenant.

One of the oddest things about the mall is the entrances to the two main anchors.  In front of the anchors is a set of escalators, which connect to the parking deck.  Access to each anchor directly from the mall was only possible from the second level, so the escalators were put in place from the parking deck to provide access to the mall from the lower level parking deck entrance.  More escalators go further down to the subterranean parking level.  From the parking deck level, getting to the mall otherwise is tricky.  When I walked across the deck from Macy's, I did not arrive at the mall but to the lower level entrance of Books-A-Million.  Books-A-Million on the lower level did not have any direct access to the mall, but I was able to go in and go up the escalator into the main mall from inside the store.  In fact, when I explored the lower level shopping area, I found only a few shops down there other than Gus Mayer, though none appeared to be vacant.  This lower level shopping area is in the middle of the mall.  I found it amazing that any shop could survive in such a weird environment, but the mall owners worked out a way that could happen.

The current Belk mall entrance, which has previously served, respectively as Parisian, McRae's, JCPenney and originally Pizitz.

Upscale junior anchor Gus Mayer, which is found on the lower level on a wing off to the side of the atrium.

In the mall's last renovation, the mall added its own lifestyle center wing and was substantially renovated.  Completed in late 2001, the mall renovations costed $50 million coming after the purchase by Colonial Properties in 1997, who renamed the mall Colonial Brookwood Village.  While this was not much overall, it did add a few upscale restaurants and it placed them on the front of the mall.  This was a tight squeeze indeed as it took some of the front parking area between the mall and Shades Creek.  Shades Creek, as it is, divides the mall from Shades Creek Pkwy (AL 149) by a series of bridges over the creek.  This new strip of restaurants, though, helped create a way to funnel traffic not only in front of the mall but into the lower level front entrance into the mall.  It also helped create more diverse offerings in addition to the 65-store mall.  This lower level is also built into a huge court that extends above the second level, so it is clearly visible from the food court on the second level.  The food court itself is integral in the mall, and it features a more interesting mix of restaurants than are found in many food courts including McAlister's Deli and local favorite Golden Rule Bar-B-Que. 

A couple more views along the lower level mall space.  Both photos face the main mall entrance.

Design wise, the current owners have done a significant amount of work to make the mall attractive.  Its design is contemporary and elegant, though like most malls today is completely voided of any fountains or significant plant features.  In reality, it would be a fairly simple mall if not for the complex parking structure built under most of the mall.  With that, as well as the presence of some unusual anchor tenants and decidedly upscale design, the mall turned out to be far more interesting than I imagined.  Most of all, though, I find its setting to be absolutely intriguing.  In no other instance have I ever noted a major shopping mall to be built in a narrow creek valley like that.  Having a mountainous backdrop like that is unusual enough as well.  Today, the mall has also seen an increase in importance as both major shopping malls in Irondale have since faded into history.  With so much major competition in such a small geographic area, there would be winners and losers, and Brookwood was one of the winners despite being in one of the most geographically constrained settings for a mall ever.

Exterior shot of Parisian from 2007, which is today Belk.  Since Rich's was already gone, I made no effort to photograph the Macy's that took its place.  Returning to the mall at night made exterior photography too difficult, so only interior photos were made on this trip.

MORE: An older post I made shows photos of the Rich's taken by Birmingham native Russell Wells from the outside in 2004.  Also, here is a site plan of the mall from the mall's website.

UPDATE 1/6/2025: Brookwood Mall closed for good in 2024 to be redeveloped. After the closure of Belk (former Pizitz/Parisian) in 2018 and Macy's (former Rich's) in 2022, the mall was left anchorless and was ultimately unable to survive without any anchors.

Western Hills Mall: Fairfield, AL

What do you say about a little mall that seems to have been hit on every front yet survives?  Western Hills Mall turned 40 this year, and it also turned a new leaf over its lifespan as Birmingham's second oldest and now smallest shopping mall.  When it opened in 1970, it was the south side of the city's complement to Eastwood Mall on the north.  However, unlike Eastwood, it already had competition built down the road only a year before with West Lake Mall.  Nevertheless, it was closer to the city in what was at the time a thriving early suburb, and the mall featured JCPenney and popular local department store chain Loveman's.  Other tenants included Sokol's (of Bessemer), Aland's, Woolworth's and Britling's Cafeteria.  Oddly, the mall also included a Pizitz Bake Shop despite the lack of a Pizitz.  In all, it was a pretty basic center, and it is amazing it survives today with all of its original anchors gone and so much competition in the city built since then.

While a typical mall from that era, it did receive a significant touch that made it really stand out.  More importantly, though, was the large ramp and fountain in front of Loveman's.  The fountain here was quite a showpiece with a curving rock wall, planters and elevated, self-supporting ramp crossing the fountain.  Not only did this provide a grand and dramatic entrance to Loveman's, but it was quite beautiful and unique.  The fountain attempts to capture the feel of the hills and limestone gorges of the area, and it pulls it off well.  Unfortunately, on my visit the fountain was not operating.  Also, the rock wall was painted jet black, which only cheapened the appearance of the feature.

Awkward photo of center court from west wing followed by photo of main entrance corridor.  It was impossible to get a good photo of center court due to the presence of a seated mall cop at the information booth.  Note the fountain in the first photo.  The small overhead skylights are clearly not original.

The mall over time would see several important changes.  First, Loveman's changed hands repeatedly since the chain folded in 1980.  Pizitz would replace the store that year, replacing a store at Five Points west leading to the death of the center's mall addition.  Soon after in 1986, Pizitz sold out to McRae's, thus become McRae's.  In 1999, Parisian relocated from their 60,000 square foot High Points West store into the McRae's when owners Saks Inc decided to convert the store to the Parisian banner.  Parisian would remain in that location before closing in 2005.  It was that same year that JCPenney would also close at the mall.  With such a cruel twist of fate, any other mall would be doomed, but this was not so for Western Hills.    Despite spending over a year with two dead anchors, the mall would soon find new life.  When JCPenney was closed, the vacant store was soon after demolished when Wal-Mart decided to move from its former location next door in an old Woolco to the mall.  Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in 2006, and it was built on the site.  However, it was not attached directly to the mall.  In fact, the old JCPenney mall entrance became a new west entrance where Wal-Mart shoppers had to walk across the parking lot to access the store from the mall.  In 2007, Burlington Coat Factory also came and took over the Parisian.  Somewhere in that time, most likely in the 90's, the mall was renovated also, but that information was not available.  The mall inside does not look to have been modified since that time, but outside the very big and dominating mall entrance sign looks to have come with the 2005 changes.

Looking along the east wing from center court toward Burlington Coat Factory, originally Loveman's.

Looking along the western wing to the west entrance, which previously had been a mall entrance to JCPenney.

Through these doors, shoppers can walk across the parking lot to the Wal-Mart Supercenter, but Wal-Mart did not anchor the mall itself.  This was for the best since Wal-Mart typically refuses to provide mall entrances to its stores.  The last I have seen like that was a Wal-Mart in Harrisonburg Mall in Harrisonburg, VA, which has long since closed.

Western Hills Mall also saw significant demographic changes.  When the mall opened, the neighborhood was mostly white and its residents largely families of steel mill workers.  As the steel mills closed and the white population shifted north and east, the mall gradually became a mall mostly serving an African-American clientele similar to, but less successfully than, Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta and Southland Mall in Memphis.  While its offerings today seem to be more of the urban variety, it is hardly a dead mall.  It seems that malls in such areas tend to be far more resilient to anchor losses in comparison with other malls.  In other words, its anchor loss did not detract from the local popularity of the center as it hosts full parking lots and heavy business.  The mall also has remained under the same ownership since it opened.  It was built by local developer Aaron Aronov, who also help build many major shopping malls and centers across the state.  The huge success of his malls including University Mall in Tuscaloosa as well as constructing one of the nation's very first malls, also in Alabama, have made him a legend in the state.

The Burlington Coat Factory, originally Loveman's, mall entrance.  The entrance has been painted over and modified significantly since it was Loveman's.  Parisian closed here in 2005.  The railing is for the drop down to the entrance, which includes a sweeping fountain.

Looking out toward the southeast mall entrance.  From this angle, the mall reminds me very much of West Lake Mall, but with a more interesting east court.  Burlington Coat Factory is on the left.

Note the sweeping ramp over the dry fountain dropping from the mall wing down to the Burlington entrance (behind me).  I'm sorry about the quality of these shots.  Note the painted over stone wall in the background.  The fountain was not running, either.

A look from the top of the ramp toward the southeast entrance.  Alabama Power apparently has an office in the mall in the background.

Most malls in the complicated circumstances of Western Hills Mall would be completely gone today.  As the smallest in the city, its anchor losses could have been devastating for the mall, so it is impressive how well it adapted.  City leaders in Fairfield in conjunction with Aronov Realty made it happen by successfully lobbying Wal-Mart to replace their aging store across the street with a location at the mall.  As stated before, the former Wal-Mart was located in an old Woolco...one of the last to still use that space.  It is now a full-size Wal-Mart drawing shoppers both to the store and to the mall with the mall functioning like an enclosed strip for the store.  While Burlington Coat Factory typically spells doom for malls, this does not seem to be the case at this point...at least not yet.

Looking back along the west wing toward center court.

Detail of planter and seating area.

Though its prospects overall seem less than bright, it does have one of the most popular stores in the country funneling traffic indirectly into the mall.  It also maintains a devoted shopping base: something its older competition with Eastwood Mall was unable to maintain.  While I do not expect the mall to survive in its current form for many more years, it is at present still looking to be one of the few surprises in a nation full of dead or dying outmoded malls mostly of older vintage. 

Western Hills Mall main entrance from the outside.  It looks like a mix of Hollywood and industrial...very gaudy indeed, but it definitely makes this little mall look bigger.

Side entrance to Burlington Coat Factory, formerly Loveman's, Pizitz, McRae's and Parisian.  All but the front entrance was sealed off.

Back side of Burlington Coat Factory.

PLUS:
Historic information and photos on Western Hills Mall on Birmingham Rewound.
More photos of the mall from major site contributor Mike Kalasnik

Former Golbro/Golbro Jewelry Center: Irondale, AL

I do not know a whole lot about Golbro, but what I do know about it is that it is was a lot like Service Merchandise, so I am assuming the catalog merchant part of the business was closed in the mid to late 1990's.  Service Merchandise was just one of many catalog merchants, but through a series of acquisitions including Ellman's of Atlanta it became the largest.  Up until the 1990's, Alabama had many stores and chains that were very specific to the state only.  One of these was Golbro, which was at least in Birmimgham and also in Huntsville.  A tattered Golbro sign in Huntsville also became a famous photo after a large tornado destroyed the shopping center it was located in.  In Birmingham, a Golbro sign today remains at a location along Crestwood Blvd (US 78) in Irondale just east of the former Century Plaza and Eastwood Malls.

What is most curious about Golbro is that, like Service Merchandise, it did not completely close down.  What it did instead was downsize into a jewelry-only operation much in the way Service Merchanside continues to operate only as a web site.  This might explain why today the signs for the otherwise defunct chain remain.  Most of the Golbro space, however, was taken over by Superpetz...lesser competition to better known PetSmart and Petco.  It also appears that, much like stores of its kind, it had a rather distinctive design.  Nevertheless, what remains today appears quite dated, but "dated" is something worthy of photography for me.  Considering all this, I would like to hear a little more about this chain since I ran across it.  For me, it was one of those "finds" I always encounter on these trips, but I'm sure others of you have stories to tell about it, and I would love to hear them!

The smaller Golbro sign looks much more deteriorated looking southeast than looking west.  It looks like a creepy afterthought next to the modern Superpetz sign.  In both pics, I-20 is in the background on the overpass.

The tall sign looks newer, but still is designed in a fashion that looks no later than 1982.

Golbro Jewelry Center itself looked out of business.  It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week and there was a metal screen on the inside of the door.  The original Golbro took up the entire building where Superpetz is today.

A view of the store and building in greater detail.  I am guessing this was built in the mid to late 70's.

West Lake Mall: Bessemer, AL

Birmingham has lost many malls over the past decade, but none have been as forgotten as West Lake Mall.  West Lake Mall these days is like many malls across the nation that were once viable, but were lost to the city's collective memory by its location in a more blue collar area that began a steady decline into poverty and crime.  Malls like this one also shared a common aspect in that they were successful regionally in their time, but were not major players in the entire market area.  Over time, they found themselves eclipsed by burgeoning retail areas elsewhere as well as bigger and better malls.  As a result, they also were some of the first dying malls.  This is why West Lake Mall is rarely mentioned today when discussing Birmingham malls, and little information exists about its history.

West Lake starting out promising when it opened in 1969.  It was a 300,000 square foot mall, and it had tthree major anchors: Sears and Loveman's of Alabama and a Grant's discount store.   Local chains such as Sokol's and Aland's would also have locations in the mall.  Sears was on the southeast side of the mall, Loveman's in the middle on the southwest and Grant's to the northwest at the other end.  In all, it was a basic T-shaped single-level mall built on a filled lake known as West Lake where the mall got its name.  Overall, the mall still was modestly successful, but only for its first 15-20 years.  The biggest change in that time was when Loveman's went out of business in 1980 and was replaced by Pizitz.  Stores like Sokol's and Aland's look to have faded out in that period as well.  When Grant's closed in 1976, it was replaced by Consumer Warehouse Foods.  Consumer Warehouse Foods was a division of Bruno's that was phased out by the mid-1980's replaced with regular Bruno's, Foodmax and Food World . 

This photo is of the main entrance corridor, which is a long open-air wing into the mall in front of what used to be Sears mall entrance.  The fist photo is the West Lake Mall sign on US 11 still showing Food World.  The other side has a big, very homemade "Flea Market" banner.

Looking along the main entrance corridor.  the store on the left is the back of the Food World, which is otherwise the old Sears building, which closed in the 1980's.  An empty store on the right was most likely where the Grants was originally.

The main entrance looks like a cheap late 80's renovation, and it is definitely showing the stains of time.  A boxwood adorns the center of the walkway along with a tree oblivious to the mall's overall condition.  It still has character, though.  I like the grand entry element.

Signs that the mall was troubled were obvious by the mid-1980's when, according to Bhamwiki, Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company attempted to remake the mall as a factory outlet mall despite the fact the mall was still viable in that time.  Somewhere between then and 1990 , the mall also looks to have had a major renovation.  When Pizitz was bought out by McRae's, it appears that McRae's never joined the mall opting to close the store instead.  Sears would also close by 1989, opting to locate in the Flintridge Shopping Center in Fairfield in lieu of the troubled mall.  Despite the mall's decline, it continued to maintain at least two anchors at a time into the 2000's.

A second entrance was closer to the Loveman's/Goody's, but both entrances faced the northeast.  This one lacked the grand entryway in lieu of just a simple doorway.  Typical of renovations of that period, the design looked completely out of character with the rest of the mall.

A look at the doorways, which clearly are original along the second entrance.

Inside, I see what looks like screens or parts of booths for the Flea Market.  In the distance I see light suggesting there are some skylights in the court ahead.  I wish I could have seen how the old Sokol's/Goody's worked into the mall.  Perhaps it has reopened, and I was unlucky enough to see it...or lucky considering this area was not the safest.

The Bruno family was the most committed to the mall's success.  In 1994, Bruno's closed its store in the old Grant's, opening up a flagship store in the Sears that would ultimately become Food World five years later.  The Sears location had much greater visibility than the old Grant's  On top of that, Goody's would take over the former Loveman's/Pizitz location bringing two anchors to the mall.  World Gym was also in the mall at one point, though it is not clear exactly where: most likely in the store with the outside entrance at the main entrance corridor.  The only problem with the grocery store conversion of the old Sears was the fact that the supermarket sealed off an entrance into the mall, sealing the mall's fate as well.  It literally hid the mall from view when that happened.

Here, we have a peak inside the main court in front Sears.  Although its hard to tell, it looks like the mall was mostly dark and plain aside from these courts.  This really does not look that much updated from the 1960's except for the color schemes.  The Sears mall entrance would have been just to the left of the first photo.

West Lake had so much working against it, so it was literally amazing how it kept reinventing itself in the past two decades.  It was located far from the preferred urban center, and it was most likely built to take advantage of growth that never occurred on the southwest side of the city as well as outlying areas such as Tuscaloosa.  The problem was, Tuscaloosa got their own mall the same year and Western Hills Mall opened only a few miles up the road in Fairfield a year later.  20 years later even those malls would be eclipsed, further drying the potential pool of shoppers.  On top of that, a new mall portion was built onto Five Points West shopping center in the early 70's including a Pizitz department store making Fairfield more of a shopping destination early in the game.

A look at the former Grant's, which later operated as Consumer Warehouse Foods (a division of Bruno's).  It looks like a big part of the canopy is missing.

Looking along the back of the store.  It looks like another small entrance was in the back, but it has long since been sealed off.

Inside the old Grant's/Consumer Warehouse Foods.  Here, I can clearly see booths that either have just been set up or are in the process of being removed...I don't know which.

While Fairfield itself is in decline today, it was the expansion of retail in Fairfield that heavily contributed to the eventual failure of West Lake Mall.  Early on, the market was overbuilt and Loveman's overlapped with Western Hills Mall: a plausible factor in why Loveman's liquidated in 1980.  Nevertheless, when Pizitz bought the Loveman's at the mall, apparently they instead decided to eventually close their Five Points West store in lieu of West Lake, which offered a more traditional mall experience.  Of course, consolidations from the 80's to recently made it difficult for even successful malls to maintain anchors, so West Lake Mall was a prime target for store closings.

Loveman's/Pizitz was the southwest anchor of the mall, and apparently was also the smallest in the chain.  It last operated as a location of Goody's, but it is not known when Goody's closed at the mall.

By the late 2000's, the future of West Lake Mall was looking increasingly bleak.  Goody's was gone, nothing had been in the old Grant's for awhile and Food World closed in 2009.  At this point, the mall was effectively dead and sealed off.  Nevertheless, no matter how bad it looked for the mall, the 300,000 square feet center always seems to have a new plan set for it.  Right on the heels of the Food World closing, a local car dealer's plans to resurrect the mall as a flea market were announced.  He had bought the mall two years before just for that purpose.  When I visited, the mall was sealed off but I did see some progress toward setting up space in the old Loveman's, but it looked more like they were moving out instead of in.  A sign on the door said the flea market closed in November 2009, so I have to wonder if this plan is for real or if the 40 year old mall is finished.

A recent Google Earth aerial shot of the mall, which I labeled with the original anchors as they were when the mall opened in 1969.

Now a look at the sign with "Westlake Flea Market".  Since this really IS a mini-mall, when is Sammy Stephens coming here to promote this mall's last stand?

What I saw of the mall was far from pleasant.  It was a scary, seedy place surrounded by worsening urban decay.  The US 11 corridor to the north of the mall was the most blighted I had seen anywhere in the city.  Despite a new theme park being built nearby, this also did not seem to reverse the fortunes of the mall.  The scene has changed dramatically since it was built, so while it is possible that the mall may succeed is a flea market it is for certain that it will never again be the retail destination it once was.  I do wish the owners the best of luck, though, because this mall is one of the oldest in the region and is small enough to easily be converted to a multitude of uses.  At least a flea market keeps it an actual mall.

PLUS: A whole lot more photos in this Flickr set!  I was so happy to find these since I couldn't get in!