Bradley Square Mall: Cleveland, TN

A few cases exist where small cities have more than one mall. Always in these cases, the malls complemented each other with completely different anchors (usually 1-2) and a small amount of stores that total about 50 a piece. These malls also tend to have been built from about 1965-1975 and were pretty well worn by the early 1990's. Needless to say, by that time they were viewed as quite depressing with their often very dark color schemes and interiors in contrast with the light, bright designs popular in that time. In almost all cases, it only took one new mall coming to town to wipe those malls out for good, and in the case of Cleveland this was all true when Bradley Square Mall was built.


Bradley Square Mall opened in 1991 on the north side of Cleveland. Named for Bradley County, which it resides, the mall brought in four anchors with over 500,000 square foot of space compared to the smaller and less exciting Village and Cleveland Malls. Bradley Square took all but two of the anchors from those older malls, and the ones that remained closed shortly after. When the mall opened, Hess's came from Village Mall while JCPenney and Sears left Cleveland Mall without a reason to exist. When all was finished, the new mall featured Hess's, JCPenney, Sears and Kmart. A fifth anchor pad was also added to the mall, which I'm sure was presumed to be either Goody's, Rose's or Parks-Belk at that point in time. Rose's, of course, simply closed at Cleveland Mall as the company by that time was in trouble.

Bradley Square may be one level, but its design is rather unique. It is not a typical straight up and down mall.

Bradley Square has a very interesting layout, which made it intriguing compared to the older malls. It starts out as a normal hall, but splits off into a diamond patter similar to North DeKalb Mall. At the southern part of the diamond is a beautiful, but small fountain that sits in front of the Belk. Visible from the south court is the east entrance to JCPenney and the Sears entrance. The food court is located on the east part of the diamond. A mall entranced joined the north court, but is covered up awaiting a new theater. The west part of the diamond is a split from the main corridor, which heads to Kmart and includes the west entrance to JCPenney.

Entering the mall from the Penney's west mall entrance into the Kmart wing.

Looking back in front of Kmart along the Kmart wing.

Around the north court looking toward food court.

Detail of planter in Kmart wing.

Looking from fountain (south) court to Kmart wing.

While Cleveland Mall withered and died, Village held onto Parks-Belk oddly for a couple more years. It turned out that the Parks family planned to sell their stores, and did so in 1995 to Proffitt's, who had also acquired Hess's shortly after Bradley Square opened. With that, Parks-Belk closed and Village Mall turned into a ghost town while fast-growing and popular Proffitt's took the realm as one of the four at Bradley Square. Bradley Square also featured other elements the original malls never had such as a food court, a distinct layout and bright, detailed modern decor that the older malls could not offer. Bradley Square also offered air conditioning that open-air Village Mall didn't offer.

The fountain in center court is a fairly basic fountain, but it is still very beautiful.

For the next decade, Bradley Square was successful as the dominant mall. It was closer to the interstate and more competitive with Chattanooga...or so it seemed. The mall today has seen somewhat of a shuffle with the re-branding of Proffitt's as Belk. With that, it looks like Belk finally did make it to the mall without the help of the Parks family. Also, a movie theater is now under construction in the rear of the mall making five anchors.

Entryways inside and out on the mall are striking. The archway is a tad dated looking, but the overhead area is a very elegant touch.

All is not well at Bradley Square, though. Like its sister mall Mount Berry Square in Rome, this Crown America-constructed mall is facing similar problems. While the mall offers trendy stores and a complete anchor lineup, the mall never caught on as well as the developers originally thought. Numerous stores are dark throughout and the food court is not serving any food. This is curious as to why this is, since the mall seemed fairly busy for the off-hours I was there. It is not really known why the mall is having these problems either except that they are both too close and too far from Chattanooga...too close, which makes them have to compete with Chattanooga, but also too far in that they are not drawing the traffic of a more urban market. Perhaps also the incomes are too low in the area or unemployment too high in the area.

The food court, located next to Sears, is the most worrisome sight in the mall. Nobody's eating and no business is there to cook it either.

Nevertheless, it is really too soon to tell if the mall is actually dying or if it just that the market is just not enough to support a full line of stores in the mall. While the mall was recently listed in a report as "in danger of failure", the fact is that its sister mall in Rome never filled up fully as it was. Just because a mall has high vacancies doesn't always mean it's dying if the market around it cannot support many of its stores. However, such reports tend to be worrisome, especially with the local economy in these smaller southern towns already shaky and troubled more by the national economic crisis.

Areas like this are where the wounds show. This corridor extends from the Kmart wing to the center court. Note Belk on the right.

In all, though, Bradley Square is a very attractive smaller mall. While it is a bit dated, the nice touches it has are very nice such as the elaborate and tasteful entrances, a fountain with a pool and a large number of planters throughout to keep the mall from feeling sterile like most new malls do these days. Nevertheless, I tend not to be totally cheerful about any mall that has caused the demise of other malls. While it is a nice center, I hardly think it has the charm of Village Mall and the death of two malls for one is not easy to overlook. Nevertheless, I hope that Bradley Square can figure out what's causing the vacancies and that what is successful in the mall stays successful. Hopefully the movie theater will make a big difference and bring the dead food court back to life as well. Overall, I found Bradley County's third mall to be an enjoyable experience and a fairly attractive mall that still serves the town well.

JCPenney east entrance followed by JCPenney east entrance view from the fountain court.

Belk/Proffitt's entrance from the fountain court.

JCPenney east mall entrance from fountain court.

Sears mall entrance with vacant food court on the left.

Approaching the Kmart mall entrance.

Side view of Kmart entrance and southwest entrance corridor. Entrances come in on both sides in front of the Kmart mall entrance.

Detail of the northwest entrance, which is less elaborate than the one used in the fountain court area. This entrance mirrors the one in the last photo.

Outside view of the less elaborate southwest entrance and more elaborate southeast entrance (fountain court entrance). I can't complain about the design of these...they are quite attractive.

Outside views of Sears, Penney's, Kmart and Belk. Below is a pic of the Belk store as Proffitt's.

The Proffitt's sign just looks better, sorry. This was originally Hess's sign had a rainbow-spectrum design on the logo instead of just green. I would have loved to have seen that!

Mall sign from US 11. What did those holes above the name use to be for?

Plywood and scars of the former entrance mark the work commencing on the new movie theater.

Village Mall: Cleveland, TN (2nd Update 09/07/09)

On July 4, 2005, I was driving through Cleveland, TN and discovered what was obviously the most well-preserved specimen of a mid-1960's open-air mall that I had found. Obviously I was excited, because I did not believe any 1960's open-air malls even still existed. I soon found that was far from the truth, but Village Mall was the first I have seen that actually functioned as a major shopping mall even though it had long since retired that function by the time I had arrived.


Noticing how spectacular this little mall was, I came back to take generous photographs of this beautiful place, which I most recently did in September 2009, almost three years from when I took the original photos. While somewhat modified today with contemporary stucco touches, I realized that the mall overall was a literal living museum of 1960's architecture with numerous strips and stores surrounding the mall that also were never updated. This seems to be typical in East Tennessee while it has become extremely rare in Georgia. The remarkable amount of unaltered mid-century architecture is one of the things that really makes driving in East Tennessee enjoyable, especially Cleveland.

This store was 100% original. What was it?

Looking south along the mall towards Watson's former location. The former Parks-Belk entrance and the Swiss Alley come off to the left there somewhere. Exploring this will require another trip since I was pressed for time.

A little further down and closer to former Watson's, today the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce.

The entrance with the swiss-like roof is just before the entrance to Swiss Alley. An identical entrance to this is found in the alley, and that is also being used as office space as I found when curious workers watched me go by, camera in hand.

The mall entrance to Watson's, today the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce. It is rather fitting that they are a tenant in the mall that they undoubtably helped save.

From what I understood, Village Mall opened in the mid-1960's with anchors Miller's, Parks-Belk, SS Kresge, Watson's grocery store and an underground bowling alley located in the center of the mall. The mall features a main covered, but open-air corridor and one enclosed side wing off the east side of the mall. Parks-Belk took up one side of that wing and also part of the main mall. The mall held its own serving the small city until the late 1970's when Cleveland Mall opened with anchors Sears, JCPenney and Rose's. While the two malls competed, they also complimented each other. This was similar to what happened in Huntsville during the 1970's where small malls in the city had different anchors and different offerings to compliment each other. Both Village Mall and Clevaland Mall remained successful in the 70's and 80's, but this all came crashing to a halt when Bradley Square opened in 1991.

Former Miller's/Hess's mall entrance. Now an entrance to Jones Finance.

Former Parks-Belk entrance from main mall. This entrance made up the entire side of the mall between Miller's and the Swiss Alley entrance.

Entrance to the Swiss Alley. This portion of the mall is enclosed, but it is not known if this was always the case.

Bradley Square offered what neither could offer fully: all favorite department stores in one mall, a contemporary design, better location, climate control that Village Mall did not offer and amenities such as a food court. Village Mall had absolutely no hope of competing as 1960's architecture was drastically out-of-style in the 1990's. After Bradley Square opened, they stole all the anchors from both Cleveland and Village Malls except Rose's (Cleveland) and Parks-Belk (Village). Cleveland Mall eventually closed and became Life Care Centers of America. Village Mall, however, limped on anchorless until it was recently partially redeveloped into an office-type specialty mall. Parks-Belk held out until they were bought out in 1995, and Hess's, which bought out Miller's in 1987, quickly vacated the mall when Bradley Square opened. I'm sure Cleveland natives were not particularly happy to lose two malls to one. Ironically, Bradley Square was found recently to be in danger of failure itself. Karma?

Looking along the Swiss Alley towards the east entrance. Parks-Belk once had an entrance on the left, and today it is all part of Check Into Cash!.

The tenant on the right in Swiss Alley looks to now offer holistic medicine. This is also looking towards the east entrance.

An overview of the remaining "Swiss" facades in the corridor. Note the peaked roof entrance, which is identical to the one in the main mall previously mentioned. What did this used to be?

This was apparently a barber shop at one point, but what was last there was definitely not that. It is now vacant. I can't help but love these attempts at classic Bavarian architecture they did in the 60's and 70's.

Today, the mall hardly functions as a traditional shopping mall. The center today is part strip mall, part office space. The presence of outside entrances to all of the stores facing US 11 (Lee Highway) made it possible for some of the mall to viably function as a strip center. What didn't work is now full of white collar employees with headsets, dress shirts and monitors. It was rather uncanny looking into a "store" and having an office staff look back at me with an amused WTF look.

This closed store sits in the southwest corner in front of Watson's/C of C. It apparently had a loft or second level of some sort, which was very interesting. It looked to be the last actual clothing store in the mall. Does anybody know what it was?

This time I really looked for the bowling alley entrance, and I really do not know how I missed this before. This creepy staircase descends down to a pair of double doors, which did not look to have been used in quite a long time. When was the last time this bowling alley operated? I'd give anything to see inside of it.

The redevelopment of a lost mall was one of the most clever I have encountered. In almost any other circumstance, the mall would be demolished, but for some reason the new owners thought it was just fine the way it is. I wish they had thought of this at Cobb Center before they took a wrecking ball to it. Today, a call center known as Check Into Cash! occupies the former Parks-Belk, the Miller's is today a Jones Finance and the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce occupies the former Watson's grocery store. More office space now occupies the old Kresge, which was vacant when I visited in 2005. A gym now takes up much of the mall space on the west side, and the stores fronting US 11 are fully leased, including a Firehouse Subs. An upscale local restaurant, Bald Headed Bistro, is a popular eatery next to Jones Finance and was renovated with a log cabin facade. However, there is absolutely nothing traditional about this mall, and I very much wish I could go back in time to 1990 when the mall was alive and kicking with two two-level department stores.

Northeast corner of the mall. Note the fence like structure hiding the central power plant.

Front entrance to Miller's Department Store.

Old Parks-Belk under renovation for a call center.

This is the newly renovated back entrance to the mall. In the previous photo I took of Parks-Belk, a door was sitting in mid-air into the side of the store. Now, a staircase leads in the new entry up to the door. What was there before?

Here is a look at the front side of the mall, now fully leased and featuring some tenants otherwise not connected. The gym that is there now has windows into the mall, but no entrance.

When I first wrote about this mall, I said it had been altered very little from when it opened. That is not as much the case today as new stucco-faced entryways were placed over all the mall entrances and the Swiss Alley was largely renovated with very little actual mall feel except for a few remaining swiss-themed restaurants. The main mall itself has no real inline stores left, but still survives altered little from when it opened except along the side facing U.S. 11 (Lee Highway). There, the mall added many strip mall tenants and a more modern stucco facade with tenants including a Firehouse Subs. Despite these changes, the mall is a remarkable display of mostly unaltered 1960's architecture that make this mall very enjoyable. Thanks to your comments, I have been able to correct this post to give an accurate history of the mall.

More shots taken around the south entrance. The first shot has the mall on the left, the next is of the former Watson's on the left approaching the entrance and the last is directly underneath. The first photo on this page is looking just to the right of this into the main mall corridor.

Corner at southeastern side of mall. The vacant store was probably the Kresge.

Southeast corner looking southwest at former Kresge.

View of northeastern corner of the mall toward the north entrance. Miller's is on the right.

Looking back away from the southeast entrance to the mall.

Southwest corner of the mall. Note the very 1960's exterior on the right.

Side entrance to Miller's with detail of the one restaurant in the mall itself on the right known as Bald Headed Bistro. The second photo shows more detail of the restaurant.

This professional office building apparently has wings. This buildings sits on the southwest corner of the mall ot facing Lee Highway (US 11).

* This is the second update of the original post. *