Eastland Center is an enclosed shopping mall located in the city of Harper Woods, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Opened in 1957, the mall has been expanded several times since. It currently features over 88 stores, as well as a small food court, with Macy's, Sears, and Target serving as anchor stores. Eastland Center is managed by Jones Lang LaSalle, and owned by Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. who acquired it in 2005.

History

Planning for the mall began in 1951. The shopping center would have been Michigan's first shopping center constructed on 8 Mile and Vernier Rd. but the idea was scrapped. The mall was developed in 1957 by J.L. Hudson Corporation, a Detroit-based department store chain (and corporate predecessor of Target Corp) that also developed Northland Center, another Detroit mall. Like Northland, Eastland was developed by Victor Gruen as an open-air mall, with Hudson's as its main anchor store.

In 1975, Eastland Center was enclosed, with JCPenney and Montgomery Ward opening as additional anchor stores. A food court and movie theater were added to the eastern wing in 1985. MainStreet, a department store chain based in Chicago, Illinois, opened at the mall in the 1980s. The MainStreet chain was bought out and re-named by Kohl's in 1989. Kohl's closed at Eastland Center in 1995, and was replaced with Target a year later. Montgomery Ward closed in 1998 due to the chain's financial troubles, with JCPenney closing two years later. The Hudson's chain was re-branded Marshall Field's by its parent company Target Corporation in 2001.

2000s

After the loss of Montgomery Ward in 1998, the center began to falter. By 1998, the mall was down to 78% occupancy, and the mall's consumer base had shifted to minorities. Eastland Center was acquired by the Shopco Advisory Group in 1999, with plans for renovation; under Shopco's tenure, new stores were added. In September 2003, Sears opened in the former JCPenney space. The same year, the mall's twin theater was demolished, with a Lowe's home improvement store (detached from the mall itself) being built on the site of the former twin theater in the northeastern corner of the property. A new, much smaller food court was created from retail space in the Sears wing. Marshall Field's, in turn, was acquired and re-named Macy's in 2006.

Steve & Barry's, a discount clothing retailer, opened on the first floor of the former Montgomery Ward store in 2004, shortly after the space had been temporarily leased to a furniture store called Cana Mex Interiors. At the time, the Eastland Center store was the second-largest Steve & Barry's in the chain. Shopco continued to manage the mall until selling it to Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation in 2005. Jones Lang LaSalle assumed management of the mall in 2008, the same year in which Steve & Barry's closed. Jones Lang LaSalle announced in 2008 that Burlington Coat Factory would be added to the east end of the mall, where the 1985 food court was.

"The Lion and Mouse"

One of the mall's centerpieces upon opening was a nine-foot sculpture of a lion and a mouse, titled "The Lion and Mouse". In 1957, the mouse was stolen from the sculpture, only to be replaced by another mouse; in total, the sculpture has gone through no fewer than six mice. In 2007, the sculpture's original mouse was returned to the mall by the person who stole it.

References

1. Jones Lang LaSalle Awarded Six New Retail Assignments Totaling More Than Four Million Square Feet
2. Eastland Center history (brief article)
3. Eastland Mall 5 - WaterWinterWonderland.com
4. Compass Retail, Inc. Managed Properties
5. Eastland struggles to fill empty stores, combat rival malls. (Eastland Center) (brief article)
6. Lehman team marketing four Class-B malls
7. Shopping Centers Today
8. Fixing Eastland; Owner looks to home stores to shore up mall.
9. Aging Detroit Mall Gains New Lease on Life with New Retailers. (Brief article)
10. Eastland Center welcomes STEVE & BARRYS UNIVERSITY SPORTS WEAR (Brief article)
11. . Macomb Daily Business Briefing, October 28, 2004
12. Prodigal mouse returns: Pilfered icon back at mall after 50-year trip

External links

• Official website