The commercial corridors: McKinley's strip, Grape Road, and the SR 23 rim

1961–PRESENT · WHERE THE RETAIL WENT, AT CORRIDOR SIZE

Retail followed the through traffic, twice: The first migration was McKinley's. When US 20's through course ran on McKinley Avenue, the avenue became the city's first automobile retail line: Town & Country, this build's Malls record's "McKinley corridor's first center," and after it the Kmart plaza at McKinley Commons — the centers' courses are Malls', whole, and are built on here at anchor only. The corridor's form was the highway's: a wide east–west arterial on the north side, fronted by parking, running from South Bend's line through the city to the county line and Toledo Road beyond. The second migration was north. Grape Road — a county road running north from McKinley — became a corridor in a single year: University Park Mall opened on it in 1979, at Grape Road and University Drive, and the strip filled around it on the course this build's Malls section walks whole: University Center across the road by 1993, Meijer's first Indiana store at Grape Road and Edison Lakes Parkway in 1994, the Wilshire Plaza succession, on to Heritage Square at the Granger edge. The road-building that made the district a district is in this build's Neighborhoods record: North Main Street extended from Day Road to Indian Ridge Boulevard in 1992 and to Cleveland Road in 1993, University Drive extended from Grape Road to North Main in 1994 — the fringe's grid laid over its farms in three building seasons.

State Road 23, at survey size: The corridor district's northern rim is a state road that does not enter the city's built ground. State Road 23 leaves its junction with SR 933 at the Notre Dame edge of South Bend and runs northeast through Granger to the Michigan state line, where it becomes M-62 — "the county's commuter diagonal, a state road the whole way," in this build's South Bend record. On Mishawaka's side it runs on the Cleveland Road line along the north of the Grape Road district: SR 331's prescribed northern terminus is on it, in Granger, just north of the Toll Road, and the mall district's north edge — Cleveland Road — is its pavement. The rest of SR 23's course belongs to Granger's and South Bend's builds; what is Mishawaka's is the rim, and the terminus of its own SR 331 upon it, and both are printed.

Sources:

1. This build's Malls section — Town & Country as the McKinley corridor's first center, McKinley Commons, University Park Mall's making (1976–1979) and opening, University Center, the 1994 Meijer store as the company's first in Indiana, and the Grape Road corridor walked whole; carried at anchor here.
2. This build's Neighborhoods section — the Grape Road fringe as the city's second center; North Main Street extended to Indian Ridge Boulevard (1992) and Cleveland Road (1993); University Drive extended to North Main (1994).
3. This build's South Bend Corridors record, State Roads entry — SR 23 from SR 933 northeast through Granger to the Michigan line (M-62); SR 331's northern terminus at SR 23 in Granger, per the SR 331 record and Indiana Code § 8-23-6-1.