The mall's middle course: the drain, the cinemas, the renovation

1981–1997 · THE SCOTTSDALE DRAIN · THE $15 MILLION RENOVATION OF 1995

The mall's first effect was measured in another mall's vacancies: Scottsdale Mall, South Bend's enclosed center of 1973, stood in a residential district off no major highway, and through the 1980s the chains that kept stores in both centers — The Limited and Spencer Gifts are the two the record names — closed their Scottsdale locations to concentrate on University Park. Scottsdale's full account is South Bend's; what belongs here is the mechanism, documented from the winning side: a super-regional mall on a highway interchange, in Mishawaka, outdrew a regional mall on a city street, in South Bend, until the chains themselves consolidated into the stronger room. The two malls even quarreled over the season's logistics: at Christmas 1981 their employee-parking arrangements were in dispute in the record. The region's shoppers, meanwhile, treated the boundary as the mall's owners did — Simon would later describe University Park, in a federal court filing, as "the only super-regional mall serving South Bend/Mishawaka and Southern Michigan," and the description is printed here as the owner's own.

The mall's fabric changed around its anchors. General Cinema, whose three screens had opened inside the mall, built a six-screen theater outside it in 1986; the in-mall three-screen closed in March 2000 and its space had been re-divided by 2001. In 1995 the DeBartolo organization spent $15 million renovating its sixteen-year-old center: the Ayres store was expanded by some 33,000 square feet, a food court of ten restaurants was added near Sears, and the décor took up Indiana celebrities. Mid-renovation the ownership itself changed hands in the industry's great consolidation: in 1996 the DeBartolo organization merged with Melvin Simon and Associates of Indianapolis, forming Simon Property Group, and University Park Mall has been a Simon mall since. In 1997 the Hudson's store took the name of its parent: Hudson's became Marshall Field's, the first of the anchor successions.

Sources:

1. The University Park Mall record as compiled from the South Bend Tribune's dated coverage — the dual-location closures at Scottsdale through the 1980s (The Limited, Spencer Gifts); the 1981 Christmas employee-parking dispute; the General Cinema six-screen of 1986 and the in-mall theater's closing of March 2000 and re-division by 2001; the 1995 renovation ($15 million; Ayres expanded about 33,000 square feet; the ten-restaurant food court; the Indiana-celebrity décor); the Hudson's-to-Marshall Field's conversion of 1997.
2. Gumwood HP Shopping Partners, L.P. v. Simon Property Group, Inc., N.D. Ind., memorandum opinion of 13 March 2013 — Simon's own description of University Park Mall, quoted in the entry.
3. The DeBartolo–Simon merger of 1996 forming Simon Property Group, as carried in the compiled mall record.