University Park Mall: the making, 1976–1979

GRAPE ROAD AT STATE ROAD 23 · ANNOUNCED 1976 · DEBARTOLO AND THE CRESSYS

The mall was announced in 1976: the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation of Youngstown, Ohio — then among the largest mall builders in America — joined with two local developers, George and Donald Cressy, to build a super-regional mall at State Road 23 and Grape Road in Mishawaka's north-side annexations. The plan as announced carried an estimated cost of $35 million and a planned size of 964,051 square feet. Mishawaka's mayor, Margaret Prickett, supported the project on the record: she held that the mall would improve the city's economy and better its odds of winning a direct exit off the Indiana Toll Road — the highway whose interchanges frame the corridor to this day.

The fight over the mall was a fight over a single store. In mid-1976 Sears announced that it would close its department store in downtown South Bend and move to the new mall. Citizens and unions protested: the objection, preserved in the record, was that the closing would draw business out of downtown South Bend — which is precisely what the downtown's own history says happened, though that telling is South Bend's to give. Sears confirmed the move in November 1976. The old downtown store's afterlife measures the speed of the change: by February 1980 the downtown Sears building had been converted into a Chevrolet dealership. One established downtown house refused the new ground outright: Robertson's, South Bend's own department store, declined the mall in March 1978 and stayed downtown-only — a decision whose consequences belong to South Bend's file, and which is printed here at the size of the fact: the region's hometown store was not in the region's mall, and the mall opened without it.

Sources:

1. The University Park Mall record as compiled from the South Bend Tribune's dated coverage — the 1976 announcement, the DeBartolo Corporation with George and Donald Cressy, the $35 million estimate and 964,051-square-foot plan, Mayor Margaret Prickett's stated grounds, the Sears announcement and protests of mid-1976 and the November 1976 confirmation, the downtown building's conversion to a Chevrolet dealership by February 1980, and Robertson's refusal of March 1978.
2. City of Mishawaka history timeline — the mall's place in the city's own chronology, as cited in the compiled record.