The downtown unmade: renewal, the Hole, and the mall that stayed on paper

URBAN RENEWAL FROM 1970 · "THE HOLE," 100 BLOCK OF NORTH MICHIGAN · THE CENTURY CENTER MALL PROPOSAL, AUGUST 1977 · NEVER BUILT

Clearance first: Downtown's decline was not only something the suburbs did to it; the city did part of it with its own machinery. The Downtown South Bend 2045 Plan, the city's own adopted history of its center, dates the renewal era from 1970, when the Redevelopment Commission called for removal of blighted buildings across downtown. Among the clearances was the 100 block of North Michigan Street. The cleared ground sat empty so long that it acquired the name the city's plan still prints in quotation marks: "The Hole" — empty, in the plan's words, for almost a decade. The First Source Center opened on the site in 1980. A generation of downtown shoppers thus watched the city's answer to the suburban mall begin as a vacant block on the main street itself, used in the interval for parking while the plans changed.

The mall on paper: The fullest of those plans survives in the Redevelopment Commission's own minutes. In August 1977 the Commission took up a proposal for a Century Center Mall in downtown South Bend: an investor group's project for urban renewal Area C in project R-66, taking in the block containing the Hole, the block west of it, the Odd Fellows Building block, and the Sherland Building block — in all, the ground bounded by Washington, Main, Jefferson, and St. Joseph streets, the Sherland Building and the existing parking garage excepted. The developer named in the minutes is Al Candler, credited there with North Village Mall on U.S. 31 north; he reported some forty signed letters of interest or intent from prospective tenants, "a sufficient number," the minutes record, "to carry the Century Mall on a one story basis." The scheme joined a hotel to the mall and ran an elevated mini-mall across to the new Civic Center, and the Commission prepared Resolution 540 to amend the Urban Renewal Plan so the ground could be assembled — the Wyman parcel, the old American Bank Building, and the old theatre building among the added acquisitions. Mayor Peter J. Nemeth issued a press release on the proposal. The mall was never built. What rose instead was the pair the city got: the Century Center convention hall on the river, designed by Philip Johnson and opened in 1977 on ground where the Oliver Chilled Plow works once stood, and the First Source Center on the Hole in 1980. Downtown's enclosed mall exists only in the Commission's minutes — the one South Bend mall whose complete record is a meeting.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Downtown South Bend 2045 Plan (adopted July 2025) — the renewal era dated from 1970; the 100 block of North Michigan "became known as 'The Hole' because it sat empty for almost a decade"; First Source Center opened on the site in 1980; the Century Center, designed by Philip Johnson, opened 1977 on the Oliver works ground.
2. South Bend Redevelopment Commission, special meeting minutes, August 12, 1977, and regular meeting minutes, August 5, 1977 (city archive) — the Century Center Mall proposal: the Area C ground and its bounds, the Sherland exception, developer Al Candler and his North Village Mall credit, the forty letters of interest, the one-story mall, the hotel and elevated mini-mall, Resolution 540, and Mayor Nemeth's press release.