The Declining Shopping Mall: The Rise and Fall of Community Malls

As a boy I never enjoyed shopping. As an adult I have found that it is a necessary evil, and I have to admit that I have even found it to be fun at times. In the grocery store I think about what I'm going to cook. In a bookstore I often enjoy browsing through the books. However, I seldom buy a book unless it's one that I am really interested in. Shopping Malls were an item which marked the latter half of the twentieth century. They were on the rise in the 1970s. When the Jackson Mall first opened in 1970 at the corner of Woodrow Wilson Avenue and Bailey Avenue, it was the first enclosed shopping center in the city. Its function was changed in the 1990s to the Jackson Medical Mall, focusing on health purposes. While the Jackson Mall was the first to open in Jackson in 1970, it would not be the last mall to open in Jackson in that decade. The Metrocenter Mall opened in 1978. It remained open for four decades, until it ultimately closed in 2018. It was located right beside the interchange of I 220 with highway 80. This mall included a McRae's and a Sears. Six years after this mall opened, a third, Northpark Mall, opened in Ridgeland in 1984. Malls were a popular space for the young crowd as they provided places to eat, shop, and see impressive features. Some of them were more than one level, and included an escalator to reach the upper levels, and to descend back to the ground floor. Speaking as a guy, I am largely not a fan of visiting shopping malls. That said, as a person who is interested in history and trends I have taken note of this particular topic. One day I was on the phone with my brother Kip, and we were reminiscing, talking about the changing of commercial development which has taken place during our lifetimes. He pointed out the fact that malls are now dying. That was something that I hadn't really given much thought to, although I had noticed that a large portion of the McComb mall had shut down. In the 1990s malls were the rage. I can remember that. The Edgewood Mall in McComb was the closest one to home. The Turtle Creek Mall in Hattiesburg was the second closest. Turtle Creek is a larger mall than Edgewood. However, Edgewood was the one that my family visited more often when I was growing up. One of the main things that I remember about Edgewood was the food court. I enjoyed going to the food court. They had good hamburgers, french fries, and they had good ice cream. There was a fountain in the middle of the food court, and at the bottom of the pool at the fountain were a lot of pennies. Another thing that I vaguely remember about Edgewood is that the community Walmart of McComb was located within the mall. However, when the supercenter was built in 1998, the community Walmart shut down as it was no longer needed. From what I have read, the Edgewood mall in McComb opened in 1987. That was only a few years before my time. At that point, malls were probably on the rise. Little by little, that spot in McComb was developed. On the north side of highway 570 was the mall. In 1998 came the Walmart supercenter. There was already a McDonalds located there, but little by little restaurants opened up in that vicinity. Piccadilly was the place that my family liked to go to eat when we had an evening to shop in McComb. Ruby Tuesday opened on the south side of highway 570. In 2003 Lowes opened on the south side of highway 570. The Turtle Creek Mall is located in West Hattiesburg. In my time I have not been in this mall as often. However, it was within Turtle Creek Mall that a movie theater was located. I have never been one to go see movies in the theater unless it is one that I am particularly interested in seeing. I saw the last Lord of the Rings movie and the first Chronicles of Narnia movie in that theater. I can remember going to see The Lord of the Rings-The Return of the King in the mall theater in Hattiesburg and my parents had some shopping that they needed to do first. They had warned Kip and me that we might miss the first part of the movie. However, we timed it really well. We came in just as the movie was actually starting. We missed all of the trailers that they play before the movie begins. That was a good thing because we didn't really want to see all of that anyway. When I go to see a movie in the theater, I am there to see that movie, not all the stuff that they play before it actually starts. That's how I feel about it. I enjoy bookstores. However, I have become disillusioned with some of the larger ones in more recent years. When I was at Mississippi State I would go to the campus Barnes and Noble on weekends. It was a hangout spot. When I first started doing that, they actually had a selection of books that I enjoyed looking at. However, it became harder to find the types of books that I enjoyed browsing through over time. I preferred Books A Million to Barnes and Noble as a bookstore overall, but I have seen that same trend in both of them. Shopping malls were the rage in the 1990s, and I believe that continued throughout much of the first decade of the 2000s. However, by the mid 2010s, they were noticeably in decline. There are probably a number of reasons for this. One of the main ones is that people don't buy from a store like they used to. They now have the option of doing so online and they take advantage of that opportunity. We may see more of that in time. Expenses are probably another reason. If people can find what they need cheaper somewhere else they will take advantage of that opportunity. Then in 2020 we had the COVID pandemic. That hurt a lot of businesses. I am sure that shopping malls suffered a great deal from COVID. As I get older I see trends come and go. When something first comes around it is popular. However, over time people get burnt out on it. People come to the point where they either don't like it anymore, or they find something else that they like better. Such has been the case with shopping malls.