NORTHPARK MALL: CHARLOTTE, NC
Chris Edwards's Commentary
Posted September 3, 2006 (user submitted December 7, 2005)
Do not confuse NorthPark Mall in Charlotte with NorthPark in Dallas, home of
Nordstrom and high-fashion boutiques.
NorthPark Mall is neighbors with Charlotte's once-dead now-Asian mall now
featured on deadmalls.com, Tryon Mall, as well as Eastland Mall. All three
malls have repositioned themselves in light of east Charlotte's replacement of
its former middle-income residents with more moderate-income, urban ones.
While Tryon Mall has lured Asian-themed stores and Eastland has attracted urban
boutiques, NorthPark has attracted moderately-priced anchors and in-line
tenants.
Judging by its former Target anchor covered with triangular-shaped items on its
roof, NorthPark must have been built in the 1970s. Apparently eventually
anchored by that discount store and a grocery store (probably Bi-Lo, a regional
chain), the mall still bears a 1970s or early 1980s appearance. Whatever
national chain stores it may have had initially have been replaced by local
shops, a Subway restaurant and vacant spaces marked by steel pull-down gates.
Target apparently fled in the mid-1990s, building a new store further out North
Tryon Street in Charlotte's expanding suburbs. The mall's original in-line
tenants and grocery store anchor must have left by about the same time.
NorthPark, like neighboring malls, appears to have successfully repositioned
itself by attracting moderately-priced local stores and chains to fill many of
its vacant spaces. Its Target has been replaced by a Kimbrell's discount
furniture store, and its grocery store anchor has been replaced by a dollar
store. While the mall has numerous vacancies along its Spartan interior
corridor, its anchors appear healthy.
NorthPark's future appears somewhat bright, at least by deadmalls.com
standards. The mall is in decent physical shape, although its tile floors and
1970s-era architecture give it a dated appearance. Its dollar store anchor
recently joined the mall and should be there for years to come. NorthPark
apparently will remain a neighborhood retail destination in a mall time warp
for a while to come: a blast from our retail past.