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Northgate Mall


DigitalSky

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Belk's been rationalizing its store portfolio for a while now. The Northgate store simply wasn't producing enough volume and University Mall wasn't expandable or worth the effort to remodel based on sales. In addition, South Square was going to get killed by whatever went up at Southpoint, so it made sense to consolidate.

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It's not in the worst part of Durham, but it's not the best either. It was originally built in the '60's, although it has been expanded many times since then, but much of the area around it residentialwise was built pre '60's. It's actually pretty much in the middle of a residential area off I-85, the only really commercial areas immediately adjacent to the Northgate property being a little commercial across Club Blvd and Guess Rd from the mall, as well as a bank or 2 across Duke St.

The neighborhood has seen better days but it's not so bad that homes and businesses have bars on their windows....

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I would imagine that the mall will be fine considering its location to all of Northern Durham. That market has no other mall, unless people want to drive to Southpoint.

For the most part, that mall needs a facelift and some new tenants and it will be fine. Homicides of course don't help the cause, but that stuff can happen in Durham.

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Northgate is in a decent neighborhood. Durham always feels like durham to me though, gritty, liberal but not elitest, very diverse, almost reminds me of some of the Hudson valley cities in NY such as Poughkeepsie and Newburgh.

Interesting to me that in this era of 'regional' malls, Northgate may just survive as a 'neighborhood' mall. Perhaps Durham is a little less endeared to the automobile (especially north Durham) and this is why Northgate continues to eek out a living? I am interested to hear others takes on this especially folks who keep up with mall happenings more than I do. Thanks.

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I would imagine that the mall will be fine considering its location to all of Northern Durham. That market has no other mall, unless people want to drive to Southpoint.

For the most part, that mall needs a facelift and some new tenants and it will be fine. Homicides of course don't help the cause, but that stuff can happen in Durham.

I think a lot of those people like from communities like Treyburn drive to Southpoint or go to Raleigh to shop.

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I think Eastland Mall's problems are due to its location- bad part of town, resulting in little disposable income to spend there and crime, including shootings and fights inside the mall. Northgate seems to be in a much better area than Eastland's neighborhood.

Northage is also off an interstate highway.

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Northgate got a boost when Hecht's decided to rebuild back in the '90s. The new wing brought hipper stores into the mall, and many of them are still there a decade later.

Also, the fact that Northgate is the last major mall in the state that is family-owned kinda helps with keeping the property relevant. Out of town management doesn't work so well on a mall that old.

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^Last time you drove by was Hudson Belk still open? I always thought that from the outside the store appeared to have the best location....you could see the store clearly as you were driving by on I-85, in fact the store had signage facing the interstate, and Belk was the closest anchor to the Gregson St exit off 85. But then you'd walk through the mall and it felt like u were walking miles to get from Hechts or Sears to Belk. They just expanded the mall too many times and made it too long.

I think that you can see Sears from I-85, especially in the winter but who knows now, they've probably either tore down trees or erected a brick wall in between the mall and the interstate with all the construction, but the Sears looks vintage '70's on the outside (all brown and off white) so I doubt it's a boost for the mall's image from the interstate.

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I've always wondered where Thalhimers was before the 1987 renovations that brought the food court. I know that Thalhimers along with Sears were original mall anchors, I'm wondering was Thalhimers where the food court is now? That's the only place I can envision it b/c I know the Belks wing ended as a water fountain right before the mall turned to the right to get to Belk...

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^I'll let Steven explain that one lol....

I wonder how long it will be before Belk axes it's last regional nameplate? I kinda like the fact that we in the Triangle have the last Belks from the hyphenated era in the country. I fear it's only a matter of time before the Hudson is taken off....I personally like "Hudson Belk" better then just "Belk", it sounds classier imo...

btw anyone with insight on my previous question about the original location of Thalheimers in the mall?

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btw anyone with insight on my previous question about the original location of Thalheimers in the mall?

Good question! Thalheimers was where Lord & Taylor currently is. The interior face on both floors extended almost flush with the stores in the long axis of the mall (you know how Merle Norman and part of Victoria's Secret are set back? It was that much of a setback). The space where Harold's, Williams Sonoma, Franklin Covey, etc, was all Thalheimer's store. Their escalators were in the middle of the store, about 80 feet into the store from the lower level mall entrance. The exterior changes were clever. There was no change to the lower level exterior, but the upper floor was extended toward the creek. This is why the upper level is "cantelevered" with nothing under it in the back.

You may remember that the old Sears was gutted and converted into extended mall space? The face of Sears was even with where J. Crew is, Gymboree was, etc. All of the stores down to the face of Hecht's are in what used to be the Sears store. Chick-Fil-A used to have their own space where Brookstone is now. The hallway to the food court where Journeys is (across from Ross-Simons long-time location) used to be Hungates hobby shop. As you walked down toward Sears on the second level and passed what's now Godiva and turned left, you saw "The Courtyard". They had a large Burger King on the right (where the horse toys and haagendaz stand now are). As you walked back into this dark, terra cotta and stucco fake mexican looking village, there were tiny little stores arranged in circle. Back behind all of that were a couple of large meeting rooms and the mall's offices.

In about 1984 they opened The Pavilion. They moved Hungates downstairs (next to where Suncoast video is) and opened everything up through to the back. It meandered to the left a little bit, into where Mr. Dunderbak's was. They had about 5 places to eat in there, and it was a big improvement! Previously the only places to eat were: Hudson Belk Capital Room, Piccadilly Cafeteria (where Auntie Annie's Pretzels is), Hector's (where Mitchell's Hairstyling is), Schiano's Pizza (where the Kanki bar is), the Kanki, Burger King (in the Courtyard), Chick Fil-A, Orange Bowl (in the front half of where The Sharper Image now is) and Su Casa (good mexican restaurant between where Lane Bryand and Brookstone are). If I'm not mistaken, G.C. Murphy (where Champs now is) had a snack bar at some point. Also, an S&W Cafeteria opened in the second floor of Sears for a while. Also, there was a Hardees in the front half of where Barnes & Noble is.

A year or two later they added a crappy fern bar kind of restaurant (about where Moe's is now) called...?Charlies? It was about the same size and feel of Ruby Tuesday but had a Charlie Chaplin theme. It extended all the way to where the current Pavilion exterior entrance is. Later they got rid of Charlie's and added more food places by connecting the pavilion around to where the Courtyard was. They greatly expanded the Burger King then. Wow!

The center court of the mall where the glass elevator is (in front of Lord & Taylor) they originally had a cool fountain. It basically was a cluster of pipes from a center core that sprung out from a center core. Think of a weeping willow look. Each of these tapered pipes looked like it went through a series of equidistant 24" level plates. (They were the "leaves") There were two cool things about it. The water came down the "willow branches" and filled the highest plate on the branch, overflowed to the next plate, about 2-3' below and so on... There were about 14 of these branches and they were painted all different colors. I believe they had Orange, Red, Yellow, Brown, Blue, Purple, etc.

They replaced it some time in the early 80's with a horrible monument looking thing. Imagine if we took the old crabtree logo (think: Tina Turner's hair) and painted it on a 12" stucco wall in white and gray. Now think of three of these pieces standing up, leaning against each other with a triangular space in the middle. The water trickled off the top of the three-sided block, down the stucco faces, and into the pool. It was pathetic.

I miss mall fountains. North Hills had a good one that had water shooting up as 20" columns in some places. They had arc-like bridges over it and there was a ton of sunlight in there.

Does anyone remember Miller & Rhodes? They were a two story mini-anchor department store out of Richmond. Their space is now where the Limited, Express, and Express men are. The neat thing is that in the back right they had a pair of escalators which were removed when the Limited etc moved in.

Stores have really moved around in the mall. I believe that only Hudson Belk, The Varsity, and maybe Merle Norman are where they were when the mall opened. Lynn's Hallmark might be in there, too.

I never took a single picture in the mall. I wish I had. Change so subtle, but the next thing you know, it's completely different.

Sorry you asked, now? :D

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Brilliant essay, dmccall. Proiblem is, this is the NORTHGATE MALL thread. All that information is for Crabtree Valley Mall!! LOL

I have never actually been able to figure this out, but what is the difference between a Hudson Belk and a regular Belk?
Hudson Belk was originally owned by Belk and the Hudson family. They each owned half of what was called Belk Hudson Leggett, which comprised all the Triangle Hudson Belk and Belk Leggett stores; the latter were orignally opened by the Legget brothers, who had married into the Belk family. The Durham and Chapel Hill stores were still called Belk Leggett for decades after the Leggetts sold them to Hudson and Belk, out of respect for their opening of the stores.

When Belk reorganized in the late '90s, the Leggets sold their stores, and the Leggett name was removed from the Durham and Chapel Hill stores. Belk then combined the 110 seperate corporations that comprised the company into a single entity, eliminating most of the hyphenated names.

The Hudsons went from owning 50% of Hudson Belk to owning 12% of Belk, Inc, making that family the largest shareholders not named Belk or Matthews. Thus, the only nameplates that are not simply Belk are Hudson Belk and Belk Matthews.

I wonder how long it will be before Belk axes it's last regional nameplate?
There are no announced plans to change this arrangement that I know of. The perfect time to have done it was in 2002 when they opened all those new stores at TTC and Southpoint.

I kinda like the fact that we in the Triangle have the last Belks from the hyphenated era in the country...I personally like "Hudson Belk" better then just "Belk", it sounds classier imo...
The hyphenated signs looked a lot better than just plain Belk. Hudson Belk is hot, and Belk Leggett looked good too.

post-1659-1138961928_thumb.jpg

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