Grand Village Mall and Kentwood Village Malls

[solace]

Just wondering, I moved to Grand Rapids a few years ago and I'm a bit of a dead/old malls' buff. I was wondering if anyone had any history to share about these two malls, when they opened, what stores where inside when they were operational. I know that KVM now is home to a JCPenney catalog center, and that Grand Village now has a YMCA and a church.

Also, how old is Woodland Mall?

thanks!!!

[GRCPM]

The Kentwood Village Mall was built in the early 80's, added on to the east side of an existing Kroger grocery store. It never really took off or was able to attract national tenants. I think it was too small to achieve a critical mass of tenants and traffic. I think the original plan was to have the a direct connection between the mall and the grocery store but there was some issue with the City of Kentwood because the store sold liquor. The tenants they had were all local businesses lured to the mall by attractive deals from the developer. It became less retail oriented when J C Penny took the back portion of the mall for a call center. When the grocery store closed it was converted into a bowling center but it did not last too long either. The bowling center was converted to a medical billing office. The mall is now owned by St Mary's and used as office space for their accounting and other back office operations.

[GR1]

We talked about both of these malls a while back in this thread.

It might contain some of the info you're looking for.

[solace]

cool, THANKS!