Eastland Mall Redevelopment

[MZT]

Wow. You have to really want to shop at Eastland, in order to get off work early enough on a weekday and go inside before it closes.

Edited August 22, 2008 by MZT

[StevenRocks]

The hours sound like a conscious effort to dissuade the teenagers hanging out after school.

[mallguy]

I checked the website and Eastland's interior seems to be closed EVERY Monday- surely the sign of a mall about to just give up.

[mallguy]

I got an ad from Sears re: a new Sears Outlet opening on South Boulevard.

I'm assuming that a market can support only one Sears outlet, and the South Boulevard clientele would normally shop at Eastland, so RIP for the Sears Outlet at Eastland?

Poor thing!

[NCMike1981]

how many miles apart are the two locations?

[MZT]

Sometimes Sears outlets are small... Charlotte could support two. I lived off South Blvd / Archdale for a while and did not consider Eastland "close".

[f0xym0p]

The new outlet is at the shopping center with Target near Pineville, pretty far from Eastland Mall.

Still, I would expect that Sears plans to pull out of Eastland at some point.

[mallguy]

The new outlet is at the shopping center with Target near Pineville, pretty far from Eastland Mall.

Still, I would expect that Sears plans to pull out of Eastland at some point.

Good points. The Eastland Sears is a C-grade Sears, if there is such a thing; I went to one recently in Paramus, NJ and most of the lower level of the store was a Land's End department- it looked great and was very appealing, and I also went to one at Green Acres Mall in Long Island, Both were much fancier than the Eastland one.

[MZT]

For anyone that hasn't been to this side of town in a while, you may be very let down if you drive along Sharon Amity, Central, or Albemarle now.

The number of empty store fronts, weedy lots, and check cashing places just keeps creeping up. Even driving east past WT Harris on Albemarle is discouraging - it seems nice at first, since it's mostly greenscape. Old homes on large lots... but look closer and you realize they are turning into rentals. Fraying shutters, cars parked in the grass, bent gutters, overgrown shrubs and boarded-up windows on these properties. Bleah.

If this keeps up, we will be discussing east side in similar terms to Freedom Blvd or Graham avenue in a few more years.

The mall itself looks pretty pitiful. Maybe 3 rows of cars parked in front on a Sunday afternoon.

Edited October 5, 2008 by MZT

[DigitalSky]

The movie theater's shuttting down

[mallguy]

The movie theater's shuttting down

Didn't it just re-open around the time Belk shut down?

Too bad.

[mallguy]

What's left at Eastland now- just a Sears (partially an outlet), Burlington Coat Factory and "urban" smaller stores?

[DigitalSky]

What's left at Eastland now- just a Sears (partially an outlet), Burlington Coat Factory and "urban" smaller stores?

pretty much.

[Neo]

What's left at Eastland now- just a Sears (partially an outlet), Burlington Coat Factory and "urban" smaller stores?

Sears announced another round of store closings today, the Eastland Mall location was in that list. The last day is June 14th. With the current economy and the sheer fallout of stores in that mall, I can't imagine it will hang on much longer.

[queensguy06]

To be quite honest, even if we weren't in the current economic climate I don't know if that store location would have lasted too much longer anyway. As soon as I heard that Sears was closing something like 19 locations on the news today I automatically assumed this location was one of them.

[ellifyno]

Over the past few months, I've been to Eastland more than I had in the five years I'd been here prior to that. There were a couple of things I needed from Sears, and that's the only full Sears store in Charlotte's city limits. My closest Sears now will be Carolina Mall on the north end of Concord.

It does seem that there's very, very little chance of this mall hanging on for much longer now. I haven't even been in Charlotte for a terribly long time, but I can remember going to the Chick-fil-a at the food court and watching people skate at the ice rink. I hadn't realized quite how empty the mall had gotten. It reminds me of South Square from my hometown of Durham in its final days. I knew the ice rink and most of the anchor stores had closed, but didn't realize that even Chick-fil-a (a staple in Southern mall food courts) was gone. The offerings there were almost entirely hair/nail salons and shoe stores. The one thing I'll really miss, whenever it does close, is the GameStop there. That store, possibly because of its location, always had things that I couldn't find elsewhere.

[StevenRocks]

Eastland can't survive with only Burlington Coat Factory as an anchor...

[DigitalSky]

This is effectively the end of Eastland as we know it (or as we've known it for the past few years at least). Sad to see Sears go, especially with the old SEARS logo hanging on to the top of the Eastland Mall building.

This will also leave the city of Charlotte without a SEARS store in its city limits since ... what the 1920s? http://www.searsarchives.com/stores/histor...rthcarolina.htm

Also, I wonder if Sears would consider the 4th anchor pad at Northlake Mall?

Edited February 27, 2009 by DigitalSky

[Guest]

This will also leave the city of Charlotte without a SEARS store in its city limits since ... what the 1920s? http://www.searsarchives.com/stores/histor...rthcarolina.htm

Awful news about eastland, but did anyone not expect it to happen. Here is my question, after looking at the link you sent me, maybe one of you fine gentleman can answer this question: what the Gehenem is Matthews Mall, the suburban mall that got a Sears in the early 1990s. Perhaps Steven can answer this.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Guest

[mallguy]

I'd be happy with the Sears moving to the Midtown development. I've been to some very nice Sears stores, full of Lands End clothes and good appliances. I'd also spent a lot of time at the Eastland one.

I know that there are a few malls that have lingered on with just Sears as an anchor, but Burlington Coat Factory?

The dying malls I grew up with that lost all of their regular anchors have sometimes lingered on for a while; Greenville Mall in Greenville, SC was anchored by a mom & pop furniture store (in a former Parisian) for at least a year or so.

[DigitalSky]

Awful news about eastland, but did anyone not expect it to happen. Here is my question, after looking at the link you sent me, maybe one of you fine gentleman can answer this question: what the Gehenem is Matthews Mall, the suburban mall that got a Sears in the early 1990s. Perhaps Steven can answer this.

looks like a mistake on Sears' part, as far as I'm concerned. I don't ever even recall a mall being planned for Matthews... I know where The Arboretum is currently was originally planned as a mall before Carolina Place was built though.

[monsoon]

^I am not aware of that either and I have been in CLT since 1978 when Sears was still in downtown.

Aside from Eastland, SouthPark and the malls in Pineville and Concord, there are only two other Sears stores that I am aware of in the CLT area. One was a Sears outlet store that used to exist on Freedom Drive. It sold scratch and dent stuff and discontinued items and I think it only lasted for just a few years. This would have been in the 1980s. The other is the recently opened Sears Appliance Store located near Northlake Mall in one of the out parcel developments. It is basically what one used to see at a Sears store appliance dept now located in a stand alone store.

Just as a refresher, the Sears store at Eastland opened in 1979 as part of the 1st and only expansion of Eastland Mall. At the time it was the premier place to shop in CLT and for that matter, NC. The opening of this store coincided with the closing of the downtown store and Sears cafeteria. (a fine place to eat) I have been told the escalators that used to be in the downtown store were moved to Eastland which would explain why they are more narrow than the standard seen in malls today. In hindsight, a downtown Sears in that building and the retro look that it would have today, would have been great for downtown CLT today. Certainly better than locating in the mid-town abomination..

[49er]

There in fact was a proposal by Crosland and a partner firm I believe, to build the next regional mall in Matthews in the mid to late 1980's. It would have been on the site of the current Sycamore Commons shopping center at NC51 and Independence. It looked very similar to Carolina Place. There's a site plan somewhere, but its really not a very exciting topic

It is certainly a sign of the times when a retailer the size of Sears is down to 1 store in a city the size of Charlotte (well, Pineville, close enough))

[monsoon]

Specifically there is a Sears in Pineville, Concord, and the above mentioned Sears appliance store at Northlake.

[DigitalSky]

There in fact was a proposal by Crosland and a partner firm I believe, to build the next regional mall in Matthews in the mid to late 1980's. It would have been on the site of the current Sycamore Commons shopping center at NC51 and Independence. It looked very similar to Carolina Place. There's a site plan somewhere, but its really not a very exciting topic

It is certainly a sign of the times when a retailer the size of Sears is down to 1 store in a city the size of Charlotte (well, Pineville, close enough))

That's very interesting. I'd like to see that site plan if available. Do you know what other anchors would have potentially signed onto this project?