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The Mall at 163rd Street is a regional shopping center located in North Miami Beach, Florida. It is unusual in that it has had a very varied history, going from an open-air shopping center to enclosed mall, dead mall, and finally a power centre/lifestyle center combination. It is the first mall in the United States to have a Teflon-coated fabric as a roof.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Open-air Center 1.2 Enclosed Mall 1.3 Dead Mall 1.4 Power Centre 2 External link

Since opening in 1956, The Mall at 163rd St. has gone through a number of textbook changes.

The mall was originally called "The 163rd St. Shopping Center". It opened with 3 major anchors: Burdines, Richard's Department Store, and JCPenney. Additionally, there was an extremely large F.W. Woolworth and a Food Fair Supermarket. Another major tenant was the M & M Cafeteria. All the stores were arranged around a long, wide, outdoor main plaza. There was a separate section with a Rhodes Furniture and 2 movie theatres. In 1971, Jordan Marsh opened a 4-story department store there.

Not all sections of the mall were outdoor. There was a small indoor section called "The Arcade" with a racetrack layout. And the wing leading to the supermarket was under a flat roof, though still exposed to the elements at either end.

One unique feature of this mall was that it had its own mini amusement park. It was located in the mall's center court area in front of Burdines. Containing mostly kiddie rides, the amusement section was encircled by a train ride. This closed by the late-1970s.

From 1982 to 1983, the mall was converted from an open-air center to a climate-controlled enclosed mall. This was accomplished by erecting large metal arches over the main plaza, and then placing a white, translucent, Teflon-coated fabric over them. Also, the Richard's (which closed chain-wide in 1980) was gutted and converted to a 3-level atrium, the upper level of which became a food court. The upper level also included a video arcade. This was in the days when you had to go somewhere to play video games. Some of the elderly residents of the nearby condominium complexes referred to the games as "slot machines." In addition, the mall's weathered concrete sidewalks were re-graded and tiled, while the Arcade section was redeveloped into conventional inline stores. It was at this time the mall was renamed Mall at 163rd Street, though the mall's transformation was often called "Miracle on 163rd St."

A number of development changes took place while it was an enclosed mall. The first took place in 1983, when J.C. Penney moved to the newly-opened Aventura Mall. Unable to lure a new tenant, the Penney space was carved up into about six specialty-store spaces, while its spacious basement became an Oshman's sporting goods store. The second was in 1984, when the Pantry Pride closed with the chain. The supermarket was replaced with a Service Merchandise, leading to some minor door relocations to allow the store to have its own mall entrance. The third and most significant change involved the third-level food court, which had met an untimely demise due to lack of significant foot traffic. The food court gradually relocated downstairs to the second floor of the atrium, while the third floor had most of its floor space filled back in and converted to a Marshalls. An extra-long escalator, considered scary by some, was installed to shuttle shoppers directly up to the 3rd-floor Marshalls.

From about 1999 to 2005, the mall was best described as a dead mall. This was mostly because of three main factors that are known for doing in malls in general: a newer, bigger mall opening nearby, changing neighborhood demographics, and closure of several of the mall's key anchors.

The demise of the mall began in 1991 when Jordan Marsh closed chainwide. While a Mervyn's department store took over the lower two floors of the mammoth 4-level structure, it would close just a few years later. But the biggest hit took place in 1999 when both Service Merchandise and Woolworth's closed with their respective chains. Burdines closed a year later with the opening of a new store at Aventura Mall. During this time, the neighborhood had experienced a demographic change as the more affluent population moved northward. Increases in the crime rate led the mall to build a fence around the property. Vacancies accumulated throughout the late 1990s, until eventually only the Marshalls remained open.

The conversion of the mall to a power center actually began in 2000, when the exterior section with the movie theater was demolished and replaced with a Home Depot. But the real change to the center began in 2004, when the Jordan Marsh, its adjoining parking structure, and about 1/3rd of the mall was completely demolished and replaced with a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The remaining mall was reworked to include "big-box" stores, including Office Depot and Ross Dress for Less. Whether the mall will become all big boxes or return to a mix of specialty stores remains to be seen.

Shopping malls in South Florida/Miami area

Aventura Mall • Bal Harbour Shops • Bayside Marketplace • Boynton Beach Mall • Broward Mall • CityPlace • CocoWalk • Coral Square Mall• Dadeland Mall • Dolphin Mall • Downtown at the Gardens • The Falls • The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale • The Gardens Mall • Las Olas Riverfront • Mall of the Americas • The Mall at 163rd Street • The Mall at Wellington Green • Miami International Mall • Palm Beach Mall • Pembroke Lakes Mall • Southland Mall • Sawgrass Mills • Town Center at Boca Raton • Westland Mall •

• Deadmalls.com feature