SOUTHDALE CENTER

'Southdale Center', commonly known as just 'Southdale', is a shopping center in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Built in 1956, it is the nation's oldest climate-controlled mall.^[1][2]
As of 2007, the original Southdale building is still in use, as well as later additions to the building. Three similarly-named shopping centers were also opened in the Twin Cities area: Brookdale Center (opened 1962) in Brooklyn Center, Rosedale Center (opened 1969) in Roseville, and Ridgedale Center (opened 1974) in Minnetonka.

Contents

History

Southdale Today

Popular culture

Anchors and Majors

See also

References

External links

History

Southdale was developed by Dayton Department Stores and designed by Victor Gruen, an Austrian immigrant. Gruen was a European style socialist; he hated the suburban lifestyle of 1950s America, and wanted to design a building that would bring people together into a community, by providing a meeting place that American towns lacked. They would come together to shop, drink coffee, and socialize. He modeled Southdale on the arcades of European cities, although his original version was never achieved. Gruen also saw the mall as the center of a community. When he first drew up the plans for Southdale, he placed the shopping center at the heart of a 463-acre (1.9 km²) development, complete with apartment buildings, houses, schools, a medical center, a park, and a lake. Southdale, in Gruen's opinion, was not a suburban alternative to downtown Minneapolis. It was the Minneapolis downtown you would get if you started over and corrected all the mistakes that were made the first time around. Gruen planned for an atmosphere of leisure, excitement, and intimacy to be created. To achieve this he placed works of art, decorative lighting, fountains, tropical plants, and flowers throughout the mall.
Groundbreaking for Southdale took place on October 29, 1954. 800 construction workers were needed to construct the 4-story, 800,000 ft² (74,000 m²) center, complete with 5,200 parking spaces and 72 spaces for tenants. The mall was developed by the Dayton Company, owners of Dayton's department store in Minneapolis and predecessor to the Target Corporation. A branch of Dayton's would anchor the mall along with Donaldson's, Walgreens Pharmacy and Woolworth.
It was envisioned that Southdale would become the central gathering place not only for the residents of the city of Edina, but also for the greater Twin Cities area. Southdale was designed from the viewpoint of the future. The creators of the center understood that in the future, consumers would demand convenience and variety; as a result, the mall was designed to provide many useful services all under one roof. These services included everything from a Post Office, to a grocery store, to an upscale apparel store and even a small zoo. Other intentions would take hold, though, and the construction of the IDS Center and its attached Crystal Court would shift attention back to downtown Minneapolis.
Over the years, Southdale has hosted gem, boat, and fine art shows, and also served as host for charity and community events. Southdale was the host-site for an episode of the popular game show ''Truth or Consequences''. However, the full scale of the original plan was never realized. There were no parks or schools or apartment buildings - just a big box in a sea of parking. With a few exceptions, no one else planned a shopping mall as the centerpiece of a tidy, dense, multi-use development.
Besides being completely climate-controlled, Southdale was also the first United States shopping mall to feature two competing department stores under the same roof.

Southdale Today

The original Southdale building is in use. Additions to the original construction have brought the total area of the shopping mall to 1.3 million square feet.
Dayton's original store was gutted in 1991 and turned into more mall space, as a new Dayton's was added. It would convert to Marshall Field's in 2001, and to Macy's in 2006. Donaldson's later housed a Carson Pirie Scott then a Mervyns; this space, spanning 179,090 sq. ft. on four levels, is now vacant after Mervyns closed in 2004 and was acquired by the mall for future redevelopment.
In 2002, Southdale Center took on a new look with the completion of two projects: ''Trendz On Top'', an area for the younger shopper, and ''The District on France'' comprises retail, entertainment, and dining.
Southdale’s anchor tenants include AMC Theatres, JCPenney, Macy's, and Marshalls.

Popular culture

Garrison Keillor sometimes makes fun of the "Dales" by advertising that the products of the fictional Lake Wobegon can be purchased at "Northdale, Eastdale, Westdale, Southdale", and so on.

Anchors and Majors

★ AMC (80,927 sq. ft.)

★ J. C. Penney (247,902 sq. ft.)

★ Macy's (359,679 sq. ft. total, Macy's - 346,795 sq. ft., Macy's Petites - 5,297 sq. ft., Macy's Women's World - 7,587 sq. ft.)

★ Marshalls (44,925 sq. ft.)

See also

★ Mall of America, located in nearby Bloomington, is the largest shopping mall in the United States^[3]. To an extent, the construction of the Mall of America was an impetus for the expansion and remodeling of Southdale Center, as it was worried that Southdale's business would suffer as a consequence of the opening of the former.

References

1. http://www.southdale.com/static/node2231.jsp southdale.com
2. http://www.easternct.edu/depts/amerst/MallsHistory.htm
3. http://www.easternct.edu/depts/amerst/MallsLarge.htm

External links

★ Official Southdale Website

★ The New Yorker on Gruen and Southdale

★ James Lileks' "Flotsam Cave" (features vintage photos of the mall)

★ The indoor mall turns 50.