carolina circle

Carolina Circle Mall, Greensboro, NC, circa 1988, after a major remodeling (Bob Cavin)

I just read in the Greensboro paper that Wal-Mart is building a new Supercenter on the site of the old Carolina Circle Mall on the northeast side of town. That of course means that part, if not all, of the complex will have to be torn down to accommodate the new store and several others planned for the site. As the mall disappears, so does a big chunk of Greensboro retail history.

In a city as spread out as Greensboro is, Carolina Circle is hardly the only empty retail property. Downtown, for example, hasn’t been a retail hotbed for decades. There are some former Kmart and Lowe’s stores, a dead Circuit City, an old Zayre, an abandoned Hechinger and enough failed gas stations, motels, supermarkets and fast-food places to serve several small towns. That said, Carolina Circle is the largest and the only abandoned retail site in the city that would qualify as a dead mall.

The ‘70s Preservation Society
It’s also one of the more outlandishly designed. The developers of Carolina Circle seemed to be going for a very contemporary vibe, which in the mid ‘70s meant brutalist Modern architecture and lots of concrete. The mall opened in 1976 and it was so much a part of that era that it became dated really quickly.

The anchor department stores went for the highest kitsch value in their designs. Montgomery Ward was unequaled in its outlandishness with angled concrete berms covered in brightly colored ceramic tile on the exterior walls of its upper level. Its multiple entrances angled skyward with soaring transoms over the doors with round keyholes cut into concrete fascias on three of the entries. Ivey’s went for a low-slung look with rounded concrete berms along its walls and entries with rounded sides that transitioned from floor to ceiling. Belk, usually a patron of weird ‘70s architecture, played it relatively safe outside with simple, angled glass canopies, but they were an almost orange shade of tinted glass that made the store look almost as silly as its peers.

To be sure, there was a lot more ugly to be found inside the mall. Belk covered its mall entrances with an indescribable standing seam brass-plated metal. Ivey’s open-plan interior with a massive skylight and open escalator well with integrated glass elevator was stunning, but a bit overdone. The walls of the skylights over department store entrances were painted in loud primary colors. There were also a lot of clerestory windows and dark wood finishes in the common areas, which were filled with typical stores of the period, which weren’t know for design excellence.

When it comes to ugly, Montgomery Ward single-handedly wins the award for worst interior design. Wards tried every bad ‘70s decorating idea they could from avocado and gold shag carpeting to a ‘conversation pit’ style stereo department. As the mall began to fail, almost nothing was updated, leaving the store trapped in a serious time warp.

Even though the department stores stopped updating, the mall itself received a rather striking makeover in the late ‘80s, complete with a carousel to replace the original ice skating rink, a food court, updated colors and a major water feature in the mall’s center court in front of Ivey’s. It wasn’t enough to bring back momentum to the place, which had been going down financially for years.

What killed it?
Nothing caused more damage for Carolina Circle than the location itself. The original developer took a chance that people would move into the empty fields around the mall. Eventually there was residential growth, but most of it was low-income and predominately black.

That scenario, with its implied myths of crime and poverty, combined with increased competition from rival malls and a large, smelly sewer plant located immediately behind the mall weakened the local customer base. When Piedmont Mall opened in 1984 in Danville, Virginia, 60 miles north, it offered a similar shopping experience with a shorter drive for most of the mall’s out-of-town customers to the north, so those patrons left Carolina Circle as well.

After Four Seasons Town Centre, Carolina Circle’s cross-town rival, made a major investment in its better-located property in 1986, the real decay began. The perception of crime in the area became a reality and all but the most basic retailers fled the mall. Even a late ‘80s remodeling only staved the exodus for a short while. Soon, Dillard’s bought Ivey’s and downgraded is store to an outlet, eventually closing. Belk did the same. Montgomery Ward closed off most of its store and eventually its mall entrance, which led to the mall owners closing off the interior of the center. When Wards went out of business, so did the mall.

Along the exterior ring road, stores failed as well. A Service Merchandise and a Toys ‘R’ Us are the largest of the empty shells, which include a number of former branch banks, a Color Tile, and a Pearle Vision Center.

The future
As it faded into obscurity, a local developer and health club magnate attempted to turn Carolina Circle into the largest sports complex in the Carolinas. After turning several parking lots into soccer fields and realizing remodeling a mall into a sports center was prohibitively expensive, the impending development of middle-class housing at the nearby Reedy Fork subdivision and retailer interest in the property led the developer to consider building a big-box retail development on the site. Enter Wal-Mart and the new plans, which will restore vitality to an area in serious need of it. One can say what one wants to about how Wal-Mart’s effect on the community but in this case, the new store can’t do anything but help the area.

Related: The Ghost Mall