Asheville Mall facts for kids
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Exterior of Dillards at Asheville Mall, May 2012
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| Location | Asheville, North Carolina, United States |
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| Coordinates | 35°34′50″N 82°31′36″W / 35.58056°N 82.526556°W |
| Address | 3 South Tunnel Road |
| Opening date | November 23, 1973 |
| No. of stores and services | 99 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 5 (4 open, 1 vacant) |
| Total retail floor area | 974,399 sq ft (90,524.6 m2). (GLA)[1] |
| No. of floors | 1 (2 in anchors and Barnes & Noble) |
Asheville Mall is a big shopping center in Asheville, North Carolina. It's easy to find, located right off Interstate 240 in eastern Asheville. Most of the mall has one floor. Its main stores are Belk, JCPenney, and two Dillard's stores. With 132 stores, it's the biggest mall in Western North Carolina. It's a very important shopping spot for the area.
Contents
The History of Asheville Mall
How Asheville Mall Started
Asheville Mall was built by R. L. Coleman and Company. It opened in stages, starting with Sears on February 3, 1972. The rest of the mall opened on November 23, 1973. Building the mall wasn't easy. City officials and neighbors had concerns. One time, a neighbor even threatened a bulldozer operator!
During the final stages of building, a helicopter crashed into the roof. It was moving air conditioning units at the time. A crane had to remove the helicopter. The mall's completion showed how skilled and determined Mr. Coleman was.
Original Stores and Early Changes
When it first opened, the main stores were The Bon Marche, Belk, and Sears. The S & W Cafeteria moved to the mall from downtown Asheville in 1974. Soon after, an Ivey's store was added in the mid-1970s. The mall also got a small addition.
In 1989, JCPenney joined the mall. It was added onto a wing that had been built earlier. Montgomery Ward opened in 1994. This store took the place of The Bon Marche, which had become Meyers-Arnold and then Uptons.
Changes Over Time
In the early 1990s, Dillard's bought Ivey's. That store then became a Dillard's. Belk made its store bigger and added a second floor in 2000. In the same year, the mall also added a Food Court.
Chick Fil-A opened its first store in the region at the mall in the mid-1980s. For a while, this was the only Chick-fil-A in the company's history that was open on Sundays. This was due to mall rules. They changed this rule in 1997.
The mall also made a wing bigger, connecting JCPenney to Belk. This added 30 more stores. The Coleman family sold the mall in 1997. After Montgomery Ward closed in 2000, that space became Dillard's Men's, Children's, and Home store. The first Dillard's became a women's store.
In 2015, Sears Holdings separated many of its properties, including the Sears at Asheville Mall. Sears closed this location in July 2018. There are plans to build new apartments where Sears used to be.
