Knoxville Center, Knoxville, TN

 A dead mall

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During the late eighties our family took several road trips in the old station wagon between Virginia Beach and Huntsville. I loved the change from coastal plains to the piedmont through to the green peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, but I mostly looked forward to the cities through which we'd be passing. And one of my favorites was always the eastern Tennessee metropolis of Knoxville.

East Towne Mall under construction in the early eighties.  (Source for both)

Nestled at the gateway of the Smokey Mountains National Park, the town hosts the University of Tennessee, the Sunsphere from the 1982 World's Fair, and formerly one of the most distinctive malls that I had seen in my, by that time, short 12 years, East Towne Mall.

East Towne Mall Mallmanac ca. 1996. View the full PDF version here.

Speeding along I-640 through the city's hilly eastern environs, I would never have noticed East Towne Mall had it not been for its distinctive white tents. It was a plain, mud brown building that was almost indistinguishable from its surrounding terrain, but the fabric centerpiece gave it away. In the midst of fighting with my older brother for back seat dominance and trying to stay occupied in those years before cell phones and vehicular entertainment systems, whizzing by the place was one of the highlights of the trip.

East Towne Mall just after its opening in 1984.  (Source for all)

East Towne Mall opened in 1984 in Knoxville’s then bustling east end.  Its debut anchors included Knoxville area nameplates Miller’s and Proffitt’s as well as national retailers JCPenney and Sears.  Catalog merchandiser Service Merchandise also held a smaller plot on the shopping complex’s northeastern side.

Knoxville Center lease plan ca. 2000.  View the full PDF version here.

Miller’s converted to Hess’s after their acquisition by the latter east coast stalwart but closed down soon after, becoming a Dillard’s in 1992.  In 1997, East Towne Mall underwent its first major renovation, when a mountain themed interior was implemented.  When this revamp was completed, the new name for the retail destination, Knoxville Center, was put into use.

Knoxville Center’s interior in 2019 not long before its closing.  (Source for all)

However, these changes did little to prevent the decline of what was once East Towne Mall.  Service Merchandise departed in 1999 while Belk took over the Proffit’s space just a few years later in 2008.  That same year, Dillard’s announced the closure of their outlet.  In 2017, Knoxville Center was sold and the name was officially and internally changed back to East Towne though all signage and marketing still referred to the complex as the newer moniker.

Knoxville Center lease plan ca. 2011.  View the full PDF version here.

Knoxville Center’s slide continued as JCPenney departed later in 2017 while Sears hung on just one year longer, shuttering their space in 2018.  As more of the inline stores relinquished their leases, Belk joined the exodus in 2019, leaving East Towne Mall with no anchors and fewer than a dozen small shops.  The entire retail facility would close just a few months later.

The exterior of Knoxville center around the time of its closure in 2019.  (Source for all)

I only stepped foot into what was then East Towne Mall once, during a trip in 1996 to eastern Tennessee to visit my partner at the time’s hometown.  He wondered why I wanted to go to that mall when West Towne had so much more.  After convincing him, I was bummed to find that the facility’s interior, even back then, betrayed its distinctive edifice.  Even then, many of the stores were darkened and the writing was already on the wall.  And that’s too bad; I feel bad for all of today’s budding retail nerds speeding in the back seat down interstate 640 with nothing more to lay their eyes on than the lifeless box housing an Amazon distribution center.

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Knoxville Center on Wikipedia

Foothills Mall, Maryville, TN

An extant asset

-UPDATE BELOW-

3 November 2024

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There’s a lot to love about the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. The country roads leading up to the eponymous National Park, Dolly Parton and her theme park nestled in good ole Pigeon Forge, and the big, bright college town of Knoxville located right at the foot of the hills. There, in the suburban villa of Maryville, just a short drive past the McGhee-Tyson airport, is the mall named after those foothills.

-UPDATE- Foothills Mall’s original look. (Source for all)

Foothills Mall hosted my one and only visit to Maryville in December of 2000, when I went on an impromptu visit to see a friend who lived in the area. Truth be told, against the gorgeous backdrop of eastern Tennessee, there really wasn’t much to remember about the place.

Foothills Mall Mallmanac, ca. 2000. View the full PDF version here.

It was small, had one of the few mall locations of Goody’s that I had ever seen and not much else. I was just glad that they had mallmanacs available to commemorate the occasion. But everything else was just kind of forgettable.

-UPDATE- 1- The main entrance to Foothills Mall next to TJ Maxx.  2- The AMC Theaters.  3- Belk’s exterior.  4- The former JCPenney façade. (Source for all)

Foothills Mall opened in 1983 and remains the only enclosed shopping mall within suburban Blount County. It debuted with JCPenney, Miller’s, Proffitt’s and Sears; pretty standard for that region of the south. When Miller’s left, Proffitt's moved into their walls and occupied two separate spaces. Before long, Belk took over just one of the Proffitt’s while the other sat empty until Carmike opened a cinema in its place.

-UPDATE- Foothills Mall Mallmanac ca. 2019. View the full PDF version here.

With an addition of Goody’s and TJ Maxx, Foothills seems to be doing fine. I really hope it lasts, as these types of facilities on the extreme outskirts of medium size cities seem to be falling by the wayside. So I hope never to read of a re-formatting along with a renaming involving the words Towne and Centre.

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-UPDATE-

-30 November 2024

Foothills Mall Mallmanac ca. 2021. View the full PDF version here.

Although most peers in the small town mall category are failing, Foothills seems to be holding its own.  The Goody’s space was taken over by local outfit Farmer’s Furniture while both Sears and JCPenney made their departures in the 2010s, leaving Belk as the only remaining traditional anchor.

1 to 3- The Foothills Mall interior entrances for JCPenney, Sears, and Belk. (Source for all)  4 to 6- Recent interior shots of Foothills Mall.  (Source for all)

However, both original anchors have been replaced by non-traditional mall tenants BJ’s Wholesale Club in the former pad occupied by JCPenney while Publix makes their new home where Sears once existed.  The tenant mix remains relatively strong with about 40 shops still occupying inline space.

Foothills Mall pamphlet ca. 2024. View the full PDF version here.

Foothill Mall official website

Northgate Mall, Hixson, TN

An extant asset

-UPDATES BELOW-

26 December 2021 

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I've always been one to root for the underdog, even when it comes to shopping malls.  There's just something about those obscure, secondary retail centers within a community that have since been overshadowed by a more sophisticated, newer and flashier competitor with their newfangled natural lighting, climate control, and ADA compliance that just completely captures me. It's this predisposition that causes me to pull for Washington Square's success over that of Eastland Mall. The very same impulse leads me to carry an admiration for Pembroke Mall even though Lynnhaven Mall was the vast majority's preferred destination. And this mindset makes me far fonder of Chattanooga's Northgate Mall than its bustling rival Hamilton Place.

Northgate Mall Mallmanac, ca. 1997. View the full PDF version here.

Northgate Mall is a bit off of the beaten path, but it's definitely worth the drive. It's literally over the river and through the woods from Chattanooga proper in the city's northern suburb of Hixson. When coming in from the south on Highway 319, the first piece that comes into view is the large, rectangular Sears. Its walls are of a basic brick styling painted an off-white hue, but the brutalist entrance treatments are quite a feast for the eyes. The porticoes have the unique faux-effect appearance a widow's-walk off of the second level. On the rear of the building is an even bigger delight- the mocha with a touch of cream shaded, ultra-modern JCPenney look of the early seventies. With its curved corners and varying roof heights, it represents the disco era in every way. The shape of the entire structure kind of favors sci-fi spaceship designs from movies such as Alien, to the extent that I've dubbed this building the Starship Penney's.

The front side of Northgate Mall including Sears.

On the inside, Northgate Mall followed the exact template of other projects from the same era. The corridors were of an excessive width underneath ceilings of a notable height. The courts at the access points of the two end anchors as well as the main, central court were all of a precise box shape. All interior corners were drawn at strict right angles with little to no deviation. The main corridor was a curve-free, rigid channel with either end anchor having direct line of sight with the other. The floors were of an obligatory murky tile, wood was liberally utilized in the accenting of both the fixtures and the ceilings and the lounging sections were of a basic, hard edged design, not yet replaced with the soft seating areas that became the retail facility standard in the 2000s.

I love the curved lines of what I call "Starship Penney's".

Northgate Mall opened as Chattanooga's second major suburban shopping center in 1972, though it was the first to debut fully enclosed. Its original anchors were Millers, JCPenney and Sears. The mall was updated in 1991, 1997 and during the mid-2000s. While JCPenney and Sears have remained unchanged, Millers was eventually superseded by Hess's before being converted to Proffitt's. After a few years under that banner, the space became home to Belk, which already had a small presence at Northgate with a modest women's store near JCPenney.

Northgate Mall Mallmanac, ca. 2014. View the full PDF version here.

Northgate Mall is neither a groundbreaker nor historical in any way. There was nothing exceptional about the exterior look or the interior design. But there has always been just something about the old school aura of Chattanooga's secondary enclosed shopping facility that really made it attractive to me. Maybe it was the absence of oversized groups of people dominating the walkways or the under-abundance of stores like Hollister with their overpowering fragrances and incessant bumping rhythms disturbing the quiet sanctity of the nearby Orange Julius. Whatever it was, when not in downtown Chattanooga, it was definitely my preferred shopping destination over Hamilton Place whenever in the Scenic City.

-UPDATES-

-26 December 2021

Northgate Mall lease plan, ca. 2021. View the full PDF version here.

The wondrously groovy Starship Penney’s with its rounded corners and dark brown brick façade has closed. The nearly 50 year old location was a victim of the troubled retailer’s round of 2014 closings. There were only two of these Starship Penney’s designs that I knew of, and now the one at Coliseum Mall has been demolished while this one stands empty. Though JCPenney tends to have some of the more distinctive and unusual design elements on their exteriors, this is my favorite and I hope to see more before they’re all gone.

Northgate Mall official website