Landover, MD
85 000
Landover Mall was a large shopping mall located in Landover, Maryland, directly across from FedEx Field. The Mall was built in 1972 and owned and operated by Lerner Enterprises, the owner of several popular mall-based retail chains. It was initially a major attraction due to its strategic location at the eastern edge of the Washington, DC beltway, and sported Hecht's, Woodward & Lothrop, Sears, and Garfinckel's as anchor stores. Even the Washington, DC area is pretty heavily-malled, the Landover Mall's location still seems strong, especially given that other nearby malls (like the Iverson Mall, the Forest Village Park Mall, or the also-shuttered Capital Plaza Mall) are much smaller.
The mall's decline began in the late 1980s, in a time when concerns were growing about the safety of the area and the development of newer centers further out in suburbia was booming. So, in 1990, Garfinckel's went out bankrupt, Woodward & Lothrop closed their store five years later. JCPenney briefly replaced them in 1998, but closed their store just three years later when they were unable to stem the tide of the mall's decline. Hecht's also fled the mall upon the opening of the outdoor Bowie Town Center in 2001, leaving Sears as the lone anchor store at the mall. Finally, in 2002, the mall's doors were closed.
After that, Ted Lerner decided to shut the mall down completely. The mall's doors were sealed shut with cinder blocks. Demolition began in 2006, and was completed in early 2007. The entire mall was demolished, and its aftermath was recycled. Sears was the only store that remained open after the mall's closure because it owned the land on which the building stood. However, its former entrances to the mall were sealed shut on both its levels.
Once a large shopping mall in Landover, today it remained only in the hearts of people who knew this place.
