Sunday, November 28, 2021

UPDATE. Another Manitowoc dead mall still awaits its demolition

Screenshot and video by Retiring Guy\



5/9/2021 update starts here

Screenshot from Retiring Guy's video below



More than eight months after city leaders agreed the closing of Younkers department store at the Lakeshore Edgewater Plaza spelled the end of the mall site as retail only, little has been done to improve what is quickly becoming an eyesore on the Lakeshore.  
Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels said during a business roundtable at the Capitol Civic Centre Wednesday that the city is “aggressively going after the owner of the building” to have them raze the facility, saying “there’s no use for that building at this point.” 
Owners of the site are not marketing it, the mayor said, and he said he suspects there will be growth at the Elks site before anything happens with the former mall. “I think it will be sitting there a little bit,” Nickels said.

 


7/30/2018 update, "Dead mall loses its biggest tenant", starts here.

From Memorial Drive
All photos by Retiring Guy

Manitowoc Younkers closing likely end of shopping mall, leaders say.  (Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, 2/2/2018)
So far no one is biting.  “This is not something that is unique to Manitowoc,” he said. “This is something you have been seeing with malls that are not located near interstates for the past 20 or 30 years, such as Port Plaza in Green Bay or Northland in Appleton. Retailers want to be where the interstate is.” The Edgewater Plaza site, and its large overgrown parking lot space, offers prime development space, he noted.

From East Magnolia Avenue between Memorial and Johnston drives

Bon-Ton's demise leaves towns with fewer shopping choices.  (WZZM, 5/1/2018)
The story is much the same in Manitowoc, Wis., where the imminent shuttering of Younkers will leave the once-thriving, now largely deserted Lakeshore Edgewater Plaza mall with just two tenants — a hearing aid shop and Wizard’s Kingdom, a children’s play spot featuring a ball pit, bouncy castles and arcade games.
Approaching the entrance

A view across the empty space that Mid-Cities Mall/Lakeview Centre used to occupy


1/31/2018 update, "The thread has snapped:  The New Lakeshores Mall (or whatever the hell it's called) is now one of the deadest of dead malls", starts here.


Bon-Ton identifies stores it plans to close, including 9 in Wisconsin.  (Herald-Times-Reporter, 1/31/2018)


 7/29/2017 update, "Younkers is still open for business at Manitowoc's other (not quite) dead mall", starts here.

Gotta think this department store's days are numbered. 



Original 5/2/2016 post, "Manitowoc's other (not quite) dead mall:  The New Lakeshore Mall", starts here.

The New Lakeshore Mall is visible in the center-right distance across the vast expanse of what was originally the Mid-Cities Mall, Manitowoc's first enclosed shopping center, which opened in 1968.

A view from near the intersection of Memorial Drive and East Reed Avenue.

All photos by Retiring Guy

In the late 1970s, somebody decided that Manitowoc needed a second mall, where Younker's still manages to do business.



To my surprise, I was able to access the building through the doors leading to the mall area.


I assume the Santa's Kids Gift Shop was most recently in operation last December.

Yes, it's, ahem, deflating times for retail in this area of Manitowoc.


A view in the other direction.  


PrangeWay was the Edgewater's other anchor from 1979 until 1996.


Mid-Cities Mall/Lakeview Center and Edgewater Plaza/Edgelake Plaza/The New Lakeshore Mall timeline

1967. (October 5). Montgomery Ward is first store in Mid-Cities Mall to open.

1968. Year of official opening. Retailers include Woolworth, Osco Drug, A&P, and J.C. Penney 

1979. Edgewater Plaza opens across East Magnolia Avenue from Mid-Cities Mall. Tenants include Prange, PrangeWay, and Sears catalog store.

1981. Interstate 43 opens just west of Manitowoc, which eventually changes the retail focus of the area. Around this time, a plan was considered to expand Mid-Cities Mall and link it to the Edgewater Plaza.

1984. Hardee's restaurant is appended to Mid-Cities mall next to Penney's.

1980s: The inline composition of Mid-Cities Mall shifts from predominantly national chains to local stores with some nationally-known semi-anchors. Montgomery Ward closes its store in the mid-1980s.

Late 1980s: Mid-Cities Mall is renamed "Lakeview Centre"

1990: Wal-Mart opens a store near the I-43/Washington Street interchange 4 miles west of downtown Manitowoc

Early 1990s: Stangel's Super Valu closes at the Lakeview Centre mall, leaving the supermarket space empty.

1993: The Edgewater Sears catalog closes. Woolworth closes its Lakeview Centre store. The former Wards store, empty for nearly a decade is briefly reoccupied by a local business, which quickly moves elsewhere.

1990s: 'Inline' stores flee Lakeview Centre.

1996. PrangeWay store closes and still remains empty.  Hardee's closes its location at the Lakeview Centre mall.

1998:. Osco Drug closes its mall store and relocates to a new standalone building nearby -- across East Reed Street.

2000. JCPenney become last tenant standing at Lakeview Centre.

Early 2000s: The Edgewater Plaza is painted beige and renamed the Edgelake Plaza, to little effect. 

2007. The former Edgewater Plaza changes ownership and receives its second name change in the process:  "The New Lakeshore Mall."

2011. Penney's closes, leaving the Lakeview Centre abandoned.

2015. Lakeview Centre razed.

2016. The New Lakeshore Mall hangs on by a thread.

Primary source for timeline

Related post:
UPDATE: The deadest of dead malls is gone, razed.  (1/3/2016)

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