Southland Center (Michigan)

Southland Center (also known as Southland Mall) is an enclosed mall located at 23000 Eureka Road in Taylor, Michigan (a Downriver community located southwest of Detroit), exactly halfway between U.S. Highway 24 (Telegraph Road) and the Interstate 75 freeway. The mall features Macy's, JCPenney, and Best Buy, in addition to a 12-screen stadium Cinemark Theatres. It is the newest of the Detroit area's original four "land" malls (Northland, Southland, Eastland, Westland). Southland Center opened on July 20, 1970. It is owned and managed by Brookfield Properties, one of the largest mall owners in the United States.

History
Southland Center was designed by Victor Gruen Associates and Louis G. Redstone Associates, and the newly formed Dayton-Hudson Corporation (a merger of Dayton's of Minneapolis and Hudson's of Detroit) developed the mall. When opened in 1970, Southland Mall was originally anchored by a three-level; 272000 sqft Hudson's at the center of the mall and junior-anchored by a Woolworth's dime store off the center court and a Kroger supermarket on the eastern side. A two-screen movie theater, located off the west court, opened just weeks after the rest of the mall. Kroger built a larger facility across Eureka Road in the mid-1970s, with the former store gutted and divided into several smaller stores, attached to a new wing ending in a new two-level; 215000 sqft JCPenney store in 1976. In 1986, the theater, by then a four-screen venue, was purchased by AMC Theatres. In 1988, a small addition was built onto the western side, including a 75000 sqft Mervyns store that opened on August 12 of that year, and in October, The Rouse Company acquired the mall from its previous owners.

First announced in 1991, a food court called Picnic In The Garden broke ground on February 13, 1992 and opened on November 19, 1992, featuring a large triangular-shaped skylight, along with an expansion to Champs Sports' store and a new Lerner New York store. AMC's four-screen theater closed in January 1999 and was replaced with a 22500 sqft Borders Books & Music a year later. Hudson's became Marshall Field's in 2001 and transitioned to Macy's in 2006. Also in 2006, Mervyns exited Michigan and the food court, was razed and rebuilt for Best Buy. Later, in 2011, the Borders store shuttered along with the chain. Rouse Properties was spun off from General Growth Properties in January 2012. The company then added several new tenants; including rue21, Torrid and Taco Bell, to Southland Center, in addition, several existing tenants also renovated their stores. Forever 21 moved from a smaller pre-existing storefront to the previous Borders space opening in spring 2013. Then, later in 2013, several smaller store spaces near JCPenney were demolished and replaced by a new 11300 sqft Shoe Carnival store (which relocated from a strip development across Eureka Road).

In July 2014, Rouse Properties announced that the previous Mervyn's space would be replaced by a 12-screen, all-digital, Cinemark multiplex theater accompanied by several outdoor sit-down restaurants. In addition, in the late summer of 2014, a complete renovation of the mall began. This project added new flooring and lighting, removed the fountain and replaced it with seating and electronic-device chargers and added several more tenants including Pink and Zumiez. This project was completed in the summer of 2015. Ulta opened a location in the mall along the corridor between Macy's and Best Buy in August 2014. H&M opened in October 2015.

As of September 2018, a section on the third floor of Macy's became a Macy's Backstage.