SouthPark Mall Is Determined to Survive

It’s a gray, boring Saturday afternoon, so I venture to nearby SouthPark Mall for a change of scenery. I strap my toddler into her stroller, and we’re off. The automatic doors at Dillard’s part with a smooth whoosh, but the usual soft, ambient music is immediately drowned out by a thunderous bassline from a live DJ. As in one of those dreams where you’re onstage and forget your lines, I’m thrust onto the catwalk of a fashion show.

Red carpet stretches over the tile floor, and the rainbow balloon arches capture the attention of my small shopper. The thought crosses my mind: You should’ve just shopped online.

It’s clear that the people in charge here know that the mall is no longer just for shopping but for unique experiences. What’s more, SouthPark Community Partners, the nonprofit that represents the area, recognizes the need to correct its course, too. The 54-year-old mall alone is no longer an automatic draw, or something that can sustain itself for decades to come without more robust connections to the community.

In April, Community Partners unveiled a SouthPark Forward 2035 Vision Plan that articulates them: more places, more connections, and more mobility within the area to tie it all together. “With online shopping offering convenience and choice,” the plan says, “brick-and-mortar retail centers must create a sense of place, offering experiences customers cannot find elsewhere.” I can confirm: An immersive fashion show with beautiful live models, loud music, and bright lights is an experience I can’t find—not yet, anyway—at Target.

SouthPark Mall’s legacy retailers, like Dillard’s, have added events to enhance the experience of shopping.

If the crowds here tell me anything, it’s that SouthPark Mall is still a popular place to shop and hang out, especially given the declining fortunes of other malls throughout the country. In Charlotte, once-dominant Eastland Mall closed in 2010, and Northlake Mall struggles with changing customer habits and crime, including multiple shootings. SouthPark Mall, buoyed by an affluent customer base and high-end tenants, continues to prosper despite its less-than-ideal location nowhere near an interstate.

Yet some of the same factors that bedevil other malls may find their way to SouthPark. Community Partners conducted months of research and found that residents want more vibrant public spaces and higher-quality programming to create accessible new places and reasons for people to visit. The plan’s three main themes are “places” where the community can gather, “connections” to improve options for walkers and bicyclists, and “mobility” to expand transportation options.

“Public space really is the infrastructure for human connection,” says Adam Rhew, the organization’s president and CEO. “The more of that we can create, the more opportunities we have for people to come together and build relationships, not only with each other but with the place.”

The plan calls for the completion of The Loop, a partially developed, 3-mile urban trail that would serve as the primary connector for the neighborhood. Courtesy

Rhew, a former senior editor of this magazine, grew up in the SouthPark area and, as a child, did his back-to-school shopping at the mall. Today, he takes his own kids there to do the same. “The SouthPark area has always been a place that has made people feel something special,” Rhew says. “That’s why people come here to celebrate, from Mother’s Day brunch to sitting on Santa’s lap during the holidays.”

The mall opened in February 1970, on the site of former Governor Cameron Morrison’s dairy farm and estate. Traffic, now a bugaboo, is practically the mall’s reason for being—the development of south Charlotte roads in the 1950s and ’60s meant people could drive from the city center to what was once “the country” in 15 minutes. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the apex of mall culture, shoppers of all generations flocked to the most prominent shopping center between Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

“SouthPark filled a gap that Charlotteans didn’t know was missing,” says Hallie Dean, a mall spokesperson. “It provided that neighborhood destination with an intimate, local feel while still offering the best brands and shopping out there.”

The Vision Plan highlights what the mall continues to do right. It’s evolved since the 1990s to offer more niche brands—Dean describes the current mix as “curated” and “experiential”—that can’t be found anywhere else, certainly not online. The mall has 122 retailers that offer “market-exclusive concepts,” like a new Suffolk Punch Brewing location with a nearby children’s playground. Half of those retailers are unique to Charlotte, 32% to North Carolina, and 27% to the Carolinas, she says.

So the Vision Plan isn’t trying to replace the quintessential mall shopping experience but enhance it. The plan covers not just the mall but the 1-square-mile municipal tax district around it, which includes popular Phillips Place, Piedmont Town Center, and Morrocroft Village. Its composition reflects the decades of development with a mall at its hub: It’s home to about 6,200 residents—and 1,000 businesses that employ 32,000 people.

But the plan also identifies the problems: a paucity of accessible parks that are open and active year-round; disconnected pedestrian areas, which the document describes as “desirable yet disconnected ‘pods’”; virtually nonexistent infrastructure for bicycles; and a disconnected system of streets. Community Partners targets “The Loop,” a partially developed, 3-mile urban trail, as a connector for all those disconnections. 

To SouthPark Community Partners, Symphony Park is “where the community comes together.” The group’s strategic plan envisions an enhanced and more connected hub for public events. Courtesy.

As the outline of a broad vision, the plan offers more general goals and suggestions than specific projects and completion dates. But some of the suggestions include an enhanced Symphony Park; designated outdoor spaces for gathering and outdoor education near the SouthPark Regional Library branch; the use of landscaping and flowers to create “an arboretum-like experience”; and connection of the Cross Charlotte Trail to McMullen Creek Greenway via a footpath. Rhew paints a picture of new, delightfully busy “connective tissue,” with festival streets, community artwork, and varied programming like yoga classes or a farmers market at Symphony Park.

As someone who loathes the uninspired trek from the dimly lit parking garages to the faraway mall entrance, these are much-anticipated changes. I think of the development over the last decade in South End. Once, a stroll along the light rail didn’t feel very joyful. Now? It’s a pedestrian-focused area packed with things to do and discover. The journey from one place to another is part of the experience.

Those are the kinds of memories and traditions the mall, along with Community Partners, is trying to create, Dean says: “A big way to do that is through various events, like the Turkey Trot, concerts on the lawn, and new events like fashion shows, store openings, and charitable partnerships.” I smile, grateful I didn’t accidentally walk into a 5K in place of the surprise fashion show. The mall’s location, she adds, has made it easy for the mall to build relationships with neighbors and “bring even more to the community.”

A decade from now, I’ll be a mom to two teenage daughters, and SouthPark may look very different. I can see myself meandering down the transformed pedestrian areas, carrying my daughters’ shopping bags, listening to the faint beat of a faraway outdoor band, and getting distracted by some gorgeous street art along The Loop. And just like my unexpected fashion show debut, I’ll probably be surprised by the transformation—and delighted by all the ways it made me feel part of something special.

JACKIE NELSON is a writer in Charlotte.