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Laurel Mall was a shopping mall located on the west side of U.S. Route 1 in Laurel, Maryland. The mall opened on October 11, 1979 and connected two pre-existing structures – the freestanding Montgomery Ward on its south side and Laurel Shopping Center to the north.〔"Laurel Centre Expansion Under Way," ''The Washington Post'', June 30, 1978, p. F1.〕 The mall closed permanently on May 1, 2012. == History == The Laurel Centre Mall was developed by Shopco Inc. and included two anchor stores, Montgomery Ward and JCPenney, with a third anchor, Hecht's, added in 1981. The Montgomery Ward store opened for business on April 16, 1969 as a stand-alone business.〔"Ward to Open Fifth Area Store in Laurel," ''The Washington Post, Times Herald'' April 13, 1969, p. 138.〕 Montgomery Ward's entered a long-term lease for a $1.60/sf, which was to be offset by higher rates charged to satellite shops drawing on the anchor.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.leagle.com/decision/199075681MdApp675_1713 )〕 It would be ten years until the JCPenney store opened in 1979, with the Laurel Centre expansion, creating a traditional enclosed mall. The Hecht Company moved its store from its previous location in the Laurel Shopping Center. In 1991, the mall received a $2 million face lift and update.〔"Laurel Centre Gets Makeover," ''The Washington Post'', March 21, 1991, p. MD1C.〕 Though it was small in comparison with most malls today, Laurel Mall had two levels and, when it opened, had modern innovations such as a slowly rotating two-story island in the middle of a fountain known as the "Carousel" with room for seven kiosks on the bottom and a stage on top. Time Out Tunnel arcade had a location near the main entrance on the second level. Other features at the mall were a glass-sided walkway over a roadway and parking lot and an enclosed bridge between JCPenney and Woolworth's at the Laurel Shopping Center. The food court "Inner Circle", later changed to "Circle Eatery", was located at the mall's south end. Here the mall split into a one level mezzanine section to accommodate Montgomery Ward, which had no second floor. Connecting it all were Maryland's shortest escalators at the time, one rising to a height of only 13 steps. A double-door elevator transported customers between the three levels and to a management office in the basement. On November 1, 1980, Congresswoman Gladys Noon Spellman collapsed at a campaign appearance at the Laurel Mall after suffering an incapacitating heart attack. She represented the 5th congressional district of Maryland from January 3, 1975 to January 3, 1981. By the 2000s, the Mall had been in decline. In 2001, anchor store Montgomery Ward went out of business, and JC Penney vacated the mall in 2002. Around the same time, the expansion and renovation of the nearby Mall in Columbia added restaurants and movie theaters to its existing tenants. Big-box stores at U.S. Route 1 and Maryland Route 198 opened and expanded offerings over the decade. As a result, business at the Laurel mall dwindled. A Burlington Coat Factory occupied most of the former Montgomery Ward space, and Macy's replaced Hecht's in 2006. On two occasions, sections of the aging parking decks had crumbled and fallen onto the parking lots below, resulting in their closure. In January 2012, Macy's announced it would close five underperforming stores with final clearance sales beginning January 8, and would run through early spring, including the Laurel Mall location, which left Burlington Coat Factory its last remaining anchor store. During this phase, the mall advertised its transformation with cryptic messages printed across some of the shuttered store fronts, such as "Don't judge a book by its cover", "Looks can be deceiving", "Beauty is more than skin deep", "If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies", and "It's what's inside that counts". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laurel Mall (Maryland)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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