Dick’s Sporting Goods is under construction at Broadway Square Mall. For the first time since opening in 1975, the mall will have a new anchor. Broadway Square Mall General Manager Terry Blevins, pictured here, is overseeing the multi-million dollar expansion. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Terry Blevins uses reinvention and revitalization when he talks about what is happening at Broadway Square Mall.

As the the general manager, Blevins is overseeing a multi-million dollar expansion of the 45-acre retail center at South Broadway and Loop 323. For the first time since opening in 1975, the mall will have a new anchor. It is adding retailers and restaurants in the concourses and as stand-alone venues on the property.

“Some of the biggest changes by far are taking place since it was built,” Blevins said. “It’s a revitalization of the entire property.”

Recent or upcoming additions include the following:

Dick’s Sporting Goods will occupy 45,000 square feet of space as the mall’s new south anchor. It is the location that Sears occupied for decades. When Sears closed, the store was demolished and rebuilt to accommodate Dick’s. The store, which sells athletic and outdoor apparel, plans to open in February, said a statement from the company.

Boba-Loompia, a restaurant and tea room that serves Asian fusion and Filipino food, recently opened in 1,236 square feet in the south concourse. It relocated into the mall after being near the University of Texas at Tyler campus.

HomeGoods, a discount home furnishing store, will occupy 22,000 square feet in a recently completed building just south of the mall. Party City, a party supplies and costumes store, will occupy a 12,000 square feet in the same building next to Homegoods. Opening dates for both stores have not been announced.

Longhorn Steakhouse, a 5,660 square-foot stand-alone restaurant, recently opened near the mall’s main entrance off South Broadway Avenue.

Bella Bunny Boutique, a locally owned store that sells clothing and accessories for girls from infancy to size 16, recently opened in 1,800 square feet near the mall’s main entrance.

CHANGING RETAIL

Broadway Square Mall opened at Loop 323 and South Broadway Avenue with much fanfare April 1, 1975. The 615,000-square-foot center offered a local shopping experience which East Texans had never experienced. The brightly lit, climate-controlled building housed 70 stores along two long concourses.

The mall was anchored by retail giants JCPenney and Sears. Dillard’s was just off the center court, which had a big fountain and plenty of room for shoppers to mingle and rest on benches.

Original tenants included Poise ‘N Ivy, Craddock’s, Olmstead’s, Chick-fil-A, Hickory Farms, Wyatt’s Cafeteria and Baskin-Robbins. Its many stores would “cater to any shopper need and to any taste,” said a news release announcing the opening.

The mall’s developer, Raymond D. Nasher Co., was known for creating retail, residential and industrial centers. Nasher told the Tyler Morning Telegraph in 1971 that Broadway Square Mall would be “an improvement on anything we have done in the past.”

Broadway Square was part of a mall building boom. In the 1960s and 1970s, about 1,200 malls were built in the United States, according to World Finance, a website that covers business. Often located away from town centers, malls were a hit with shoppers who loved having many stores under one roof and a place to hang out.

Candace Foster, who grew up in Linden, remembers that when she was younger going to Broadway Square was an exciting experience.

“The mall was the place to go,” said Foster, now the mall’s the director of marketing and business development. “If you went to the mall you were cool.”

Since 1975, malls have opened in other East Texas cities and large shopping centers have opened near the mall and farther south on Broadway. These newer shopping destinations also have big retailers and popular restaurants.

Today, some shoppers prefer to buy products online instead of going into stores. Some malls have seen their foot traffic decline and some retailers who had been mainstays of malls have closed.

Decades after opening, Broadway Square Mall has become one of many shopping alternatives in an increasingly competitive environment.

CHANGES

In 2018, Simon Property Group, the mall’s parent company and the nation’s largest shopping mall operator, announced the sweeping changes at Broadway Square that are nearing completion.

“We’re looking forward to further enhancing the customer’s shopping experience,” Les Morris, a spokesman for Simon Property Group, said in a statement presented to Tyler Planning and Zoning Commission.

The changes would bring “exciting new retailers and concepts which will be a great positive for the property and offer even more options for our shoppers,” the statement said.

Between May and August last year, the city issued four building permits totaling $13.7 million for mall property construction.

The mall also put in new landscaping and is allowing more tenants to have outside entrances/exists and exterior signs.

Shoppers want more from malls than a place to shop, Blevins said. “Our responsibility is to our customer and to give them what they want.”

Foster said that their priorities are maintaining a clean and safe place to shop and giving customers more services.

Last year, the mall opened Playtime, a 1,000-square-foot play area in the south concourse. It has interactive games, foam blocks and areas for children to jump and climb.

The mall provides charging stations for electronic devices, on-site security, plush chairs for tired shoppers to sit in, wheelchairs, baby strollers and ATMs. Signs along the concourses help walkers who come there to exercise know the distance they have walked.

“The traditional business plan was that your anchors drove the traffic and that people would then shop elsewhere (in the mall),” Foster said. “That’s no longer the way it is. A big focus for us is dining and entertainment. The goal is to give people reasons to come and to stay longer. Maybe they are here to eat or here enjoying an event.”

Recently hundreds came to the mall to register for Lighten Up East Texas, a regional weight-loss initiative. Each year the mall is the community site for Tyler Salvation Army’s Angel Tree, which provides gifts for children from low-income families.

As the manager of Marc Robinson Jewelers, Ruby Jefferson, said all tenants benefit when people have reasons to come to the mall.

Marc Robinson, which sells jewelry and time pieces, is located just off the high-traffic center court and near the main entrance.

“People walk by and they see this and come and ask about it,” she said pointing to a large lighting fixture in the shape of two rings. “And that’s when I can sell them something.”

She doesn’t worry that people will quit coming to malls.

“People are always going to shop,” she said. “They want the experience of getting out. It’s an experience, a social thing.”

FUTURE

More changes are coming. A site development plan submitted to the city calls for the building of more stand-alone stores or restaurants along the edges of Broadway Square Mall’s property.

“Out parcels,” as Blevins calls them, have proven to be an effective strategy to attract people to the property and into the mall itself, he said.

Blevins said he has never been more excited about the mall’s future.

“Some malls have closed but that’s because their companies didn’t put money back into them,” he said. “That’s not what’s happening here. We’re not going to let this property run down. We’re here for the long haul.”

And he points out that Broadway Square has something that other large retail centers cannot match: a 45-year history in the community.

“This is not just a mall, it’s Tyler’s mall,” he said. “People think of this as their mall. They want it to succeed.”