The Mall of Memphis was a shopping mall in Memphis, Tennessee, containing 885627sqft of retail space and 5,564 parking spaces. The mall opened October 7, 1981, was closed December 24, 2003, and was demolished in 2004. Among other things, the mall was home to the Ice Chalet, Memphis's only public ice rink.HistoryThe Mall of Memphis and the commercial area that developed around it prospered throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, several deadly shootings and a rash of robberies occurred on or near the mall's parking lots. These events led to the Mall of Memphis developing a reputation for being unsafe and being nicknamed the "Mall of Murder". A study done by Rhodes College in 2006 shows the media's impact of giving the mall this reputation and also studying how the mall's nickname may have resulted in its death.In the 1990s, white flight took place in the residential neighborhoods closest to the Mall of Memphis. Many of the mall's upscale clientele moved east to Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett and Cordova, making trips to and from the mall longer and less convenient. A new mall, the Wolfchase Galleria, opened in 1997 between Bartlett and Cordova. Other shopping centers and big box retailers opened near the new mall. This took away most of the business from the Mall of Memphis and the commercial area surrounding it. Later, the closure of anchor store Service Merchandise due to a corporate bankruptcy, and the 2001 closures of anchors JCPenney and Dillard's drove away most of the remaining clientele. Without anchor stores, the Mall of Memphis could not afford to remain in operation.
