Culture

Dead malls: You could shop... until they dropped

Once booming, now barren. Let’s take a peek at a mall of Fort Worth’s past — plus hope for the future.

June 25, 2024 • 
Brianna Williams
The top floor of a mall with several dark or closed storefronts. A small group of people can be seen walking, and the second level opens up to make room for the top of a trampoline-like structure that is coming up from the bottom floor.

This central hub of the mall was once bustling with people.

Photo by Glubin39 via Wikimedia Commons

Shopping malls across America have been left in a state that not even Paul Blart could save, and Fort Worth is no exception.

Known as “dead malls,” these abandoned, dilapidated, or mostly vacant shopping centers have become a subject of fascination — especially thanks to the online popularity of liminal space aesthetics.

Let’s go to the mall

Ridgmar Mall was once in its heydey.

Though it’s still catering to shoppers today, Fort Worthians may remember when the ~1.3 million-sqft mall was home to over 120 retailers + a movie theater that opened in the 2000s — a far cry from what it looks like today. The mall was also a destination for community events.

FTW-baby-competition-ridgmar-mall

In 1979, Ridgmar Mall hosted a “Father-Baby Olympics” at Ridgmar Mall in Fort Worth.

Photo courtesy of the UTA Libraries/Rodger Mallison

Back to the future

Now, most of the mall’s remaining ~30 tenants are located on the bottom floor of the two-story building. However JC Penney, which opened at Ridgmar Mall in 1976 as one of the mall’s anchor tenants, is still rocking two levels of shopping.

Earlier plans to redevelop the mall into a mixed-use space seem to have disappeared, but in 2021, the mall’s former H&M site was turned into a COVID-19 vaccine administration center.

In 2023, the White House also released a guidebook on commercial to residential conversions. And in cities like San Diego, former shopping centers are being converted into mixed-use developments, with plans including a 40-story residential building where Macy’s once sat. Who knows what the future holds?

Though Ridgmar has changed, Fort Worth still has a number of other thriving shopping centers or districts where you can make like NSYNC and buy, buy, buy:

  • Hulen Mall | The decline of malls hasn’t hit the southwest shopping center yet. It’s still going strong with over 125 retail and restaurant tenants.
  • The Shops at Clearfork | Fort Worth’s premiere destination for luxury goods boasts Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, and more.
  • University Park Village | The outdoor shopping center is a great place for clothes + home goods with stores like Madewell and Anthropologie, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma.

Do you have memories of a local mall from back in the day? Share them with us and we may feature your story in a future newsletter: First date at the food court, trying on prom dresses at the department store, hitting up Orange Julius before picking up the perfect graphic tee at Hot Topic — we wanna hear it all.