Fall
In early 1993, with attendance declining, Kirven's went out of business leaving one of the mall's three primary stores vacant and beginning a slow but steady process of store closings in the rear wing of the building. The entire rear wing was eventually closed-off, and the few remaining tenants were relocated to the front of the mall.
The mall soon began to fall into a state of disrepair, and the facility began to be perceived as a place of crime and violence among local residents, further reducing attendance. J. C. Penney relocated to Peachtree Mall the following year, leaving the mall with only a single anchor store. In 1999, the city of Columbus bought the facility, with the exception of the Sears building, and soon demolished the structure. Sears remained open as a stand-alone store, its former mall entrance walled-in, until the mid-2000s when a new Sears store opened in Columbus Park Crossing in North Columbus.
The site is now home to the Columbus Public Library which opened January 3, 2005. In January 2008, the Sears building was demolished to make room for a new Muscogee County School District administration building. This event put an end to the final chapter of the mall's history.
Read more about this topic: Columbus Square Mall
Famous quotes containing the word fall:
“Favor and honor sometimes fall more fitly on those who do not desire them.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is
all.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I’ve always wondered why European politicians as a group seemed brighter than American politicians as a group. Maybe it’s because many American politicians have the race issue to fall back on. They become lazy, suspicious of innovative ideas, and as a result American institutions atrophy.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)