History
In 1961, Winrock Shopping center was completed as a joint venture between soon-to-be Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller and the University of New Mexico on a sandy lot at the edge of I-40. The development included a covered shopping center (the first for Albuquerque and New Mexico) with Safeway, J.C. Penney, Fedway and Montgomery Ward. A freestanding movie theater and attached motor hotel opened in 1963.
The mall was built as an outdoor shopping hub with a screened canopy roof above the main stretch of the mall and acres of parking on all sides. This design allowed for a pleasant shopping experience in the dry summer heat as well as the cold high-desert winters. The 82 acre mall site was bounded by the busy I-40 freeway to the south, with off-ramps to Louisiana Boulevard to the west.
In 1971, Winrock Center was featured in the American International Pictures release Bunny O'Hare, which starred Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine. In the film, the two ride a motorcycle through the mall while escaping from a bank robbery.
Shortly after Winrock’s opening, competition moved in a few blocks away. Coronado Center was dedicated in March 1965 and had become the predominant shopping center of the two by the 1980s. Over the decades the Winrock mall underwent renovations and additions which added an upper floor, food-court and lighting. At either end of the complex were men’s and a women’s Dillard’s department stores.
Dillard's established their first store at Winrock Center in late 1971, when they rebranded the existing Fedway location. Soon after, a new store was built as a replacement. In the early 1990s, a second Dillard's was added to the mall. The first location became a Women's Store, with the new building housing a Men's and Children's Store.
In its prime, the mall was a center of commerce, but, beginning in the late 1990s, the mall began a steep decline and vacancy rates began to climb. By 2005, tenants' leases were not renewed in anticipation of redevelopment of the property. By the turn of the century, the mall was clearly dead and decaying rapidly. The only remaining stores were the two Dillard’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and a Sports Authority, each of which owned their respective spaces.
The mostly abandoned shopping center was used as a set for the filming of the 2009 American comedy film Observe and Report.
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