Whats happening with Ridgmar mall?

The west Fort Worth mall has had a complicated past and faces an even more complicated future.

Let’s start of with the history. In 1976, during the golden age of American Malls, the ridgmar mall opened on Green Oaks road in west Fort Worth. The mall featured Dillards, Neiman Marcus, Sears, and JCPenny as anchor stores. It quickly became a top shopping location for those in the west side of the metroplex. The mall prospered for decades, and Rave cinemas and Macy’s moved in in the 2000’s.

In the mid to late 2010’s, the mall experienced an enourmous decline and lost Macy’s, Neiman Marcus (which moved to the shops at Clearfork, I will likely discuss that on a later date), Sears, and the Dillard’s turned into a Dillard’s clearance center. In 2017, however, an aquarium opened in the mall, which helped keep it alive. JCPenney’s and Rave still ocupy the mall, and bring in a decent amount of customers. Right move storage moved into the space Macy used to occupy and is now considered an anchor store.

It’s also important to note that the mall is serviced by the 91 and 51 bus route which run every 30 and 60 minutes respectively (not that impressive). Also, the 2 bus, which does run every 15 minutes (phew) has a stop relatively close.

Basically, the mall is dead, or holding on for dear life depending on who you ask.

Now for the fun part, the redevelopment plans. in 2013, Real estate group GK development bought the mall with plans to redevelop it into a mixed-use center. Some proposal renderings have been published by inPLACE design. The proposal calls for a repositioning of the mall with new restaurants, shops, residences, and a central park. This proposal sounds good, but who knows if it can become reality. If it does, however, it will revive not just the mall but the surrounding areas back to its once-thriving shopping destination.

This is what the typical American mall always should have looked like. Instead of a massive parking lot engulfing the shopping center, living spaces, parks, public transport should surround the immediate areas of the mall.

https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/ridgmar-mall-redevelopment