BSU analysis calls for Muncie Mall to 'open up'
Ball State urban planning faculty, students have a lot to say about the future of the 1970s mall
MUNCIE — Some of Ball State University’s urban planning faculty and students spent last semester studying how to save the Muncie Mall — one of the many so-called “dead malls,” “zombie malls” or “ghost malls” around the country, owing to their high vacancy rates and lack of anchor stores.
The conclusion was that the mall can’t survive as just an indoor shopping venue, but that its valuable real estate can be redeveloped into something else of importance.
The students said the mall, which devastated downtown Muncie for decades, was “dying,” “depressing,” “ugly,” hostile to pedestrians/bicyclists, a “pitiful” example of sustainability, outdated, and lacking in trees and public transportation.
On the positive side, at least this mall remains open, and it paid its property taxes last year — more than $640,000 worth.
Built in 1970 on a 53-acre site, the 635,970-square-foot mall (not counting the former Macy’s wing), continues to lease space to 30 some businesses. They include a Books-a-Million bookstore; a Bath & Body Works; five shoe stores; an MCL Cafeteria; several nail, eyebrow and earring salons; a Zales jewelry store; several national apparel/accessories retailers; and a new Buyer’s Market that sells secondary-market goods from major brands at cheap prices.
Ball State is leasing a storefront studio at the mall, where the results of the school’s Muncie Mall Redevelopment Charrette were presented before Christmas.
One of the ideas proposed by the faculty and students was to turn the indoor mall into an outdoor mall.
“The walkways within the mall have been exposed to the outdoors, allowing shoppers to get fresh air,” student Grayson Cates demonstrated on his “Next Gen Mall” exhibit.
He cited the Jefferson Pointe Mall in Fort Wayne as a case study of “a once dying mall” that “opened up the center walkways to the outside, creating roadways for cars to park and plazas for shoppers. The interior of the mall has fountains, trees and raised pedestrian crossings. The exterior of the mall has also received a renovation.”
He also cited the Greenwood Park Mall south of Indianapolis as having “the outside facade of the stores look just as appealing as the inside.”
After spending time at the Muncie Mall, “one of the big things I noticed is how unattractive it looks,” Cates told me. “The outside really bothered me. You can see the Dumpsters in front of almost all of the stores. And blank walls. You could have murals or public art on the walls.”
Professor Michael A. Burayidi had challenged the students to open up the mall.
“Given the Covid situation, customers are a little anxious these days about being in an enclosed space for a long time. Data also shows that open air malls are doing better than enclosed malls,” the professor said.
Second, because of e-commerce, such as BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), the mall cannot survive merely as a shopping venue, Burayidi went on. So it needs to become a multi-purpose venue, “with retail being a secondary use, or at least one of the uses but not the primary use, and not the reason people go to the mall. Experience should be the draw.”
The students proposed a number of experiential uses for the mall, such as pickleball courts, entertainment center, wetlands, trails, museum, laser tag, go-kart track, skate park, eateries and wellness center, along with apartments and offices. Burayidi has suggested an amusement park or megachurch.
(The Muncie Mall already operates a wellness center of sorts, serving as home to a mall walkers group called “Heart & Sole.” After members register, they receive a walking guide and a badge entitling them to enter an hour before the mall stores open. The mall also hosts quarterly events for the walkers).
Only a handful of public officials attended the students’ gallery-style presentations: Mayor Dan Ridenour, County Commissioner Sherry Riggin, city-county plan commission Director Marta Moody, and Lorey Stinton, who is Moody’s environment and design planner.
Asked via email what he thinks about the mall’s future, Ridenour, through his director of communications, Tony Sandleben, said:
“… we have decided that we do not have specific answers to your questions as the city does not own the mall. However, Mayor Ridenour continues to support the idea of a thriving mall in Muncie. His exact words are, ‘I am hopeful that the mall can find a great long-term solution.’ “
Riggin said of the students’ presentations: “The Muncie Mall projects were very interesting, however I’m always wishing to know what the projected cost might be and who would provide the funding.”
Stinton told me, “I thought it was interesting to see the ideas for reusing the mall, part of the mall, or demolishing the mall and completely redeveloping the area.”
While the city doesn’t own the mall, its redevelopment is a challenge that should preoccupy our civic leaders, in part because it is one of the largest property taxpayers in Muncie, professor Burayidi noted.
(An analysis by the county treasurer two years ago found that the mall was in fact the top individual parcel in payment of local property taxes, ranking ahead of the utilities, Walmart, Menards, factories, apartment complexes and other shopping centers).
“Also, the redevelopment of the mall will require a public-private partnership,” Burayidi went on. “This is because what happens in the mall's neighborhood is just as important as what happens within it. The public sector can provide infrastructure improvements such as connecting the Cardinal Greenway and extending sidewalks to the mall so it is not auto-dependent. The city can also incentivize residential development closer to the mall and even as part of the mall's redevelopment.”
Jefferson Pointe Mall reportedly received $3.5 million from the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission for an internal (public) roadway, including a roundabout, through the shopping center.
On his exhibit, Brenden Resnick, another student, discussed “flipping the mall inside out to become outlet shops, with a large number of senior- and family-focused activities planned around the development.”
“The amazing thing is, McGalliard (Road) is still such a draw, because you have about every chain restaurant, every business you can think of, on it,” Resnick told me. “It’s the mall itself that’s the concern.”
He counted more than 750 businesses on McGalliard — a congested corridor of “non-stop strip malls” with “wildly inconsistent sidewalk accommodations” — extending across northern Muncie. “There are actually more employees (about 10,000) than people living in the immediate surrounding area,” he said.
Due to the traffic congestion, the students urged improved bus service along McGalliard, including an electric bus rapid transit route, also known as a busway or transitway, which can include dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal priority.
Sustainability should also be addressed during redevelopment of the mall, which in its current state “is almost depressing in a way,” said another student, Joseph Gassensmith.
“This used to be the center of the community, where everyone went,” he told me. “Now the lights are half off in the hallways. The mall gives off an outdated, 1970s vibe. It feels dead, like no one’s really caring for it.”
He contrasted the failure of Muncie Mall to the success of the newer Hamilton Town Center, Noblesville, “an open-air streetscape environment that showcases a diverse mix of retail, restaurants and entertainment venues.”
Gassensmith would like to see the mall’s additional 25-acre tract of retention ponds and open space become a wetland nature preserve — “a place you’d want to go to with paths, trees and benches, like Craddock Wetlands” — and a solar farm.
The students also call for permeable parking lots that storm water can flow through; green roofs or rooftop gardens; blue roofs that store storm water; aggressive tree planting; sidewalks and bike lanes; native grass plantings; electric vehicle charging stations; solar carports; and other green projects as the site is redeveloped into a regional showpiece once again.
“The next-generation mall should cater to different groups of people instead of just one, which is the whole reason the mall failed in the first place — because it catered to one group of people who had enough money to drive out and spend the day shopping and go home, instead of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds spending money and living here,” Gassensmith said.
Another student, Martin Spink, recalled how “it was actually the whole (urban planning) department that came here for three days in a row, eight hours a day, drawing up ideas about how we can revitalize the Muncie Mall site.”
His group cited data showing that Muncie has a poverty rate of 31% and that Delaware County is home to more than 1,000 homeless residents, some of whom are veterans.
“I focused on transitional and affordable housing that takes place right here on the mall site, and it’s BETA, which is better environments, transitional and affordable housing,” Spink told me. “The reason I think this could work is because of all these different jobs … I want to bring to the site could then serve to employ those struggling to find housing and employment.”
Professor Burayidi doesn’t foresee a quick fix to the mall, “and indeed, we may have to adopt an incremental approach to its redevelopment. What is the catalytic project that will help jump start its redevelopment? Let's start there and hopefully other chips will fall into place.”
The professor first began calling on civic leaders to back a redevelopment of the mall two years ago this month, citing its infrastructure, tax base and jobs.
One-time Muncie Mall owner Washington Prime Group (WPG), a real-estate investment trust, transferred the mall’s $33.1-million mortgage to a special servicer in 2020, when a receiver was appointed to manage and lease the facility. WPG later declared and then emerged from bankruptcy.
County officials say WPG is still paying the mall’s taxes. The mall currently is being managed by The Woodmont Co., Fort Worth, Texas, which declined to comment for this article. WPG also has owned the shopping center across the street from the mall that houses AMC Theatres, Kohl's, T.J. Maxx, Old Navy and other tenants.
I don't understand this idea being put forward by urban planners for "outdoor malls." They are not successful in cold weather locations. Young people may feel this would be great to walk or bike to these places, but try doing that with two toddlers in tow. Those people will just stay home and order off of Amazon.
Then you have older folks who either cannot or will not walk any distance due to risk of falling.
The reason downtown Indy's convention center, hotels, and amenities do so well...is because it is all connected and enclosed.
What the mall needs is activities and events to bring people to it. The eating and the shopping become beneficiaries of those events. It is the perfect "tourism" scenario. Plus...since it is enclosed, those events can go on...year round...when other venues are closed.
Any mall also needs safety...it cannot be a place where unsupervised teenagers run amuck. Security needs to be prevalent and in view.
Commercial Real Estate Brokers do not charge a fee until the Lease is signed and the Tenant makes the first rent payment. The Broker's commission comes out of that. So it makes no sense that nobody is actively working on leasing those spaces. More rent coming in would also help the owners make changes to update the Mall and do events to draw people in. Someone just needs to do it. A property manager on the ground in Muncie can make these things happen, and the increasing rent could pay their salary.