Summit Place Mall

Summit Place Mall is another sad story of dead retail.

1963-1988: Pontiac Mall

With the 1960s suburban craze in full swing, Pontiac, Michigan, a city on the outskirts of Detroit that had the great honor of a car brand named after it, received its very own shopping mall in 1963. It was a small enclosed mall called "Pontiac Mall", fittingly enough. With just a little under 400,000 square feet, and three anchor stores: a Montgomery Ward, a Hudson's Budget Store, and S.S. Kresge, it seemed like just a neighborhood mall. It was. It featured skylights throughout the entire mall, and in its center, a fountain with a large brass sun hanging over it.

Overview of the mall at this time.

By the end of the 1960s, Hudson's Budget Store expanded to a full-line Hudson's (two levels) while Montgomery Ward (two levels) expanded also. This is the general layout the mall would keep for the next two decades, even while a two-level Sears was built north of the mall.

1988-1996: The Golden Days

Between 1988 and 1991, the mall would go through several expansions to make it one of the Detroit Metro Area's premier mall. Pontiac's first and only remodel added JCPenney in a small wing to the west, while another expansion added a long wing that stretched around Montgomery Ward to Sears, adding a MainStreet (soon Kohl's), a food court (between Kohl's and Montgomery Ward) and Service Merchandise (next to Hudson's). By this time, the mall was no longer "north of Pontiac", it was now in the city of Waterford. S.S. Kresge was now gone and briefly replaced with a "Woolworth's Express", but it was soon sub-divided into smaller stores.

Two strip malls were developed, bringing many new stores like OfficeMax, Target, Sports Authority, Best Buy, and Builders Square to the mall. But there were already cracks in the foundation. A few stores were never leased out, and Summit Place's worse nightmares were approaching...

1996-2001: Triple Whammy

In 1996, the very upscale Somerset Collection in Troy, Michigan, opened a new wing, nearly tripling its size and dwarfing Summit Place Mall. Crowds at Summit Place started to thin as Oakland County shoppers flocked to Somerset Collection and its Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and Hudson's. But the majority of the shoppers of Summit Place couldn't afford the tony merchandise at Somerset Collection anyway, so it was safe.

Or not. Two years later, a huge outlet mall called Great Lakes Crossing opened five miles away. Being as large as Somerset Collection, but much closer and much more toward the budget of Summit Place Mall's shoppers, it set out to kill. To be fair, Great Lakes Crossing was a novelty. Based after the Mills malls of the time (and the failed "Auburn Mills" that was to be developed), Great Lakes Crossing featured one-of-a-kind to Michigan stores like Bass Pro Shops, GameWorks, Neiman Marcus Last Call, and Rainforest Cafe.

Shoppers left and occupancy plummeted. 1999 brought the closure of Service Merchandise. Then, in early 2001, Montgomery Ward closed. The mall was sold.

2002-2008: Hope

Despite an occupancy of around 75%, the mall was slumping. Enter Namco Financial. Namco planned a massive renovation for the mall. No longer would be Summit Place Mall, it would be Festivals of Waterford. As the plan would go, four "Festivals" would be created at the mall: a retail area, an entertainment center, a kid's play area, and a waterpark. The first of these, a large kid's play area, was erected at a cost of $500,000. The flagship of the redevelopment, a 70,000 square foot indoor waterpark was $20 million. The deal with the waterpark was that the city must pay for it, but also it would be returned to the city park service. The city was impressed with the plans, but when it came time to paying for the waterpark, the city balked, citing it would take years to pay off the debt. Furthermore, there was skepticism that the "Festivals" would not bring much retail traffic to the mall.

So in the end it turned out to be nothing but talk. The mall continued to go downhill, and further plans, such as a redevlopment that would tear down part of the mall and build condominiums vaporized. By summer 2006, things were looking bad. The mall had a rag-tag group of about fifty stores and services. Many of them were second-class tenants ("Fashion Quest" and "A&B Clothing") and there were two live-performance groups (including Starlight Theatre). Still, there were normal stores (Pacific Sunwear, Victoria's Secret, New York & Company, Bath & Body Works) but they were few and far between. The food court had one tenant. No attempt to spruce up the mall was made, save for a creepy display of stuffed animals near Wards west entrance. No website was operating for the mall, despite its healthy supply of department stores. Marshall Field's (which bought Hudson's in 2001), JCPenney, Sears, and Kohl's continued to operate. Hope remained for the mall. By 2007 Marshall Field's was now Macy's but the kid's play had shut down. Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret were gone too. The kid's play area was replaced with a skatepark (and not a very good one at that). A year later, it was even worse. The common areas had no air conditioning but the biggest news was a possible minor-league baseball stadium being built north of the mall. It too, fizzled.

2009: The End

In the end, terrible management brought the mall down. The mall management kept increasing rent for the remaining stores. Pacific Sunwear and Kohl's were gone by spring. By April, there were less than two dozen stores and services. The food court was completely empty. In June, most of the interior stores were moved off the side for a major tenant between JCPenney and Sears. The theater groups left at about this time. Preprations were made for the remaining stores (like DEB Shop) to have exterior entrances. By mid-September the mall was closed for good, with only Macy's, Sears, and JCPenney remaining. Goodbye, Summit Place, and godspeed.