IIPC converted the single-level, courtyard style mall into a three-story, fully-enclosed facility, making it more enticing for shoppers on hot days like those we’re experiencing this summer. The first stage of renovation began in August 1989. But one original tenant, the S&W Cafeteria, closed rather than trying to ride out the hiatus needed during renovation. and set out to give the Landmark a facelift. The company had experience renovating aging malls throughout the eastern U.S. Less than two years later, the Australian investment company International Investment Property Company bought the shopping center. The fire’s cause came as an unwelcome and somewhat bizarre surprise: it was a chemical reaction to a floor-sealing compound. In March 1982, an electrical fire caused $150,000 in smoke damage to a dozen shops, but no one was injured. For its first Christmas season in business, the open-air mall advertised Santa arriving by helicopter.īut the accolades didn’t last forever. Nearby apartment and condominium buildings such as Edsall Gardens and Landmark Terrace used their proximity to the shopping center as a selling point almost immediately. Representatives of Sears and Hecht’s estimated that the grand opening brought up to 15,000 cars to the center. Its 151,000 square feet of retail space opened to the public along with the 30 other stores that comprised the complex that October. The mall’s third anchor store was Woodward & Lothrop, a company that had been a retail force in the metro area since the 1880s. Hecht’s was smaller, “just” 163,000 square feet, but like its competitor Sears, it included an auto service center. The Landmark Sears store, encompassing 236,000 square feet, was the first new Sears to open in the Washington metro area in almost ten years. Landmark Shopping Center formally opened on October 11, 1965, but two anchor stores, Sears and Hecht’s, had already opened for business that August. This is the story of how Landmark Center went from overflowing that parking lot to its current state. The Landmark Center’s parking lot boasted 4,000 spaces, easily making it the largest in the city. Where shops had once been spread out over Alexandria’s uneven growth, major department stores such as Woodward & Lothrop, Hecht’s, and Sears now were available to shoppers, surrounded by the same parking lot.Īnd that parking lot was noteworthy.
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Support Good News Journalism, Subscribe >Īlexandria, VA – In 1965, when it first opened its doors on the corner of Duke and Van Dorn Streets, Landmark Shopping Center instantly established itself as the epicenter of retail industry in Alexandria.