Cookeville Mall, Cookeville, TN

 A relic of retail

(Source)

Home of Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville is a college town of around 35,000 located in the Highland Rim close to the Cumberland Plateau.  I’ve only ever been there once or twice while speeding through on I-40 between Nashville and Knoxville.  The only thing memorable about the town was that there was an actual shopping mall just off of that interstate.

1- Christmastime at Cookeville Mall in the late seventies.  2- JCPenney’s mall entrance.  (Source for both)

It was nothing more than a low slung strip of a building masquerading as a strip mall, but the skylights over the center of the building gave it away.  There was a JCPenney on one end and Peebles on the other.  However, it was soon out of our sight as we sped by at a good 75 miles an hour.

Cookeville Mall lease plan ca. 2010.  View the full PDF here.

Cookeville Mall opened in 1977 as the only enclosed shopping center between the villes of Nash and Knox.  JCPenney and Nashville based Harvey’s served as the dual anchors located at each end.  It almost immediately shifted the town’s retail center from downtown to its southern fringes.

1- A mall store just after the mall’s opening in 1977.  2- The same store as a community room in 2021.  (Source for both)

By the new millennium, however, Cookeville Mall felt the pinch of newer outdoor competition as well as shifting consumer habits.  Today the facility still hosts JCPenney and several other big box stores while the enclosed section features some national names mixed in with local mom and pops as well as community spaces.

(Source)

Cookeville Mall Revisited

Shadybrook Mall, Columbia, TN

 A dead mall

In the nineties, the small city of Columbia, Tennessee was absolutely booming.  Located in between Nashville and Huntsville just off of I-65, the community of Spring Hill just to the north was awarded one of the first large scale automobile manufacturing plants in the south, the Saturn plant.

Goody’s.  (Source for both)

My uncle was employed there as an engineer upon its opening, so we made the short trek from Huntsville quite a few times to their cozy little subdivision just to the northern outskirts of the rapidly expanding town.  On one of my early visits to their abode, I got to visit for the first time a retail destination with which I would become very familiar, Shadybrook Mall.

Shadybrook Mall Mallmanac ca. 2002.  View the full PDF here.

I was rather impressed with Shadybrook upon my first visit.  Most small town enclosed shopping malls are of the garden variety dumbbell layout, a straight line main corridor with a single anchor at each end.  But Shadybrook was a full cross shape in the tradition of places like Hickory Hollow Mall, albeit as though someone had put it in the dryer.

1- The mall entrance next to Sears.  (Source)  2- JCPenney exterior.  (Source)  3- The former JCPenney comes down.  (Source)  4- Demolition work at Columbia Mall.  (Source)

The interior was very neutral, also in the tradition of small town enclosed centers.  There was a Sears and JCPenney anchoring each end of the main corridor while Goody’s home was at the far end of the cross concourse.  In the middle was a small center court boasting a diminutive water feature.

Shadybrook Mall Mallmanac ca. 2010.  View the full PDF here.

I really loved visiting the tiny complex on James Campbell Boulevard and would even stop by occasionally on trips from Huntsville to Nashville even after my uncle had departed for greener and less cult-y pastures in South Carolina.  It was small, simple and inviting.

1- The Peebles mall entrance.  2- The Sears entryway to the mall.  3- Christmas time at Shadybrook Mall.  4- Columbia Mall in its later, more vacant days.  (Source for all)

Shadybrook Mall opened its doors in 1981 as a nearly 300,000 square foot enclosed retail facility hosting three anchors.  The arrival of the Saturn plant brought more national names to the mall, but after a while it was feeling the effects of CoolSprings Galleria’s presence in nearby Franklin with more pain coming from the eventual discontinuation of the Saturn line.

Shadybrook Mall proposal ca. 2023.  View the full PDF here.

By the late 2010s, nearly all tenants had departed besides JCPenney, several military recruitment offices, a few stores and an outpatient center.  Shadybrook Mall, which had been redubbed the bland moniker Columbia Mall a few years previously, was dead.

(Source)

Columbia Mall was demalled in the early 2020s while the Maury Regional Medical Center moved their oncology department into some of the existing square footage. And while Columbia, being in the shadow of booming Nashville, is experiencing accelerated growth of their own, it’s unfortunate that Shadybrook Mall won’t be a part of it.

(Source)

Columbia Mall on Wikipedia

The Crossroads Mall, Albertville, AL

A relic of retail

It seemed that during the height of the mall building boom of the seventies and the eighties, every little speck of a population center was endowed with the gift of its own enclosed retail facility. This factor would explain the existence of gems like Southgate Mall in Muscle Shoals, Alabama as well as the Lewis County Mall in Chehalis, Washington. Hell, even miniscule Corinth, Mississippi got its Harper Square. But when a rural community of only about 15,000 residents situated on the summit of the Sand Mountain plateau an hour's drive away from Huntsville gets its own indoor complex, it becomes glaringly obvious that one day the bubble will burst and the boom will implode into a bust. And bust is exactly what the market ended up doing.

1- The strip of exterior facing shops. 2- Under the entryway portico.

We had passed the rather insignificant strip style shopping center in the unassuming town of Albertville countless times on our way from Huntsville to Atlanta. I had always taken note of the over-sized and azure roofed portico fronting the facility, on the face of which the words The Crossroads were prominently displayed in ample red letters. I had always suspected and hoped that there was a small enclosure hidden behind this feature. So, on one particular afternoon, instead of flying by with our eyes and minds fixed on the big city, I finally took that left turn off of US 431 and entered the largely barren car park of the commercial complex. My partner at the time was always great about going along with me on these little diversions. I think my interest of old shopping malls one was of those peculiarities that appealed to him. Sure as hell couldn't have been my personality.

The layout of the Crossroads Mall as of this writing.

The enclosed portion of the Crossroads Mall is quite diminutive, but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in sheer cleanliness. There wasn't a single spot within the entire enclosure that showed evidence of not being strictly maintained. Even the restrooms were some of the most immaculate public facilities that I've ever seen. The common area was illuminated brightly under the heavy glow of numerous fluorescent fixtures while the burnt sienna tile floors, in a style reminiscent of the bygone disco decade, lay pristine and brilliantly reflected the abundant lighting within the building's wide hallways. The entire foundation glimmered under our feet in its excessively shiny state. The humble center court at the intersection of the two perpendicular corridors was highlighted by a violet tile encased structure accommodating a single tree. It sprouted healthy green leaves as it basked in the sunlight penetrating the glass of the mall's only skylight. There was a small number of patrons sharing the corridor with us, but not a whole lot else was going on.

1- A tree grows near the Sears entryway just beyond center court. 2- The sealed Peebles access point. 3- Center court in a blur. 4- The lone skylight high above the glittery floors.

Sears, one of Crossroad Mall's two main anchors, operated a modest outlet, focusing mainly on outdoor supplies, appliances and hardware. In fact, the Chicago based retailer continues to maintain a direct entryway to the enclosed portion of the shopping center. The other anchor, Peebles department store, had long ago sealed their access to the structure's east wing. Though not completely deserted, this area is the darkest and least utilized portion of the mall.

1- The Crossroads Mall directory.  2- A shot looking down the corridor toward the flanking end of the Crossroads. 

At the very rear of the main corridor was where the two of us made our most significant discovery- the long forgotten third anchor, the double screen Mall Garden Theaters. Through the sealed doors which once allowed patrons through to view first run showings of classic motion pictures like Star Wars and Airplane, we could see that all of the requisite equipment needed to operate a cineplex was still laid about as if prepared for the upcoming matinee. Just the sight of this was fairly surreal, and it was undoubtedly the most serendipitous anomaly that the Crossroads Mall offered.

The Crossroads Mall pamphlet ca. 2011.  View the full PDF version here.

But an elderly southern lady who we happened upon, after inquiring about our purpose for chronicling the place, informed us that the theater was, in fact, no longer in operation. It had been closed for quite a while, she told us in her thick Southern-Appalachian drawl, though she couldn't remember exactly how long it had been since those seats were filled with backsides. After we exchanged good-byes and dispatched with the pleasantries, my partner and I took a closer look through the frosting glass and we were able to visually confirm that the business was undeniably abandoned.

1- Looking back towards the rear of the mall and the former theaters.  2- The doors leading from the enclosed portion of the mall to the theaters. 3- The main exterior access point to the cineplex. 4- The deteriorating condition of the facility is quite apparent.

A quick visit to the backside of the mall only confirmed what we had been told and had seen with our own eyes. There, we discovered the white cinder block walls that once hosted hours of entertainment for the Sand Mountain populace. The green trim under the cineplex's exterior access, though rusted and in disrepair, was classic seventies styling. The word MALL in all capital letters that glowed a radiating amber when the complex was at its zenith, was like the cherry topping on the proverbial cake, even in its forgotten and neglected state. The decayed markings on the auditorium formerly designated Theater One helpfully pointed out "Additional Parking" that hasn't been necessary for years.

-UPDATE- The Crossroads Mall pamphlet ca. 2021.  View the full PDF version here.

During our earlier conversation with the talkative yet cordial southern lady, I asked her if she had any idea how long the Crossroads Mall had been open for business. She hazarded a guess, after some careful thought, that it was constructed sometime during the early seventies. At that point, I attempted to explain in more detail my motivation for taking photographs of the aging facility. I want to document this place, and others like it, before they're gone, I said. She seemed just shy of offended by my statement. This place will never be gone, she said with a crack in her aged accent before acknowledging my partner and me one last time with a genteel smile and a God bless before going about her business. I sighed, hoping she was correct. But I had seen this tale play out before. Time and the booming development between Albertville and the county seat of Guntersville, not nostalgia, will be the factor that decides the Crossroads Mall's future viability.

The Crossroads Mall official website