Dort Mall

Dort Mall (formerly Small Mall and Mid-America Plaza) is a shopping mall located in Flint, Michigan. It was built in two stages in 1964 and 1965, three years before Courtland Center and five years before Genesee Valley Center, making it the oldest mall in Genesee County. It is owned by the Perani family, who also owns Perani's Hockey World, which along with Bargain Hunterz and City Market, is one of the mall's anchor tenants.

Dort Mall
Night Hawks sign at Dort Mall
LocationFlint, Michigan, United States
Coordinates42.9908°N 83.6559°W / 42.9908; -83.6559
Address3600 South Dort Highway
Opening date1965
DeveloperWilliam Oleksyn
OwnerRobert Perani Jr. and family
No. of anchor tenants3
No. of floors1
Public transit accessBus interchange MTA

History

Dort Mall was built by local developer William Oleksyn in 1964. It was built on the site of a former drive-in theater and was the first enclosed shopping mall in the Flint area. Its original anchor stores were Yankee Stadium and A&P.[1]

A General Cinema movie theater was added in 1968, was divided into two screens in 1975, and closed in 1983. Also in the 1970s, a discotheque was located in the mall's basement. Despite this addition, the mall had a number of vacancies, especially after Yankee Stadium was sold to Zody's and later closed. The mall was renamed Small Mall and Mid-America Plaza in the 1980s, a time at which point Sears Outlet and a comedy club were added. By 1993, the former A&P space had become Big Lots.[1]

The Dort Mall, with 239,000 square feet of interior space on 30 acres,[2] is well known for its antique collection, mostly about automobiles and Mid-Michigan. Some of the antiques are housed inside vacant store locations. Many of the antiques were owned by mall owner Bob Perani.[3] After Big Lots moved out in 2014, their space became a flea market.

References
  1. Gary Flinn (2010). Remembering Flint, Michigan: Stories from the Vehicle City. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781614236467.
  2. Dort Mall at showcase.com
  3. "Bob Perani's unique antique collection in Flint's Dort Mall set for auction in July". June 24, 2009.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.