Melvin Simon & Associates opened Longview Mall on August 14, 1978, in Longview, Texas, anchored originally by Bealls, JCPenney, Dillard’s, H.J. Wilson Co. and Selber Brothers, alongside The Martin Twin Theater, a two-screen cinema seating 350 per screen. Dillard’s bought out Selber Brothers’ Longview and Broadway Square Mall locations in 1987, converting both into standalone men’s clothing stores.
The Martin Twin Theater, later operated by Carmike as the Mall Twin Cinema, closed in August 1997; Revive Church now occupies that space. Bealls relocated to the former Service Merchandise/H.J. Wilson Co. building in 2004, with the original Bealls space becoming a miniature golf course, and Dillard’s expanded its own store in 2006, absorbing the former Selber Brothers menswear unit in the process.
A 2016 renovation costing roughly $16 million added BJ’s Brewhouse and On The Border as freestanding parking-lot restaurants, converted the former Bealls space into Dick’s Sporting Goods (with Bealls itself becoming Stage), and brought H&M to its first East Texas location in February 2017, in the former Piccadilly Cafeteria unit. At roughly 638,000 sqft, the property is co-owned by Dillard’s and Trademark Property Company; Sears, bought preemptively by the mall’s owner in 2018 in case of closure, shut down in February 2019 as part of a 40-store national announcement, and Stage followed in 2020.
That preemptive Sears purchase, the mall’s own ownership buying out an anchor specifically to control its future redevelopment before the retailer even announced its closure, reflects a proactive approach to anchor-tenant risk management increasingly common among mall owners once a struggling national department-store chain’s local closure becomes a matter of “when,” not “if.”
