Muncie Mall

Melvin Simon & Associates developed Muncie Mall, opening in 1970 along McGalliard Road in Muncie, Indiana, as one of the first enclosed regional shopping centers in east-central Indiana. Original anchors were Britt’s, W.T. Grant, Sears and Ball Stores, positioning the property as one of Muncie’s primary retail and social destinations through the 1970s and 1980s.

Britt’s converted to L.S. Ayres, and JCPenney replaced W.T. Grant, among several further anchor and tenant changes through the 1980s and 1990s alongside multiple interior renovations aimed at modernizing the aging facility. Beginning in the early 2000s, the property faced declining tenancy and reduced traffic as power centers, big-box retailers and online shopping drew business away.

At roughly 636,000 sqft, the property now carries just one operating anchor against three vacant spaces, including a former Carson’s location that itself occupies two floors. Hull Property Group, a Georgia-based firm that specializes in acquiring secondary and tertiary-market malls, currently owns and manages the property, pursuing an adaptive-reuse strategy for the vacant anchor space rather than a traditional retail re-tenanting: portions of the property have already shifted to non-retail uses, including medical and municipal services. Foot Locker carries sportswear among the property’s remaining specialty tenants; Target and Best Buy operate nearby on separate outparcels adjacent to the enclosed mall rather than within it.

That one-anchor-remaining status, down from four original department stores across more than five decades, reflects a trajectory common among Hull Property Group’s broader portfolio strategy: rather than attempting to recruit replacement national department-store anchors for acquired, anchor-depleted regional malls, the firm has increasingly pursued adaptive reuse of vacant anchor space for medical, municipal and other non-retail functions.