This super-regional mall is conveniently located at Interstate 635 in north Dallas, Texas. Owned and managed by Dallas-based Beck Ventures, Valley View Center is anchored by Sears and AMC Theatres.
Valley View Center was developed in 1973 by Homart Development Company and expanded in the 1980s. LaSalle Street Fund bought the mall in the early 1980s and oversaw continued expansion plus the addition of a fourth anchor store.
By 1990, it had begun to encounter financial difficulties. The Bloomingdale’s anchor store closed in 1990. This triggered a battle when Montgomery Ward tried to buy the space. It sat empty until J. C. Penney opened in 1996. Valley View Center’s original movie theater closed in 1991 and sat empty until 2001, when it was replaced by radio stations KBFB and KSOC. The AMC movie theater opened in the mall in 2004.
Two of the five anchor locations closed in 2008. A third closed in 2013. These spaces remain vacant. Valley View Center’s parking building has been fenced off.
The 2010s demographic shifts and declining occupancy led the current owners to plan a redevelopment of Valley View Center and the surrounding property. In 2012, the mall began a new effort to create an artist’s community. Called “The Gallery at Midtown and Artists Studios,” the three upstairs wings of Valley View Center are occupied by local artists’ studios, galleries, and other creative ventures.
The Macerich Company, a Santa Monica, California-based shopping center operator, purchased Valley View Center in 1996 for $85.5 million in cash and debt.
Since 2000, the neighborhood around the mall has become younger, poorer, and more ethnically diverse. The Valley View Center area is now 60% Hispanic.
The 235,055-square-foot Sears, Roebuck and Company store actually pre-dates Valley View Center, built in 1965. This Sears was built as a freestanding store on what was the far northern fringe of Dallas in pastureland. Eight years later, the Homart Development Company added a Sanger-Harris department store connected to Sears with a corridor of specialty retailers. Valley View Mall was born.
Anchor Stores
Sears
AMC Valley View 16
The Gallery at Midtown
Dining
Wetzel’s Pretzel
Big Easy Cajun
Charley’s Steakery
China Pantry
Subway
Oishii Tokyo
