Arborland Center

Arborland Center is a shopping center located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Opened in 1961 as an unenclosed shopping mall, the center was redeveloped as a power center in 1998. Current anchor stores include Marshalls, Petco, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Toys "R" Us.HistoryArborland was Ann Arbor's first suburban mall, opened in the early 1960s. The original Arborland featured JCPenney, Kresge, Kroger, and Montgomery Ward among its anchor stores. In 1973, the larger Briarwood Mall opened, and JCPenney moved to a newer store there. Competition from Briarwood caused Arborland to lose tenants throughout the end of the 1970s. E.N. Maisel & Associates purchased the mall in 1980 and enclosed its formerly open-air concourses, while replacing the vacated JCPenney store with Crowley's. Despite these additions, the mall continued to lose tenants, including Montgomery Ward, Sibley's Shoes, and Pearle Vision in early 1983.Melvin Simon & Associates (now Simon Property Group) began renovations on converting the mall to discount and outlet stores in 1983, which necessitated closing of the Crowley's store as it was incompatible with the discount format. At the time of Simon's purchase, the center had only 13 tenants. Simon attracted over 45 new stores, including new anchor stores Burlington Coat Factory, Service Merchandise, F&M, Toys "R" Us, and Marshalls, along with a food court.