For Wilmingtonians of a certain age, Long Leaf Mall occupies an indelible spot in our memories.
After Hanover Center on Oleander Drive, Long Leaf Mall was one of the first major shopping centers to serve the Wilmington suburbs after the white flight from downtown that began in the 1960s and continued into the 1970s.
One of the things that makes the old Long Leaf Mall so memorable, even today, was its appearance.
It looks like a typical American strip mall now, but from 1973, when it first opened, into at least the mid-to-late 1980s, Long Leaf Mall featured towering arches at its entrance on South College Road, with the shopping center’s name spelled out in an attractive cursive script.
Inside was just as distinct, with a fountain/wishing well filled with piles of change and an open-air layout that led to some three dozen shops and restaurants.
There was the Little Professor bookstore, the Pickle Barrell restaurant and deli, Larry’s old-school barber shop and the Smoker’s Emporium, later Davis & Son tobacconists. We got family photos taken at Olan Mills.
My first memories of Long Leaf Mall date to the late 1970s, when I’d go to Balentine’s Cafeteria with my grandparents, who lived in the Tanglewood neighborhood nearby. Patrons would line up down a narrow hallway while able to hear the clatter and conversation from diners on the other side of the panels. When they got to the front, they’d choose items for their plastic trays, mostly Southern staples like fried chicken or Salisbury steak. (The closest thing in Wilmington in terms of vibe was probably the recently closed K&W Cafeteria in Hanover Center.)
The shopping center’s larger tenants around the corner facing the parking lot, as well as the building across the parking lot, were and are considered Long Leaf Mall as well. Winn-Dixie supermarket was there, as was Eckerd’s, which had a pharmacy and a grill where you could get a cheap breakfast or lunch.
The Long Leaf Mall two-plex movie theater (I saw “Pretty in Pink” there in 1986, twice) was where the Medac is today, and there was a pizza parlor called That’s Amore near where the C-Street Mexican restaurant is now.
According to past StarNews reporting, Lat Purser & Associates Inc. of Charlotte began developing Long Leaf Mall in 1972. Early tenants included May’s Shoe Store as well as the Woolco Department Store, which operated as Woolworth’s downtown from 1915 to 1978, when it moved to Long Leaf Mall.
By the mid 1980s the shopping center was already beginning to show its age. New owners Wilmington Mall Realty Corp. did renovations that included removing the large, entranceway arches and renaming the facility Long Leaf Plaza, a name that didn’t stick. Winn-Dixie closed in 1986, to be replaced by Harris-Teeter in 1990.
In the late 1980s, several tenants went on a “rent strike” to protest what they saw as the disrepair of Long Leaf Mall, which by then was competing with a growing number of shopping centers across town.
In 1994, John McNamara, owner of McNamara Jewelers, sued Wilmington Mall Realty Corp., claiming that new tenants including a bingo parlor and an aerobics studio provided an environment detrimental to retail business, forcing him to close. McNamara won the suit and was awarded $110,000.
Zimmer Development Co., which co-developed Mayfaire and is owned by the same family that owns Reeds Jewelers, bought Long Leaf Mall in 1999. The old, open-air part of Long Leaf Mall was torn down in 2000, later replaced with the street-facing businesses we know today.
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