Dadeland Mall is a large enclosed shopping mall located in Kendall, Florida, in the Dadeland district. The mall, originally developed by the Joseph Meyerhoff Company of Baltimore, opened October 1, 1962 as a, open-air complex of 60 stores and services. Dadeland Mall is located between South Dixie Highway and the Palmetto Expressway at its southern terminus where it meets US-1. It is also served by the Dadeland NorthMetrorail station, which has a pedestrian walkway connecting to the mall. The Dadeland South station is located just south of the mall.
History
Originally an open-air center, the mall was anchored by Burdine's, and also boasted a Food Fair grocery, full-service Gray Drug and the Summit Restaurant, Lounge and Cafeteria. A Jordan Marshanchor store was added to the west end, which opened in November 1966. A massive construction project, initiated in late 1969, doubled the size of the mall by twinning it, and adding a wing of fully enclosed retail onto the east end. Moreover, the existing courts and concourses were fully enclosed and air-conditioned. Another feature of this expansion was the King of the Mall, an enormous Burger King. This renovation project was completed with the opening of JCPenney, the mall's new east anchor store, in early 1971. The mall attained notoriety as the site of a 1979 drug-related shooting spree during Miami's "Cocaine Cowboys" era. In broad daylight, two gunmen exited a paneled truck, entered a liquor store and gunned down two men, wounding the store clerk. The dead men were eventually identified as a Colombia-based cocaine trafficker and his bodyguard. On December 3, 1981 a 13 month old boy was found behind the mall, after having gone missing four days earlier, around three miles away. His parents, Alfonso Jesus Arrubla, a former M-19 guerrilla turned drug dealer and his wife María Eugenia Delgado were killed along with four others at their Southwest Dade townhouse. A third expansion, undertaken in early 1983, added Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor to the south-facing front of the complex. A food court had also opened, in the shuttered Pantry Pride supermarket, in 1982. A subsequent renovation, completed in September 1987, saw the interior of the mall updated, with its early 1960s animal statues being removed. The modern smooth colored concrete animals and geometric slides were donated to Miami-Dade County and can be seen in Dante Fascell Park in South Miami and at the Miami-Dade County children's day care center play yard to the east of Jackson Memorial Hospital. Lord & Taylor closed their location in 2004 citing market conditions. It became Nordstrom the same year. One of the unique trademarks of the shopping complex is the concrete tower with a giant "D" at the top. This local landmark was there from the beginning. The photo at the right shows it in its original aqua color. Through the 1980s and some of the '90s the tower was painted white but is now aqua again. Another expansion was added in 1991, an 80,000 square foot building occupied by six Limited Brands concepts including three-level flagship The Limited and Express stores.
Dadeland Mall today
Today, Dadeland is managed by the Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, who purchased 50% of the center in 1997. Morgan Stanley owns the other 50%. The anchors include Florida's largest Macy's, as well as Macy's Home Gallery & Kids, JCPenney, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Former tenants of the west end anchor space, currently occupied by the Macy's Home Gallery & Kids, were Jordan Marsh and Burdines Home Store, which was eventually to be taken over by Mervyns with Dillard's as another bidder, but these stores didn't take over the space. Former tenants of the southeast end anchor space were Lord & Taylor and Nordstrom and is now vacant. Dadeland Mall's largest restaurants are Villagio and The Cheesecake Factory. The outer part of the mall, particularly the original main entrance, was featured in the 1985 Chuck Norris film Invasion U.S.A. The inside and outside of the mall was featured in the 1990 Alec Baldwin film Miami Blues. The mall has been remodeled since both of those films however. In the late 1990s, talks were underway about adding a second floor to the entire mall. This project will once again double the malls space plus add second floor access to the anchor stores all of which already have second floors. In 2011, The Limited/Express wing closed down. The following year, the wing was demolished to accommodate a new two-story mall expansion that opened April 2013 with various restaurants on the second level and multiple new shops on the first level, including a dining terrace on the second level's exterior facing Southwest 88th Street. On the first floor, there is a corridor dubbed the "Fashion Runway." On May 11, 2020 Nordstrom announced that they would be permanently closing its store by August 2020.
