When Belk met Ivey's

Belk, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Exterior façade on Tryon Street (looking north) with Overstreet Mall connection to Ivey's, screenshot from video taken in 1986. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Belk, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Exterior façade on Tryon Street (looking south) with Overstreet Mall connection to Ivey's, 1985. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Previously on LiveMalls
Belk’s Tryon Street Façade through the years

Belk, Charlotte, North Carlina. Print advertisement 1986. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Find more Belk memories like this in The Belk Archive

Come feel the excitement at Belk SouthPark

Belk, SouthPark mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. View of escalator well, 1989. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Belk, SouthPark mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Print advertisement for Design Studio in Furniture department, 1986. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Previously on LiveMalls
Belk, SouthPark

J. B. Ivey & Company (later Dillard's), Eastland Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Ivey's chairman George M. Ivey, Jr. poses in front of the soon to be completed Ivey's Eastland store, 1975. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Previously on LiveMalls
Ivey's (Dillard's), Eastland Mall
The Ivey's Archive

Lenox Square, Atlanta, Georgia. Exterior view, December 31, 2007. (photo courtesy cantnot of Grocerying)

Macy's, Lenox Square, Atlanta, Georgia. Exterior view (with The Great Tree), December 31, 2007. (photo courtesy cantnot of Grocerying)

Bloomingdale's, Lenox Square, Atlanta, Georgia. Exterior view, December 31, 2007. (photo courtesy cantnot of Grocerying)

Neiman Marcus, Lenox Square, Atlanta, Georgia. Exterior view, December 31, 2007. (photo courtesy cantnot of Grocerying)

Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina

Updated (5/6/08) with vintage aerial view

Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Cover of mailing from early days of the mall. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Aerial view of shopping center, 1966. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Interior mall view, date unknown. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Interior mall view, date unknown. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Cotswold Mall wasn't Charlotte's first enclosed mall (that distinction goes to Charlottetown Mall), but it was the first that was truly in the suburbs. Anchored by Harris Teeter, Ivey's, Roses, and The Collins Company, Cotswold Mall opened in the 1960s and featured both interior and exterior entrances for its stores.

Various remodeling schemes and anchor changes would change Cotswold Mall from an enclosed mall to exclusively a open-air center with a neighborhood focus, but it still stands, fully occupied, at the corner of Randolph Road and Sharon Amity Road, not far from SouthPark.

Before & After | Thalhimers / Hecht's; SouthPark, Chalortte, North Carolina

Updated with "real" Hecht's picture and additional text. (4/17/08)

Thalhimers (later Hecht's and Macy's), SouthPark mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Mall entrance, 1991. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Hecht's (former Thalhimers, later Macy's), SouthPark mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Mall entrance with "photoshopped" Hecht's signage, 1992. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Hecht's (former Thalhimers, later Macy's), SouthPark mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Mall entrance, 1994. (scanned from SouthPark directory)

Two of these photos were taken approximately three years apart, and one of them is a placeholder created by SouthPark mall in the interim as a placeholder. Can you spot the fake? Several LiveMalls posters have.

In 1990, Thalhimers, the Richmond, Virginia-based unit of Carter Hawley Hale Stores, was purchased by the May Department Stores Company which operated the chain (which included the above location at SouthPark, opened in 1988) as a separate division until 1992, when it was folded into May's Hecht's division, which was based in Washington, D.C.

Previously on LiveMalls
Macy's (Thalhimers/Hecht's), SouthPark

The Collins Company; Charlotte, North Carolina

The Collins Company; Cotswold Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Exterior view, circa 1966. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

The Collins Company; Charlotte, North Carolina. Newspaper advertisement, circa 1976. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

The Collins Company; Charlotte, North Carolina. Newspaper advertisement, circa 1972. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

The Collins Company was a regional chain of specialty department stores.

Miller & Rhoads; Eastland Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina

Miller & Rhoads, Eastland Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Apparel advertisement, circa 1978. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Miller & Rhoads, Eastland Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Cosmetics advertisement, circa 1981. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Miller & Rhoads, Eastland Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina. Sale advertisement, circa 1981. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

In the mid-1970s, Richmond, Virginia based department store chain Miller & Rhoads opened a number of specialty department stores in new malls throughout Virginia and North Carolina, including this two-level location at Eastland Mall in Charlotte.

Although modestly successful, Miller & Rhoads specialty stores began closing shortly after the chain's parent company, Garfinkel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, was acquired by Allied Stores in 1982. By 1986, Allied had exited the North Carolina market except for Raleigh, whose Miller & Rhoads store closed in 1990 when the chain went out of business.

Efird's, Charlotte, North Caroilina

Efird's, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Exterior façade on Tryon Street with wall sign, circa 1955 (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Beginning operations as the “Racket Store” and soon thereafter as the “Bee Hive” on the corner of East Trade Street and North College Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, the store would become Efird’s Department Store was bought by Anson County native Hugh Efird and two of his brothers, Joseph and Edmund, in 1907.

Joseph Efird took charge of the Charlotte store after Hugh died in 1909 and oversaw the creation of a chain of stores that eventually included over 50 retail establishments across the Carolinas and Virginia, all directed from Charlotte.

In 1922, plans were announced for constructing a brand new half million dollar Efird’s Department Store on the 100 block of North Tryon Street. The new flagship Efird’s store was designed by locally renowned architect Louis Asbury and was a state of the art store: five stories high with over 100,000 square feet of floor space including a bargain basement a top floor dining room and, uniquely of its time, escalators.

Efird’s sold out to Belk in the mid 1950s, and its North Tryon Street store became part of the adjacent Belk complex. The store building was razed in the early 1990s, and the Bank of America Corporate Center sits on its site.

Efird's, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Exterior façade on Tryon Street with wall sign,date unknown. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Efird's, Charlotte, North Carolina. Print advertisement, March 1951. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Efird's, Charlotte, North Carolina. Print advertisement, March 1951. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Efird's, Charlotte, North Carolina. Print advertisement, March 1951. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

References:
Historic Retail Buildings In Center City Charlotte
Christina A. Wright, “Survey and Research Report on the Withers Efird House,” June 30, 2000.

More from SouthPark | The Early Years

SouthPark, Charlotte, North Carolina. Original rendering of mall by architect Jean Surratt, 1964. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

SouthPark, Charlotte, North Carolina. 1968 rendering of mall. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

SouthPark, Charlotte, North Carolina. 1968 rendering of Fountain Court. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

SouthPark, Charlotte, North Carolina. 1968 rendering of J.B. Ivey & Company mall entrance. (courtesy Pat Richardson)

Previously on LiveMalls
SouthPark, The Early Years
SouthPark 1975
The Evolution of the Fountain Court at SouthPark