Northland Center opened in 1954 and was one of the nation’s first shopping malls. It was located on a 160 acre site at the intersection of Greenfield Road and Northwestern Highway, in the Detroit suburb of Southfield.

It was originally home to a four story Hudson’s Department store. The J. L. Hudson Company, which was the second largest department store company behind Macy’s, was convinced in 1948 by architect Victor Gruen, to expand beyond its main location in Detroit in order to take advantage of suburban customers. Eventually the company established three malls, Northland being the largest.

The two million square foot mall was one of the first post-war development projects and opened to great fanfare, thanks to the help of other local companies that would be part of the center.  The Wall Street Journal, Time, Look, Life, Ladies Home Journal, and Newsweek all ran stories about the Northland Center and its place in the future of suburban shopping.

Northland Center featured a bank, auditoriums, post office, infirmary, and free gas for shoppers who ran out, well kept open spaces, fountains and sculptures, and a pleasant shopping environment. In 1974, the mall was enclosed, and in 1991 a food court was added.

Over its 61 years in operation, anchor stores in the mall included Dayton-Hudson (now Target), Marshall Field’s, Macy’s, J. C. Penny, T. J. Maxx, Montgomery Ward’s, and Kohl’s, in addition to hundreds of smaller shops.

However, as rival malls began competing for shopper’s business, and the demographics and tastes of consumers changed, Northland Center’s sales declined. Their anchor stores left, merged, or were bought out, and by the 1990s, the future was looking a bit uncertain for the mall.

By the 2000s, the remaining stores were discount chains like Target and National Wholesalers Liquidators, and by 2008 the mall was sold to Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation, which defaulted on a $31 million payment, forfeiting the mall to receiver Spinoso Real Estate Group. In 2015, all the anchor stores had left, the mall began preparing for closure.

In October 2015, the City of Southfield bought the site for $2.5 million with plans to demolish the entire site, with the exception of a maintenance garage, underground tunnels, a water tower, and the former Macy’s store.  Demolition began in 2017, paused for asbestos abatement, and will resume in 2018.

The City of Southfield has submitted a proposal to online retailer Amazon to use the site as a second headquarters building as the company looks to expand from its Seattle, WA location. It is not expected that the Wendy’s restaurant and CSL Plasma donation center that are still operating on the property will create significant resistance to the city’s plan.