I came across an interesting website in the last couple days called Salisbury Mall Archive. It’s actually been around since October and is apparently one of those labors of love from a onetime resident who now lives in Wilmington.
Being in the profession that I am, old buildings hold a fascination to me. It’s interesting to think about a time when the now-decrepit mall was the hot new thing in Salisbury. Makes you wonder if that instantly became the teen hangout back then or if hanging out at the mall was something my generation began to do in the late ’70’s.
Anyway, this blog has a lot of interesting old and new photos of the site and I enjoyed working my way through it. What would really be cool to me though would be to get the set of blueprints the mall and its addition were built from.
But the SMA website got me to thinking about how things become obsolete so quickly. In essence, the Salisbury Mall had a two-decade lifespan from the time it was built to the day the Centre of Salisbury opened. Looking at it as an outsider who didn’t grow up with the mall, I would honestly have to wonder why it was placed in the location it was. To me, a better location would have been in the area that’s now bisected by the Northeast Collector. If the information I’ve gathered is correct, I believe the Ocean Gateway was built just prior to the Salisbury Mall. Instead of getting a large parcel of land along the busy highway, the old mall was placed on what amounts to a side street. Of course, the Ocean Gateway was later supplanted by the U.S. 13/50 bypass that originally terminated where the Centre of Salisbury stands now before the highway was extended to pick up U.S. 50.
The other misfortune befalling the old Salisbury Mall was having a series of uncaring owners. Perhaps the building could have been converted into another non-retail use. Former large retail spaces serve as college campuses, government buildings, call centers – the list goes on. Sadly, the building has gone without even basic repairs for so long that the elements have taken their toll and there’s little choice anymore but to level the structure. With the building being open to the elements, our humid climate, and plenty of material to feed on, the mold alone would render the building unsafe to inhabit. (You wonder if the homeless man recently found dead in the woods near the old mall was a person who regularly slept in that building and was sickened by the extreme mold exposure.)
When I first came to Salisbury, I happened to drive by the old mall as I wandered about town getting my bearings. (Wow – two malls, I thought to myself.) I remember driving by there during the evening and wondering why no one was at the mall, not realizing that it was all but abandoned by then. (This would’ve been about the time the final store that was left there closed up shop.) It was also when it struck me that the mall sure seemed like it was off the beaten path.
Of course, right across the street from the old mall is the Civic Center. Again, this is a case where a building seems to have a short-term useful life as Wicomico County is seeking millions to refurbish the place just to get a few more years out of it. I suppose what makes me feel old is that the Civic Center was built when I was a sophomore in high school and it’s almost functionally obsolete. At some point, there will have to be a decision made whether to pull the plug on the building as a concert and entertainment venue.
Personally I don’t think it’s a bad concert venue at all; however, given the dearth of acts that put Salisbury on their touring schedule it may be time to start planning for a successor arena. Obviously there’s not the capacity necessary to bring large national acts in, but we’re not even getting good second-tier groups. The last rock band I recall being at the WYCC was the Journey show I attended in November of 2005.
Along Civic Avenue we already have one white elephant. Unfortunately, the Civic Center isn’t going to be a top spending priority for the county anytime soon and I have yet to see anyone willing to put private capital into building a new arena here like is possible up in Laurel. So in the years to come we may have two white elephants reminding us of what Salisbury once was.
Hi, I’m the blogger from the archive. I’m a grad student at UD and my thesis basically focuses on the mall’s rise and fall. I’ve been maintaining my information via blog because I figured someone else might be interested as well. Thanks for the kind words. It’s hard to get the word out, as I hoped people seeing the blog would equate to tons of replys with info to share, but this is not the case.