Harding Mall
Built in 1966, Harding Mall was the second enclosed mall in Nashville at 300,000 SqFt. The old mall location is scheduled to be a new Super Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart may replace dying Harding Mall
By NAOMI SNYDER Staff Writer
Goodbye, Harding Mall — here comes Wal-Mart.
A spokesman for Wal-Mart confirmed yesterday that Wal-Mart would like to build an almost 180,000-square-foot Supercenter on the site of the Harding Mall, the second-oldest enclosed mall in Nashville.
That's what we intend and hope, Wal-Mart spokesman Glen Wilkins said.
The 35-year-old Harding Mall would have to be demolished.
He did not know if Wal-Mart had signed a lease, but a developer has been working for several months to put a big-box retailer on the site. Wilkins didn't have a projected opening date.
Stores have been leaving the mall in droves. Discount retailer Marshalls, one of the mall's two anchors, closed Tuesday. The other anchor, Dillard's, plans to close sometime in April.
Some stores, such as men's clothier Nino's, have been told they have to leave.
Others, such as The UPS Store, have long-term leases to be worked out.
Nicholas Saucedo, the owner of Nicholas' Tailor Shop, said he would be open another week.
It's going down, he said. OK, baby, hasta la vista.
Neither the mall manager nor the developer, Russ Morris of RFM Development Co., could be reached yesterday.
Homeowners around the mall are getting notices on the Wal-Mart proposal to subdivide the land from the Metro Planning Commission, which has a public hearing on the issue March 24 during its regular meeting. The meeting starts at 4 p.m. in the Howard Office Building Auditorium at 700 Second Ave. S. in downtown Nashville.
The proposal calls for one large tract of land — for the Wal-Mart — and five smaller parcels, some of which include existing buildings such as the IHOP. The stores are not named. The Planning Commission gives final approval on the matter.
Michael Cochrane of engineering and architecture firm Gresham, Smith & Partners said the Wal-Mart won't be the traditional blue and gray, but brownish, earth tones designed to fit better in urban areas.
Wal-Mart also wants to leave its store at the corner of Old Hickory Boulevard and Nolensville Road to build a new Supercenter farther south on Nolensville Road.
The developer has said there would be no conflict between the two Supercenters.
A Supercenter has groceries and competes with Kroger, the grocery chain with the largest market share in Nashville. Kroger has 46.7% market share of groceries in the Nashville area; Wal-Mart has 23.3, according to industry newsletter The Shelby Report.
Wal-Mart has been steadily grabbing the area's grocery market share for the past several years. It has 13 Supercenters in Davidson and 11 surrounding counties, according to The Shelby Report.
4050 Nolensville Road
Nashville, Tennessee
United States
References
The pictures on this page are courtesy UER