US/NC/Durham/Northgate

About

Northgate Mall is a shopping mall in Durham, NC. (See Northgate Mall for other malls with the same name.) It is owned and/or operated by Northgate Associates (a family-owned business), managing partner Virginia Rand Bowman; her father, W. Kenan Rand Jr., built the original Northgate Shopping Center.

Northgate was opened as a shopping center in 1960 and converted to a mall in 1974, with Sears moving from its original location downtown to become one of the anchor stores. A multi-level parking deck and the Thalhimer's (chain renamed Hecht's in 1992) anchor store were added in 1986, and the food court and lower-level business center (not sure what this refers to) were built in 1987. Another parking deck and another 53,000 square feet of enclosed retail space were added in 1994.

As of March 2006, it is in the middle of a $16 million renovation which will include a new 10-screen movie theater in the area formerly occupied by the Belk anchor store (which moved to Southpoint Mall in 2004); Northgate has been without a movie theater for many years.

Sources: The Durham News (2006-03-11 p1A and 2006-02-18 p1A), personal memory, and various information on the web.

Reference

• web site
• Wikipedia

News & Views

• 2010-07-08 Northgate Mall: historical photos
• 2007-07-26 Northgate Mall adds stores, new manager; a new hope?: a TigerDirect store will be filling the Old Navy spot, among other things
• 2007-06-09 two-part series at Bull City Rising:
  • Durham's Northgate Mall -- where are we now?
  • Durham's Northgate Mall -- where are we going?
    • The mixed-use idea seems really appealing: put the reality back in the faux-village-style mall, as exemplified by "The Streets at Southpoint" --Woozle 09:15, 10 June 2007 (EDT)
• 2004-09-23 Northgate Mall plans $13M facelift