PlacesPages: Longview #39: Triangle Mall

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Longview #39: Triangle Mall

Longview's first shopping mall, the Triangle Mall opened in 1964. It was initially a Pay 'N Save, Montgomery Ward's and Britt's Department Store (owned by J. J. Newberry's) in a cluster of separate buildings. Montgomery Ward's was built first, with construction starting in 1960 and opening in October 1961. Britt's Department Store was built in 1963, and was renamed Newberry's in 1975. As time passed, smaller stores filled in the gaps between the large stores. Then people didn't like having to walk from store to store in the rain, so the walkways between were covered around 1972. Then people didn't like the cold, so the ends were enclosed. Other separate additions were added over the years as well, including an Ernst Hardware (which was replaced by a larger Ernst in the mid-1990s), and the Triangle Cinema in 1983.

Triangle Mall Clock in November 1995.

Around 1994, the interior of the mall was remodeled with a 4-sided pedestal clock, a small fountain, light poles, planter boxes and the like. In the late 1990's the mall's core stores began disappearing. The Ernst was the first to go in early 1997, one of the last Ernst stores. Though Ace Hardware took over the Ernst building in late 1999, opening it as their "Store 21" prototype, it didn't help the main mall much. Montgomery Ward's was the next to go. Ward's had been going through financial difficulties throughout the 1990s. First the Longview store lost its Auto Service Center in 1999, then finally in early 2001 with Ward's total shutdown, the Longview store, one of the last, closed for good, leaving the mall without its main anchor store. The Newberry's chain failed later that same year and the Longview store was one of the last when it closed in May (the last Oregon Newberry's at Portland's Lloyd Center had already closed in April), leaving only the Pay 'N Save, which had become PayLess in 1992 and then Rite Aid in 1996 as the mall's only major store. A separate Thriftway was lured to the mall in a brand new building in 1998, but the store failed and closed around the end of July, 2002.

In 2003, new owners purchased the mall, and began tearing the enclosed mall down to build a strip mall-like cluster of building called Triangle Center. First went the old Wards store, starting in October 2003, then the rest of the mall, with the demolition of the Newberry's building starting in April 2004. By 2005, only the Rite Aid building (which was to remain) and the Radio Shack (which was never meant to be a stand alone building) were all that remained of the old mall, and by the end of 2005, the Radio Shack had moved into new quarters and the last of the demolition was complete. Ace Hardware remains in the former Ernst building, and the former Thriftway became a Ross store.

Triangle Mall Pay ‘n Save Mural in August 2005.

Triangle Mall Pay ‘n Save Mural on September 5, 2005.

The original Pay 'N Save building will remain as Rite Aid, as the stand-alone building it once was. The demolition of the rest of the mall revealed some old Pay 'N Save signage, including a hand-painted mural depicting the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. These were still in place as of December 2005, though by the spring of 2006 a drive-up window had been installed (though clear of this signage) and the building's exterior had been renovated and this had disappeared. The only other remnant of the old Triangle Mall was the clock and some of the benches and planters that were installed in the 1990s that were placed outside the new mall. By late 2013 the clock had been removed.

Triangle Mall Clock on October 19, 2010.

At any rate, the Triangle Mall's story is interesting, as 40 years later it once again has become what it started out as: separate stores that require people to go out in the rain to get from one to another.

Continue to 40: Former Taco Bell…

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Longview #39: Triangle Mall

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