Harundale Mall
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Harundale Mall was located in Glen Burnie, Maryland at the intersection of Ritchie Highway and Aquahart Road. The Mall was built by James Rouse, who later developed Columbia, Maryland one of the first modern planned communities. Harundale opened in 1958. It was the first indoor enclosed shopping mall on the East Coast of the United States, and is credited as the first air conditioned mall in the United States. The Mall rivaled the other indoor mall at the time located in Minnesota, Southdale Center.
When the mall opened in October of 1958 it had two major anchors that was Hochschild Kohn's and Food Fair. It also had two other smaller anchors that were Read's Drug Store (with a soda fountain) and two five and dime stores, S.S. Kresge and G.C. Murphy. Harundale also had about 50 other smaller tenants and food establishments. The mall opened to much fanfare as traffic backed up for two miles on Maryland Route 2 to just get on the parking lot at opening day. This was truly something people had never seen before and several politicans were even present for the opening day. Harundale was a major shopping destination for over 30 years.
Future tenants included Hutzler's, which replaced Hochschild Kohn's, Erol's TV and Video Club, Foot Locker, Rite Aid, and several other typical mall-format stores. In 1987, Harundale started to decline with the opening of Marley Station less than two miles away. Several high-end stores started leaving Harundale for this new Marley Station. Hutzler's closed in 1988. There were talks with JC Penney to replace Hutzler's; however, it was instead replaced by Value City in 1989. This did not save the mall, and a rapid decline started in the early 1990s. This was fueled by changing demographics in the area, lower-income stores' coming, and crime moving in. In 1998 the mall was quietly closed, as much of the stores had left by this time. The only business left open was Value City. Most of the mall was torn down and the signature "rock" in the middle of the mall was moved away.
In 1999, the mall reopened and redeveloped as Harundale Plaza. This shopping center consists of Value City, Super Fresh supermarket, Outback Steakhouse, and a U.S. Post Office, plus several other typical strip-mall stores.
