Highland Mall
Highland Mall was a shopping mall located in north Austin, Texas, United States, on Airport Boulevard west of I-35 and north of US Route 290. Opened in 1971, Highland Mall was Austin's first suburban shopping mall. Highland Mall was jointly owned by General Growth and Simon Property Group until 2011. Austin Community College began acquiring the surrounding land in 2010, assumed ownership of the last parcel it did not already control in August 2011. On April 29, 2015, Highland Mall officially closed its doors. History. The Highland Mall opened on August 4, 1971, developed by Austin Malls  Inc., a subsidiary of the Rouse Company. Prior to the construction of the mall, the land was originally home to the St. John's Industrial Institute and Home for Negro Orphans, which burned down in the 1940s. The mall, which was Austin's first enclosed mall, was originally anchored by JCPenney, Austin-based Scarbrough's, and San Antonio-based Joske's. In 1987, Joske's was acquired by Dillard's; the store received a complete renovation in 1993. In 1992, Dillard's opened a second store in the mall in the space that formerly housed Scarbrough's. Mall in decline . By 2008, two of the mall's seven retail sectors were closed. Press reports described the mall as "in decline" and that the mall was "likely to be demolished in 2010" to make way for a mixed-used development. On June 26, 2009, Yahoo! reported that it was one of "America's Most Endangered Malls": As Austin grew and expanded in the years since Highland Mall's opening, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods, once considered somewhat upscale, remained stagnant; the mall is the closest major regional shopping center serving the eastern portion of the city, which has traditionally been  populated primarily by working-class African American residents. Highland Mall had developed a reputation for large crowds of visitors to the mall during the Texas Relays (a major track and field event held at the University of Texas at Austin), generating controversy and allegations of racial discrimination, or at the least, a less-than-welcoming attitude, on the part of mall management towards the visitors, mainly younger African Americans, many who visit from out-of-state. During the 2009 Texas Relays, management decided to close the mall several hours earlier than normal, presumably in an attempt to control the crowds  and promote safety, prompting protests from the local chapter of the NAACP and a possible boycott of the mall (all part of a larger controversy over perceived negative attitudes in Austin towards the Texas Relays and its largely younger Black fan base, which uses the Relays as a social event comparable to the controversial Freaknik events in Atlanta in the early 2000s). Charles Heimsath, president of an Austin-based real estate research firm, suggested that local malls such as Barton Creek Square and The Domain siphoned off clientele from Highland Mall. Despite Highland Mall's relative proximity and convenience to  the University of Texas at Austin, many UT students elect to use these other shopping venues. On June 3, 2009, the "Austin Chronicle" reported that Austin's professional soccer team, the Austin Aztex, were interested in using part of the site for a soccer stadium. The site would have also included "pedestrian-friendly street frontage in a mixed-use design, rapid bus transit and rail right across the street, and structured parking." Grassroots Austin Stadium Supporters (GRASS) was a group that has formed to push for the stadium project. On April 30, 2015, Highland Mall officially closed after 44 business  years. Acquisition by ACC. In 2012, Austin Community College purchased Highland Mall to redevelop the site as a regional education center. The first phase of ACC's Highland Campus opened in Fall 2014. The first phase includes classrooms, labs, study areas, library and media center, student commons, and ACCelerator, a 600-station learning lab for individualized instruction through technology. Preparation is underway for additional redevelopment at Highland Mall. Plans call for a digital and creative media cluster, expanded information technology programs, culinary and hospitality center, professional incubator space, an advanced manufacturing center, workforce innovation center, and regional health sciences center  with simulator lab. In 2017, Rackspace announced plans to open an office in the former Dillard's anchor space, but plans were shelved when the company was acquired by an outside investor. In 2018, it was announced that the former Dillard's store would be remodeled into a two-level television studio that will house Austin PBS affiliate KLRU as well as ACC's television station. Over the long term, space not used by the college at the Highland Mall site will be available for private mixed-use development. Various mixed-use apartment and retail buildings have opened in the  mall's former parking lot; the east side of the parking lot has been repurposed in to an urban park called "St. John's Encampment Commons", referencing the former African-American Baptist encampment that took place on the site. In addition, the Greyhound bus terminal for Austin is located immediately southeast of the mall.