Just a few days ago, news broke that a significant piece of Muncie’s retail history is about to vanish: the old JCPenney store at the Muncie Mall is slated for demolition.
Muncie Mall is fading. Like so many regional malls across America, though, it was once a bustling hub of life and energy. Ground was broken in May 1969, and the establishment opened in August 1970. A 50-department, 129,000-square-foot Sears was the first of forty-five stores to come online1, but other anchors like Britt’s2 and W.T. Grant3 soon followed. Unfortunately, that early lineup didn’t last. Britt’s became L.S. Ayres in 19774. W.T. Grant became J.C. Penney the same year5.
Retailers came and went over the decades, but Muncie Mall was riding high in 1996. That’s when it underwent a massive $21 million expansion that added an enormous new L.S. Ayres wing to the northwest6. Local millennials like me might remember Mount Muncie -the giant dirt pile created from the excavation- but the excitement was real.
Elder-Beerman moved into the former Ayres store from an inline space once home to Ball Stores. For a while, the mall was buzzing with energy. Foot traffic was strong, and the parking lot felt full at all hours. Muncie Mall was thriving.
Like so many across America, though, the good times at Muncie Mall didn’t last. The 2000s brought a slow, steady decline marked by shifting shopping habits, the rise of online retail, and a cascade of national store closures. The Old Navy that opened when Elder-Beerman moved gave way to Shoe Dept. Encore, as Muncie’s vibrant retail hub started losing its anchors. With them, it lost its crowd.
Elder-Beerman became Carson’s in 2012. Sears closed four years later, then Macy’s -which replaced L.S. Ayres- closed in early 2020. JCPenney followed later that year7. Aside from Buyer’s Market, an off-price retailer that opened in the old Macy’s space in 20218, the mall has gone without an anchor for the past five years. After a series of ownership changes, Hull Property Group of Augusta, Georgia, acquired the center in 2024.
In high school, I spent hours roaming Books-A-Million, Spencer’s, Hot Topic, and Rare Image at the Muncie Mall. When I returned last year to snap photos of the old Tex Critter’s Pizza Jamboree, it felt like stepping into a time capsule- just without the people. The mall was clean and well-maintained, but it was eerily quiet. Of the 636,000 square feet, only twenty-four retailers were still open! Everywhere I turned, another storefront sat dark and empty.
It’s a nice mall, still, but the mall is simply empty. Back in 2020, the Muncie mayor said the property was assessed at $30 million9. Today, that number has plummeted to just $5 million10. It’s a stark reminder of how far the once-thriving shopping center has fallen, but there’s a silver lining: because the mall sits in a TIF district, some of the property taxes collected in the area can be reinvested to improve it. A recent announcement proclaimed that $432,000 from that fund would be used to demolish the vacant section once home to W.T. Grant and JCPenney.
The project signals the end of an era for anyone who remembers walking wide-eyed into JCPenney, whether as a kid holding a parent’s hand or shopping there themselves. It’s bittersweet, but it might also be the start of something new: from what I understand, the current plan is to add a new entrance to the smaller mall’s south side and redevelop the demolished area with outlot stores facing McGalliard Road, Muncie’s busiest commercial strip.
There’s talk of new retail, restaurants, and even possibly a wholesale club setting up shop nearby11. If it all comes together, redevelopment could breathe some much-needed life back into the mall and give longtime locals a reason to revisit Muncie Mall, a place once at the heart of the city’s shopping scene. Here’s hoping!
Sources Cited
1 Sears’ Huge New Store in Mall to Open (1970, August 5). The Muncie Star. p. 24.
2 Britts, New Department Store in Mall, Will Feature Grand Opening Thursday (1970, October 14). The Muncie Star. p. 13.
3 Nearly 2 1/2 Miles Of Counter in the New Grants (1970, September 9). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 32.
4 7-Year-Old Mall Dons New Colors (1977, April 21). The Muncie Star. p. 36.
5 New Penney’s Store Unveiled at Fashion Show (1977, January 16). The Muncie Star. p. 9.
6 Yencer, R. (1996, August 15). Bids opened for new mall road. The Muncie Star Press. p. 3.
7 Slabaugh, S. (2020, October 3). Muncie Mall is current on taxes but seeks cut. The Muncie Star Press. p. 1.
8 Ohlenkamp, C. (2021, June 17). Buyer’s Market to open at Muncie Mall this Friday. The Muncie Star Press. p. 1.
9 Wiechmann, S. (2020, March 7). Muncie State of the City 2020: Financials, Muncie Mall, And City Parks. Indiana Public Radio. Web. Retrieved July 2, 2025.
10 Wiechmann, S. (2025, June 30). Muncie commission approves money to begin demolishing part of Muncie Mall. Indiana Public Radio. Web. Retrieved July 2, 2025.
11 (see footnote 10).
It has really been strange watching the retail world of my youth implode. I didn’t go there a lot (malls were mainly part of my Christmas shopping routine) but it was one of those places I figured would be there pretty much forever. I have been in the occasional near-dead mall, and it is an eerie feeling.
The deadest dead mall I’ve been in was Five Points Mall in Marion. There was a Rose’s anchor store, a local shoe store, a store that sold swords, and an Applebee’s and Planet Fitness with no access to the interior of the mall. It was as eerie as you describe!