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I guess it shouldn’t come as much surprise for a place that closed in 2018, but Mounds Mall of Anderson, Indiana, isn’t looking that great. It’s become one of central Indiana’s most visible examples of the decline of enclosed shopping centers, and every year it sinks a little further into decay.

Despite all hope, Mounds Mall isn’t coming back. One of the biggest reasons is an ownership tangle that seems almost impossible to unravel: one entity owns the parking lot¹, while another owns the mall itself²! What a nightmare. Because of that, the property sits languishing. I’d heard that conditions had gotten dramatically worse since my last visit, so, naturally I had to see what was going on for myself.

I’ve written about Mounds Mall at length, but here’s a quick summary: plans for Anderson’s “Mall Shopping Center” were announced on December 4, 1963, by Melvin Simon and Associates. The $3 million, 225,000-square-foot center would be the first air-conditioned and heated enclosed mall in Indiana³! Mounds opened in April 1965 but, over time, it became overshadowed by larger and better-appointed malls in Muncie, Marion, and Castleton. After its last major anchor left in 2018, ownership announced that the center would close for good⁴. 

My quick lap around Mounds Mall started at its old Sears. The 85,000-square-foot space⁴ opened as Montgomery Ward in November 1964 before the rest of the mall came online. Unfortunately, Ward’s closed on Christmas Eve in 1981⁵. After a lengthy search for a new location⁶, Sears moved into the vacant storefront the following year⁷. The new anchor enjoyed a thirty-year run at Mounds Mall before shutting its doors in 2012 after poor holiday sales⁸. The building’s main entrance has pretty much looked like this since it was shuttered.

Here’s Mounds Mall’s front entrance sealed behind sheets of plywood adjacent to Sears. The last time I walked through, Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care occupied the first storefront on the opposite side, followed by Garfield’s Restaurant, LA Nails, Trendin’ Fashions and Maurices. After the mall closed, Dr. Tavel managed to stay open for a few years because of its exterior entrance. The eye doctor eventually relocated to Applewood Center in 2020⁹.

Here are the former homes of Dr. Tavel and Garfield’s. Garfield’s was a casual dining chain in the same vein as Applebee’s or Chili’s, and I ended up on several dates at the Mounds Mall location over the years. The buffalo chicken wrap is what I remember most, but the menu covered just about everything from steaks and seafood to burgers and pasta. It wasn’t the fanciest restaurant in town (actually, it may very well have been), but it was a decent, dependable place.

Carson’s was the last department store to arrive at Mounds Mall, but the space had a long history before that name ever appeared on its façade. Originally, the anchor opened as H.P. Wasson, an Indianapolis-based department store that expanded during the mid-1960s. Sadly, the company entered a long decline after its president was killed in a plane crash and eventually sold out to Goldblatt’s¹⁰. Goldblatt’s closed Mounds Mall’s Wasson’s in 1980¹¹, then Meis of Terre Haute opened there the following year. Meis sold to Elder-Beerman in 1989¹², and Elder-Beerman rebranded as Carson’s in 2011¹³. Unfortunately, the new name didn’t last long: Carson’s 2018 closure left Mounds Mall without an anchor, which triggered its permanent closure.

Mounds Mall wasn’t just home to one Carson’s- it was also home to a smaller Carson’s Home Store. Both of their signs appear to have been subjected to similar damage! The space started as Kroger, but became Weiler’s Men’s & Ladies in the late 1970s¹⁴. After Weiler’s closed in 1983, it was repurposed the spot as Meis Homeworks¹⁵. That became an Elder-Beerman Home Store, which transformed into Carson’s in 2003. The area to the left served as a loading dock but also as a secondary entrance. In later years, it led to places like a karate studio, an accounting service, a radio station, and mall offices.

The west side of Mounds Mall, essentially backstage, features a dilaipdated parking lot overgrown with vegetation. This shot features the back of the old Carson’s Home Store, the rear of the karate dojo and accounting office, and a boarded-up entrance that led to MCL Cafeteria until its 2014 closure. I believe MCL’s space was home to Nirvana -a hippie store with incense, band tees, and knives- when the mall shut down.

The Mounds Mall 10 opened in 2004 to replace a two-level JC Penney that closed in 2001¹⁶. The new multiplex also replaced General Cinema Corporation’s Mounds Mall Cinema I & II that had shut down in 2002. Despite the mall’s closure, the theater soldiered on after to a separate entrance was carved and the lobby was walled in. Unfortunately, it shuttered for good in 2019. Mounds Mall 10 wasn’t opulent, but it was a good, honest, theater without a bar or recliners to see movies like Rogue One, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the 2014 Godzilla in.

Before Mounds Mall closed, these doors served as the theater entrance. They also provided access to the north side of Sears and other stores like Finish Line and Bath & Body Works. Despite it not being the mall’s main entrance, it was the gateway to some of the center’s busiest destinations. A cluster of cars was always parked outside.

The old Mounds Mall Cinema I & II occupies an outparcel just south of the Sears and Bath & Body Works entrance. When it opened, it brought Hollywood’s biggest hits to Anderson. In 1977, moviegoers could catch Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a little under-the-radar science-fiction film called Star Wars. In the decades since it closed, the once-bustling theater gradually became one of Anderson’s most recognizable canvases for graffiti artists.

Today, it’s kind of hard to believe the Cinema I & II ever welcomed crowds of moviegoers. Its enormous letters cling to a stained concrete shell surrounded by weeds, cracked pavement, and decades of neglect. There’s little to suggest that it was once a place filled with excitement! Like the rest of Mounds Mall, the theater has become a haunting reminder of a place that once buzzed with life that now stands silent.

Every dead mall tells two stories. The first is one of an enterprise that failed, of changing shopping habits, online retail, and shifting demographics. The other is much more personal: Mounds Mall was where people shopped and celebrated! Today, plywood, overgrowth, water damage, and cracked asphalt have replaced the crowds as the buildings continue to deteriorate. It’s difficult to imagine any future for Mounds Mall beyond an eventual demolition. Even so, driving the perimeter was a reminder that places like this don’t disappear when the doors close. Instead, they live on in the memories of the people who filled them with life.

Sources Cited
1 Parcel 48-12-18-401-001.000-003 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Madison County [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved July 9, 2026.
2 Parcel 48-12-18-401-001.002-003 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Madison County [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved July 9, 2026.
3 Ward, Wasson To Be In New ‘Mall Shopping Center’ (1963, December 4). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 1. 
4 Montgomery, G. (2018, March 1). Mounds Mall in Anderson to close April 1 after 53 years. WISHTV [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved December 29, 2025. 
5 Montgomery Ward Inventory Liquidation Sale (1981, October 28). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 15.
6 Walter Clements, C. (1982, August 19). Sears to move into mall. The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 1. 
7 Kirby, R. (1982, August 19). The Anderson Herald. p. 1. 
8 Palmer, D. (2012, April 29). Anderson says its final goodbye to Sears. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved October 20, 2025. 
9 Knight, D. (2020, May 28). Dr. Tavel moves to new location. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved July 10, 2026.
10 Goldblatt’s Buys 8 Stores of H.P. Wasson in Indiana (1967, October 31). The Chicago Tribune. p. C7.
11 H.P. Wasson store to close (1980, September 11). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 3.
12 Brown Group Sells Department Stores (1989, April 29). The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p. 13. 
13 Bailey, J. (2011, October 15). Mounds Mall changed Anderson’s shopping patterns. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved October 18, 2025.
14 Clements, C.W. (1983, June 22). Weilers closes store at mall. The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 1. 
15 Hawes, N. (1986, January 10). Mall facelift good news. The Anderson Herald. p. 7. 
16 16 Montgomery, G. (2018, March 1). Mounds Mall in Anderson to close April 1 after 53 years. WiSHTV. Web. Retrieved February 15, 2023.