Hampton Towne Centre

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Forgotten Michigan
Hampton Towne Centre, Essexville, Michigan

Hampton Towne Centre, though not exactly my first dead mall, is the one that got me interested in the phenomenon of dead malls. When I first wrote this page, there was extremely little information about it online so I felt it necessary to document. Due to the enduring popularity of this page, I have chosen to keep it up in tribute, making only edits for clarity. (Last edit: December 28, 2023)

History

Hampton Towne Centre, then known as Hampton Square Mall, was built by Ramco Gershenson in 1975 on the far east end of the Bay City area, at the southeast corner of M-25 (Center Road) and Pine Road outside Essexville. At the time, the mall featured two anchor stores: Kmart at the east and Wiechmann's, a chain based in nearby Saginaw, at the west. Attached to the property was a 28,000 square foot A & P supermarket. The mall remained largely unchanged until 1989 when a short northern wing was added, bringing in JCPenney from downtown Bay City. After this expansion, the mall was up to 350,000 square feet. I've been told that an eastern expansion was also planned at this time (presumably, it would've involved demolishing or gutting the Kmart and building a new one) but these plans never got off the ground.

Hampton Square Mall, in its heyday, featured a fairly typical roster of chains, such as B. Dalton Bookseller, Lerner New York, Zales Jewelers, RadioShack, Circus World, Fashion Bug, and Fanny Farmer. Local and regional tenants included DOC Optical, Grondin's Hair Salon, Perry Drug, Li'l Chef Restaurant, MC Sports, and Sagebrush, a clothing store owned by Meijer.

In 1981, the mall's Lerner store was allegedly the site of a murder. According to the Associated Press, a man entered the Lerner store and shot his estranged wife.

Hampton Square's fortunes would soon change when Bay City Mall was built on the other side of town in 1991, with Sears (which also moved from downtown Bay City), Target (which opened in 1990, before the mall), and H.C. Prange's (which became Younkers in 1992). Bay City Mall had a multiplex theatre on site, a food court, and nearly twice as many stores.

In 1992, JCPenney moved from Hampton Square to the newer Bay City Mall, after only three years at the older mall. The same year, Midland got a mall as well, one about the same size as Bay City Mall (and even sharing three of the same anchors!). I wouldn't be surprised if Birchwood Mall in Fort Gratiot (opened in 1990) cut into some of Hampton Square's market share, as it gave residents of the Thumb another option.

Many longtime Hampton tenants left for Bay City Mall, although there was some overlap as late as 1994 if not later. Eventually, the Bay City Mall locations won out. Wiechmann's apparently went bankrupt around 1993, closing its three stores in Saginaw, one in Owosso, and of course, Hampton Square's. The adjacent A & P closed just as the chain underwent a sort of restructure, closing older stores in Michigan and changing others to Farmer Jack. The mall, re-dubbed Hampton Towne Centre by the mid-1990s, was then minus two anchors. However, it limped through the 1990s and even gained a couple new tenants. Notably, McDonald's briefly opened in the mid-1990s in the center court. This mall-based McDonald's got decent sales for a while (no doubt from mall staff), but it later became an independent restaurant called the Dougout before closing. Perry Drugs was replaced by a newer Rite Aid across the street, which has also since closed. Wiechmann's became a Living and Learning center for Bay-Arenac Intermediate School District, and JCPenney became a Family Independence Agency office.

The mall closed on September 30, 2010. Ironically, its successor Bay City Mall has declined greatly as well, losing all four anchor stores between 2014 and 2020 and giving up its food court for a PetSmart.

My visit

I first discovered the mall in 2002, just as Kmart announced its Chapter 11 closings. This was the closest Kmart closure to where I lived at the time, so I figured that it would be a good store to check out — not knowing at the time that it was a mall anchor. At the time, there were still a handful of actual retail tenants left, including Hallmark, Spring Crest Drapery, and a Chinese restaurant. Other non-retail tenants were numerous, including a storefront church, an Edward Jones Investments office, an asthma clinic, a gym, and a weight loss clinic. That was enough to pique my curiosity, and several times over the next few years, I visited the mall again and again. Over time, I saw Hallmark leave in December 2002, as well as the drapery shop in 2004.

Although the Bay County library occasionally used the mall for annual used-book sales, it was almost entirely vacant the rest of the time. Even most of the non-retail tenants had left, including the gym, storefront church, weight loss clinic, and even the Edward Jones offices, while a thrift shop called Do-All, Inc. opened up in 2006 in the long-vacant former A&P. A bingo hall took over the old Perry Drug, and another storefront church took the old Edward Jones slot. Even the Chinese restaurant finally left in 2009.

It was a relic, still clad in 1970s earth tones and the dusty, dated storefronts of chains that no longer exist. Essexville as a whole has lost most of its business district, keeping only Kroger, Jo-Ann Fabrics, and a very isolated Meijer.

Since this page first went up almost 20 years ago, Hampton Towne Centre has been more widely documented by the dead mall community on social media. The mall was also slated to reopen in 2011 after being purchased by local business owner Art Dore (), but nothing came of this venture, and Dore died at age 86 in 2022.