Victory Crossing

Victory Crossing was a shopping mall in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, originally opened in 1973 under the name Tower Mall. It occupied approximately 600,000 square feet on a 53-acre site and served as a conventional regional shopping destination during the period when enclosed malls and large department-store anchors were expanding across the United States. The mall’s original principal anchors were J.M. Fields and Montgomery Ward. J.M. Fields was later replaced or rebranded in the mall’s history by Bradlees, while Montgomery Ward remained another major anchor. The center also contained popular national and regional-style mall tenants associated with the retail culture of the 1970s and 1980s, including Orange Bowl and Merry Go Round. These tenants reflected the mall’s role as a broad consumer-retail venue rather than a specialist shopping district. By the mid-1990s, the mall’s primary anchors had departed, leaving the property vacant or substantially underoccupied. The loss of anchor stores weakened the mall’s commercial function and contributed to its eventual closure and redevelopment. The original mall building was demolished in 2001. Its former site was subsequently redeveloped for a big-box shopping center, which adopted the Victory Crossing name. As a brand or named retail property, Tower Mall is therefore primarily a historical identity rather than an active shopping-mall operator. The name is associated with the original enclosed mall, while Victory Crossing also identifies the later shopping-center development occupying the same Portsmouth site. Available reference material does not establish a separate corporate owner, operating company, website, executive team, or public listing for the former mall. The property’s documented significance lies in its opening, department-store anchoring, decline after anchor departures, demolition, and transition to a different retail format.

Victory Crossing traces its history to Tower Mall, a shopping mall that opened in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1973. The property was designed as a substantial enclosed retail destination, covering about 600,000 square feet across a 53-acre site. Its scale and tenant mix placed it within the mainstream American shopping-mall model of the 1970s and 1980s, when department stores commonly served as anchors and specialty chains filled the interior concourses. The mall’s original primary anchors were J.M. Fields and Montgomery Ward. J.M. Fields was subsequently represented by Bradlees, which became one of the property’s principal department-store anchors. These stores provided the broad merchandise categories that typically drew customers from the surrounding market, while smaller tenants supplied apparel, food, entertainment, and specialty shopping. Among the better-known businesses associated with the center were Orange Bowl and Merry Go Round, both reflecting the popular chain-oriented retail environment of the period. The property’s fortunes changed as its anchor stores left. By the middle of the 1990s, the principal anchors had departed and the mall was vacant or no longer functioning as a fully occupied regional center. The loss of department stores was a critical turning point because anchor traffic supported the smaller tenants and helped define the mall’s commercial identity. Without those stores, the original format became difficult to sustain. In 2001, the mall building was demolished. The former Tower Mall site was then used for a big-box shopping center, which is identified as Victory Crossing. This redevelopment represented a shift from an enclosed, department-store-led mall to a more open and vehicle-oriented retail format centered on large individual stores. The name Victory Crossing thus came to describe the later shopping-center development as well as the broader retail site. The available historical record does not identify a founder, corporate parent, publicly listed owner, executive team, or continuing operating company for the former mall. It also does not document a separate consumer product brand beyond the property’s retail identity. Its principal historical importance is as a Portsmouth shopping center that opened during the expansion of the American mall system, experienced anchor-store departures and vacancy, and was replaced by a different retail configuration at the start of the twenty-first century.

• 2001

  Mall building demolished

  [1]Victory Crossingen.wikipedia.org

  The original Tower Mall structure is demolished to make way for a big-box shopping center.

• 1973

  Tower Mall opens

  [1]Victory Crossingen.wikipedia.org

  The shopping mall opens in Portsmouth, Virginia, with J.M. Fields and Montgomery Ward as its original primary anchors.

• Bradlees becomes a principal anchor

  [1]Victory Crossingen.wikipedia.org

  Bradlees is identified in the mall’s history as an anchor associated with the former J.M. Fields location.

• Primary anchors depart

  [1]Victory Crossingen.wikipedia.org

  By the mid-1990s, the mall’s primary anchors had left, and the property was vacant or substantially underoccupied.

A broad regional shopping destination serving Portsmouth and the surrounding area during the enclosed-mall era, later replaced by a big-box shopping-center format.

• Shopping mall · 1973

  Tower Mall enclosed retail center

  The original Tower Mall was an approximately 600,000-square-foot enclosed shopping mall on a 53-acre site in Portsmouth, Virginia. It combined department-store anchors with smaller specialty, apparel, food, and leisure tenants. Its principal documented anchors were J.M. Fields, later associated with Bradlees, and Montgomery Ward. The center represented the conventional regional-mall format prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s.

• Big-box shopping center · 2001

  Victory Crossing shopping center

  After the Tower Mall building was demolished in 2001, the former site was redeveloped as a big-box shopping center known as Victory Crossing. The later development replaced the enclosed-mall format with a large-store-oriented retail configuration. Specific tenants, operators, and ownership details are not established in the supplied reference material.

• 2001

  Redevelopment from enclosed mall to big-box shopping centerStrategy

  Background

  The former mall had lost its primary anchors by the mid-1990s and was vacant or substantially underoccupied.

  Action taken

  The original Tower Mall building was demolished and the site was converted into a big-box shopping center identified as Victory Crossing.

  Aftermath

  The enclosed mall ceased to exist, while the site continued as a different retail development under the Victory Crossing name.

  Source

1. 1Victory Crossingen.wikipedia.org