Florence Mall: Forgotten but not Gone (Yet)

When it opened in 1978, Regency Square was billed as the largest single level mall between Nashville and Birmingham. That appellation didn’t really have to make sense, it simply sounded good to a retail starved community. Castner-Knott? Nashville didn’t have anything on us. Pizitz? Birmingham didn’t have anything on us either. Here’s one for the record books: The mall proudly claimed over 20 shoe stores. Were there that many feet in the Shoals?

In a mall that size, one expects quite a turnover of retail establishments. The shopping mecca simply needed to find a niche and all would be well...in perpetuity. Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t well here or in Muscle Shoals or Decatur or not even Huntsville. At least the legacy of Madison Square Mall can blame Bridge Street for pounding the final nail in that coffin. Whom can we blame in Florence?

When we predicted that Hibbett Sports would soon be gone from Florence Mall, we received this:

Speaking of Florence Mall.... we are losing Payless this week, Charlotte Rousse is going out of business currently, & Lids is gone. We lost Auntie Anne’s and Sababros Pizza in the winter. Some of us who manage stores in the mall are very concerned. I would love to see a report on the mall since the renovations were done. Go down the hall by the recruiting offices, it’s like a ghost town down there. How much longer does our mall truly have before it closes the doors? It’s a very hush hush situation with no transparency in sight.

We’re not ashamed to admit that we don’t even know what Lids is...or was. When we looked it up, we were sorry that we had. Retail pundits can pontificate on saving brick and mortar stores all they want, but there’s not many of us who want to invest time and gasoline to walk around a dreary mall to shop for something that we can much more easily purchase using our Dell laptop from the comfort of our Lazy-Boy recliner.

If any of you should doubt that, just ask us where we purchased those two items. Hint: It wasn’t at Florence Mall.

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