Standing on East County Line Road in Ridgeland, Mississippi, sits a two-level enclosed mall with four department-store anchors still open. Northpark Mall runs 958,000 square feet and counts 120 tenants.
It opened in 1984 with McRae's and D.H. Holmes on the ends, and JCPenney and Gayfers followed. Dillard's bought two of those chains, which is how one company ended up running two of the four anchor stores.
Belk has a third, and JCPenney still has the west end. All four anchor doors are still in use. An appraisal put the mall at 96 percent leased in 2014, and a 2024 appraisal listed Northpark at 80 percent occupancy.
The owner rebuilt the inside in 2018 and 2019, including a dining area and children's play space. The mall is still enclosed. The theater beside it has 14 screens and a bar.
Northpark opens against Metrocenter
County Line Road had two lanes when the plans went public on May 11, 1982, and the mall on them was still called The Park.
Cadillac-Fairview and McRae's Inc., the Jackson department-store company, put it on about 100 acres of farmland at the line between Hinds and Madison counties.
They built it to take trade from Metrocenter, the mall that had opened in Jackson in 1978.
Northpark opened on September 12, 1984 with about 60 stores in roughly 957,000 square feet. About 25,000 people came the first day.
Inside, the main corridor climbed toward the second level under a barrel-arched skylight. The colors were jade green, terra-cotta, and hot pink.
Ficus trees stood in terra-cotta pots, benches sat along the walking route, and the food court was upstairs.
McRae's and D.H. Holmes held the ends, and JCPenney and Gayfers moved in during the buildout that followed.
Sunday afternoons and the blue laws
Mississippi had blue laws, and Jackson enforced them. On Sundays, Northpark waited until the afternoon to open.
Religious leaders objected, but the later start kept mall hours clear of morning church services.
That compromise handed the mall a trading day its competitors were barred from.
Metrocenter stayed closed on Sundays, and so did the rest of Jackson's stores, while a mall over the county line worked through the afternoon.
It held for 14 months. Jackson changed course on November 18, 1985 and stopped enforcing its Sunday-closing rules.
Metrocenter and other city retailers could now compete for the Sunday shoppers Northpark had been drawing across the county line.
Sunday belonged to everyone after that, and Northpark's first advantage had lasted a little over a year.
McRae's, D.H. Holmes, and Gayfers disappear
Three of the four anchor names changed over the next 22 years, and every one of them changed in a sale of a whole chain.
Dillard's bought the 18-store D.H. Holmes company in 1989 and kept the Northpark store.
Nine years later it bought Mercantile Stores, which owned Gayfers, and took a second anchor position with it.
Dillard's has run the north and south stores ever since.
McRae's went last, and it was the one that had helped build the place.
Belk agreed in 2005 to buy 25 McRae's stores and 22 Proffitt's for $622 million, and closed the deal that July.
In spring 2006 the developer's name came off the building it developed, and Belk went up instead. JCPenney, at the west end, never moved.
Mississippi's first H&M opens in 2014
Ridgeland got a second retail district in 2008, when Renaissance at Colony Park opened as an open-air center.
The newest shopping in town was no longer under Northpark's roof.
Dogwood Festival Market in Flowood and the Outlets of Mississippi in Pearl were working the same metro from the other side of it.
Northpark's answer took six years.
H&M opened on June 5, 2014 as the first store the chain had put anywhere in Mississippi, 24,000 square feet across the lower and upper levels of the Belk wing.
H&M gave bags and fashion passes to 300 early shoppers; the passes ranged from $10 to $300.
The mall was past 130 stores by then, and one of them was the only H&M in the state.
A $25 million rebuild around the Eatery
Pacific Retail Capital Partners bought Northpark from Simon in September 2016, along with two other malls and an investment partner it didn't name.
It announced the renovation 14 months later, on November 8, 2017.
Work started in March 2018 at the food court, which had been an upstairs room since 1984.
It came back as the Eatery, a cafe-style space with more seating, new lighting, and room for children to eat.
Crews worked nights so the mall could stay open through it.
The family space opened that October on the lower level near JCPenney.
Discovery Park is enclosed, with a theme built on local plants and butterflies, and the Family Lounge next to it has changing tables, nursing stations, and restrooms with kid-sized toilets.
A gaming wall and a large digital screen went into the common area, and a 1,200-square-foot mural with four etched magnolias went up during the work.
Northpark marked the rebuild with a grand reopening on November 15, 2018.
The parking lot got LED lighting and new pavement the year after, finishing a program the city put at about $25 million.
It was the first mall-wide work in roughly 20 years.
Regal leaves, B&B reopens 14 screens
The theater next door shut while that parking lot was still being repaved.
It had opened in 1987 with 10 screens, picked up four more in 1996, and ran as a Regal until early 2019, when Regal closed all 14.
The building sat through the rest of that year.
Ridgeland's aldermen approved a new exterior for B&B Theatres in August, the pandemic pushed the opening back, and B&B reopened the complex on September 3, 2020 with the same 14 screens, now with heated recliners, made-to-order food, and a full bar.
The auditoriums were the new part, with motion seating and a wraparound screen among them.
The theater sits at 250 Ring Road, beside the mall it opened next to 33 years earlier.
What Northpark is in 2026
Northpark is a two-level enclosed mall at 1200 E. County Line Road in Ridgeland, Mississippi, less than a mile east of Interstate 55.
It opened in 1984 behind McRae's and D.H. Holmes.
It runs today with Belk at the east anchor, JCPenney at the west, Dillard's in both the north and south stores, and B&B in the theater, and Pacific Retail counts 120 tenants across 958,000 square feet and 4,859 parking spaces.
How full that is depends on when it was last measured.
An appraisal in 2014 put Northpark at 96 percent occupied. A 2024 appraisal listed Northpark at 80 percent.
In between, the mall took the first H&M in the state, changed owners, spent about $25 million on itself, and got a rebuilt theater.
No independent figure has come out since.
In 2024 the city set a history marker near the south-southwest entrance for the mall's 40th year.
Nothing has been announced about demolition, conversion, or a new anchor building.
Monday through Saturday, the doors open at 8 a.m. for walkers, three hours before the stores do.
Independent Publisher Notice
BestAttractions is an independent editorial publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any location, business, property owner, manager, government agency, or organization described in this article.
Comments posted on this page are not forwarded to, reviewed by, or acted upon by any entity mentioned in the article.
For official inquiries, complaints, applications, bookings, or other requests, please contact the relevant entity directly through its official website or other verified channels.