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Old World Mall Reopening

Old World Mall Reopening  image
Parent Issue
Day
25
Month
May
Year
1977
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

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Old World

^MAY -^ W.
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By Jim Norman

BUSINESS-LABOR REPORTER

The OldJKmIdLVjIlage^telUvill un-
dergo aT renaissance next week. New
owners will open. a hardware store
and bring back a number of small
shops in the former discount depart-
ment store building at the Westgate
shopping center

Local archite< t E. Van Curl-
er and St. Clair mayor Raymond
Gellain, who bought the 20-acre shop-

Business

ping center in March, will open a
True Value Hardware in the former
Rink's Bargain City there.

The store will open its doors some
time next week and will stape a

formal "grand opening" June 13 with
appearances by Detroit Tiger stars
Mark (The Bird) Fydrich, Ron Le-
Flore and former pitcher Denny
McLain.

THE BASEBALL TRIO appeared
Monday night as judges at a "gong

she- ' '"1 at the Flying Dutchman
Mw i at Warren, where Van Curl-
er is part-owner.
According to Van Curler, the hard-

«

opening

ware venture was launched by his
newly-formed Westgate of Ann Arbor,
Inc., based on market studies of the
most-needed kind of retail business in
the Jackson Road-W. Stadium area.

It will occupy 22.000 square feet or
about a third of the space occupied by
the short-lived Old World Village
Mall.

Another third of the space will be
leased to about 10 retail establish-
ments, including two restaurants.

The remaining third will be devoted
to small booths for craft and specialty
shops similar to the Old World for-
mat.

So far" a dozen small shops have
signed leases or are near agreement
on occupying space in the mall area,
according to Van Curler.

All of those signed so far are former
Old World tenants W ^ ie will take
more than 2,000 squa f space.

S the small
.-hup;* will open ^oi.tC time after the
hardwareistore opens.

They will operate 72 hours per week
just like the hardware, he says. That
will probably be 10 a.m.-9 p.m. daily
and noon-5 p.m. Sundays.

One of the key criticisms of shop*
keepers in the former Old World Vil-
lage Mall, run by Lansing promoter
Alan H. Ginsburg, was that weekend
hours were insufficient to support a
retail business.

At its peak. Old World last year had
about 149 booths occupied or about 80
per cent of the available space.

"•• ni-mall closed jus" e
Ch after one year in i; s,
leaving many small retailers without
store space at the busiest time of
year.

Rents for small booths in the re-
vived Old World site will be about the
same as those charged by Ginsburg,
according to Van Curler — $1.50 per
square foot monthly including utili-
ties.

So far about one third of the availa-
ble booth space has been Spoken for,^
according to Van Curler. "^|

Among those shops returning are:

—A wicker furniture shop, Marie
Schmidt.

—A lithograph print shop, Robert
Jams.

——A T-SHIRT and fabric print shop,
Lady Coda.

—A magic shop operated, Mr. and
Mrs. Daryl Hurst.

—A leather goods store, Fred Wor-
ley*.

—A craft shop, Mable Feese. i»

—A coin shop, John Siano. ••

—A yard and needlecraft shop, by a
group of five former Old World pro-
prietors.

Other shops pending lease arrange-
ments include a spice shop, baked
goods store and flower shop. jtt

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