Amigoland Mall
Encyclopedia
Amigoland Mall was an enclosed shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

 located in Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville is a city in the southernmost tip of the state of Texas, in the United States. It is located on the northern bank of the Rio Grande, directly north and across the border from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Brownsville is the 16th largest city in the state of Texas with a population of...

. The former mall, which now houses a tech center, is now called the Brownsville ITEC Center.

The 647000 square feet (60,108.3 m²) mall, developed by Melvin Simon & Associates (now Simon Property Group
Simon Property Group
Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate company, ranked #1 in the United States as the largest real estate investment trust. Simon is a fully integrated real estate company which operates from five retail real estate platforms: regional malls, Premium Outlet Centers, The...

), opened in downtown Brownsville in 1974, with Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...

, JCPenney (which also featured a JCPenney Supermarket), and Dillard's
Dillard's
Dillard's, Inc. is a department store chain in the United States, with 330 stores in 29 states. Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dillard's locations are concentrated in Texas and Florida; with a major presence in other states including Arizona, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri,...

 as anchors. Other early tenants included McCrory Stores
McCrory Stores
J.G. McCrory's or McCrory Stores was a chain of five and dime stores in the United States based in York, Pennsylvania. The stores typically sold shoes, clothing, housewares, fabrics, penny candy, toys, cosmetics, and often included a lunch counter or snack bar...

, Walgreens
Walgreens
Walgreen Co. , doing business as Walgreens , is the largest drugstore chain in the United States of America. As of August 31st, the company operates 8,210 locations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1901, and has since expanded...

, and a two-screen movie theater.

Even after Sunrise Mall
Sunrise Mall (Brownsville, Texas)
Sunrise Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Brownsville, Texas, United States. It was opened in 1979, only five years after the town's other mall, Amigoland Mall. Sunrise Mall features more than 100 stores, including four anchor stores , as well as a food court and a Cinemark movie theater...

 opened nearby in 1979, Amigoland Mall continued to hold its own throughout the 1990s, eventually gaining Bealls
Bealls (Texas)
Bealls is a United States chain of department stores headquartered in Texas. It is owned by Stage Stores Inc. The chain overlaps with the Florida-based Bealls chain, although the two are not related...

 as an additional anchor. However, in 1999, Sunrise Mall expanded, taking Dillard's and JCPenney from Amigoland, sending the older Amigoland Mall into a decline. The bankruptcy of Montgomery Ward a year later left the older mall devoid of anchors and shortly afterward, the mall was shuttered.

In 2002, the vacant mall was converted to classrooms and a tech center for University of Texas at Brownsville.
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