Waggener High School - RingBrothersHistory.com

The Voice-Jeffersonian, April 9, 1970:A 20-YEAR LOOK AT THE RETAILING PICTURE HERE1955 plans for shopping center chilled old-timers, by Joe OglesbyAnnouncement of plans for the first major shopping center in St. Matthews in 1955 sent chills up the spines of members ofthe “establishment” business district.One of the purposed of the St. Matthews Business Association , organized that same year was “to promote business in St.Matthews against the competition of Louisville on the one hand and the new shopping center going up on Shelbyville Roadon the other.”The stores of most members of the association were in “old” St. Matthews or in Wallace enter and the merchants feared thedrawing power of the new shopping center.The center was Shelbyville Road Plaza, and when it opened in November of 1955 in contained 27 stores on a 20-acre siteof St. Matthews.Since then, shopping centers occupy a large part of the landscape in the St. Matthews area, and merchants and residentsalike are more curious than worried about new commercial developments.The big “explosion” in shopping center construction, though, didn’t start until the 1960’s.Various History Articles!!After a two-year delay, construction of The Mall, just outside the St. Matthews city limits, got underway in 1961. The giantcenter, containing 50 stores, opened in 1962.Last year, additions doubling the size of The Mall were built. These include 16 new stores, the 198,000 square foot J.C.Penny installation and the Kaufman-Straus expansion.Other major companies, seeing the commercial fertility of the Expressway—Shelbyville Road area announced plans tobuild.The Bluegrass Manor Shopping Center, containing the giant Woolco store, opened in 1966, on the fringe of St. Matthews.Then in 1967, owners of the drive-in theatre across from the Bluegrass Manor Shopping Center sold a 15-acre tract to theAlmart department store chain. A one-story building costing $5 million was built on the site that year, after the theatre wasrazzed.Adjoining the Almart store is the Giant Food Store, said to be the largest Grocery in Kentucky. The store was built lastyear.In the meantime, other areas of St. Matthews were attracting interest, too, as commercial sites. A G.E.S. store was built onpart of the J. Graham Brown tract on Breckenridge Lane near 1-64 in 1966.Warren Atkinson, an Indianapolis developer, also was eyeing the Breckenridge Lane area. In 1967 he negotiated for purchaseof 100 acres for construction of a $30 million shopping center that would have included two department stores, a caragency and a movie theatre.Atkinson later dropped interest in the center, saying that the area could have presented traffic problems and that one of hisprospective lessees had “cooled off” about building in the center.The latest member of the shopping center “family” is the new Camelot Shopping Center, partly in St. Matthews and partlyin Lyndon.Winn-Dixie and Walgreen Drugs were among the first stores to open in the center last year. The complex now has eightother tenants and construction of space for new stores is still underway.While merchants flocked to St. Matthews to erect shopping complexes, they didn’t ignore the rest of eastern JeffersonCounty with its expanding population and affluence.Ground was broken in 1958 for the Brownsboro Road Shopping Center at Rudy Lane and Old Brownsboro Road. A wingwas added to the center in 1961.Another earlier member of the shopping –complex fraternity is the Middletown Shopping Center, located on a seven-acretract on the south side of U.S. 60 just east of Evergreen Road. The center, built in 1961, was developed by the EvergreenLand Company.Construction of the first phase of the Holiday Manor Shopping Center, costing $3 million, was begun in 1962. The center,located on U.S. 42 at Old Brownsboro Road, has doubled in size since then. Plans call for the construction of a twin theatrenear the center this year.