The Mall at Turtle Creek


The Mall at Turtle Creek is an enclosed shopping mall located in Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States. It is notable for being the only enclosed mall to open in the United States in the year 2006. Currently, the mall features JCPenney, Dillard's and Target as its main anchor stores, with Barnes & Noble. Bed Bath & Beyond, and Best Buy as junior anchors. The mall also features more than 70 inline stores, as well as a food court. All four bus routes of the Jonesboro Economical Transit system serve the mall.

History

MBC Holdings and David Hocker & Associates purchased 75 acres of land at the intersection of Stadium Boulevard and Highland Drive to begin development of The Mall at Turtle Creek. Construction of the new mall ensued in early 2002. After three years of construction, Target and JCPenney both opened their stores in late 2005. Dillard's opened their store early in 2006 followed by a complete mall opening in March 2006.

Layout

The Mall at Turtle Creek has a gross area of, with 230,000 of that of retail space.
The mall is rectangular and stretches over a plot. The developers wanted to give the mall a "Main Street" look. The 100 stores are arranged along two sides of the mall facing each other with a pedestrian walkway on each side and various vendors occupying the mid-aisles. The three main anchor stores are Dillard's, Target and JCPenney. Dillard's is located at the east of the mall while Target is located at the west end. JCPenney is found at the southwest end of the mall. Along with the three main anchors, the mall includes three junior anchors in Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond. After opening, The Mall at Turtle Creek became the fifth largest mall in Arkansas in terms of square footage.
Rouse Properties bought the mall in February 2013.

2020 tornado

At around 5:00 p.m. CDT on March 28, 2020, a low-end EF3 tornado swept through the east side of Jonesboro, impacting the mall and Jonesboro Municipal Airport and many nearby commercial and residential areas. The mall sustained significant damage to the main entrance and most of its retail stores, which was rated in the EF2 range. In the preceding days, the mall had been temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was nearly empty of customers. The tornado caused 22 injuries in Jonesboro and resulted in no fatalities.