MacArthur Center mall will close June 27. Business owners say they got the news the same day as the general public.
“We knew that there was going to be a date when we would have to move out, but we didn’t expect it to be this soon,” said Beth Dryer, executive director of the 757 Creative Reuse Center, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable arts and crafts.
The city of Norfolk has talked about redeveloping MacArthur Center for years. The mall was a centerpiece of downtown when it was built in 1999. But its once bustling walkways emptied out over the years as mall traffic declined and stores closed.
The city bought the mall in 2023. At the time, officials said the city would redevelop the three-story structure but didn’t have a concrete plan or timeline. Ideas came and went — such as tearing it down to create an open plaza, moving city offices into the Nordstrom site and building a military-themed hotel…