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Genesee Valley Center is an enclosed shopping mall located in Flint Township, Michigan, outside the city of Flint, Michigan, United States. Opened in 1970, the mall is 1,272,397 square feet (118,209.5 m2) of leasable area. The mall has three anchor tenants: JCPenney, Macy's, and Play Big. It comprises more than 120 tenants, including a food court, and an external concourse called the Outdoor Village which also features a Barnes & Noble bookstore. The mall is located on Miller Road and Linden Road, near the junction of Interstate 69 (I-69) and I-75.
Genesee Valley Center was developed in 1970 by Shopping Centers, Inc. of Southfield, Michigan, a retail division of Detroit, Michigan-based Hudson's department stores. It was built as a one-level, enclosed shopping mall, consisting of a straight-line concourse with an anchor store at either end. Sears, the northern anchor, was the first store to open, doing so in May 1970. Hudson's followed two months later, with this location being the chain's largest store outside of Detroit. These two stores served as the northern and southern anchor stores to the mall, respectively. On August 8, 1970, Genesee Valley Center opened to the public. At the time, it comprised fifty-six tenants, including a Hamady Brothers supermarket and Cunningham Drug. By September, a Woolworth dime store had opened next to Sears.
In 1979, an eastern wing anchored by JCPenney was added to the mall. A mezzanine level with a food court was added in 1987. The Cunningham Drug Store was demolished for a wing featuring a Mervyns in 1993, Montgomery Ward was also added. These additions brought the mall to 1,300,000 square feet (120,000 m2) of gross leasable area, making it the largest mall in Michigan to be located north of Detroit. Woolworth was briefly downsized to a cosmetics-oriented prototype called Woolworth Express before closing entirely. In 2001, Montgomery Ward had closed the last of its store nationwide. The same year, Hudson's was renamed Marshall Field's, which itself became Macy's when the parent company of Marshall Field's was acquired. [Wikipedia]