Mid-City Mall

Mid City Mall is a shopping mall in Louisville, Kentucky's Highlands area. While called a mall, and containing an enclosed shopping area, it has features atypical of suburban American malls, such as a comedy club, bar, grocery store and public library. A 1994 article in Louisville's Courier-Journal newspaper argued that the mall could be considered the "crossroads" of Louisville, and described it as being "only part shopping center, because it is also community center, courthouse square and retirement-village rec room."

In November 2024, the 11.5-acre Mid City Mall property went up for sale, drawing proposals for redevelopment. Some filings in 2025 indicated plans for mixed-use development, including a grocery store.

Mid City Mall was built on the site of the German Protestant Orphan's Home, which was founded in 1851 and moved to the 10-acre (40,000 m²) Highlands site in 1902. It remained there until 1962, but the structure and grounds were sold for $500,000 in 1959 to mall developers. The aging structure was demolished and the orphanage moved to Bardstown Road and Goldsmith Lane.

Developers then built what became Kentucky's second enclosed mall. The initial plan, unveiled in 1958, called for a $7.5 million, five-story mall with a pool in front on the Bardstown Road side and penthouse apartments on the top floor. The plan was gradually whittled down to a one-story plan with a lower level. The main developer of the project was Guy E. McGaughey Jr., an attorney from Lawrenceville, Illinois. The concept of an enclosed mall was very new; there were only a handful of them in the US at the time.

Construction began in March 1962 and the mall was completed in October of that year at a cost of $3 million. The shopping center formally opened on October 10, 1962, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Louisville Mayor William O. Cowger and Jefferson County Judge Marlow Cook. The mall contained 180,000 square feet (17,000 m²) of leasable space and 22 stores.

McGaughey played an active role in the mall's early years. He personally managed the Office Lounge and was arrested by the police in 1963 for drunkenness, in what he called a shakedown. On June 21, 1964, an early morning fire that started in the Cherokee Book and Card Stop (also owned by McGaughey) caused $200,000 (equivalent to $2,054,130 in 2024) in damage to the mall. In 1965, police investigated after mall tenants complained of pinball machines in the lobby. In 1968, McGaughey was convicted of battery of a former waitress at the Office Lounge. He was convicted of allowing after-hours drinking in 1968, and in 1969 a judge ordered the Office Lounge and bowling alley closed over fire hazards. He was sued by the IRS in 1971 for not paying his taxes in the 1960s, and by investors in the mall in 1972 for diverting lease revenue from mall tenants to himself rather than paying investors. McGaughey settled the lawsuits but began to fall behind on mortgage payments and stopped paying for maintenance of the mall.

By the mid-1970s, the Bardstown Road corridor was in decline, and local leaders saw the sprawling mall as the epicenter of the problems. Complaints about crime, poor maintenance and deterioration of the structure were common. To force improvements to the mall, the surrounding neighborhood associations banded together and started a boycott of the mall in February 1975. Partially as a result of the boycott, the mall went into foreclosure in Fall 1976, and receivership on January 1, 1977. By the end of the 1970s the mall was sold to the Metts family, who were more willing to improve the property and work with neighborhood leaders. Inspired by the successful efforts to force positive change in the Mid City Mall situation, many who were involved formed the Highlands Commerce Guild in 1977, which continues to work to revitalize the Bardstown Road corridor as of 2007.

Shortly after the change of ownership, land was leased to allow construction of restaurants in the part of the parking lot nearest Bardstown Road. The Skyline Chili remains but the other location began as Gatti's Pizza in 1979, became a Dairy Queen in 1997, and Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers in 2015. In 1988, a study of traffic along Bardstown Road found that the road in front of Mid-City Mall had by far the most vehicle accidents of any mid-block area from downtown to Bardstown Road's junction with I-264, mostly due to drivers turning left from the mall. It suggested the number of entrances to the mall be reduced and one large one created, where a traffic light would be installed, and this recommendation was carried out 1989.