Shopping centers come in all shapes and sizes, and their drawing cards are expanding dramatically in the Roanoke Valley.
Written by Dan Smith / Photos by Dan Smith. Photo above: Tanglewood has evolved dramatically in recent months and now includes a YMCA and Carilion Children’s healthcare unit.
In today’s shopping mall, you can do a heck of a lot more than shop. You can:
- Have your child’s earache treated
- Play a few games of pickleball
- Eat a healthy vegan lunch
- Take your morning run and follow it with a weight-lifting session
- Play a round of faux golf
- Have your car tuned up
- Get a haircut
- Buy healthy, local produce
- Purchase vintage clothing
- And a lot more
Commercial developer John Garland is precise about the definition of a mall: “It is a mix of retail, eateries and entertainment surrounding an indoor circulation and activity space with all of it accessible from that indoor space.” His own 16 West meets that definition, he said, but the purist might insist it doesn’t because it is in the middle of downtown Roanoke and not in some suburban parking lot.
In any case, he’s philosophical: “I’m honestly perplexed about what changed to create the demise of malls. I know an early expansion of Crossroads Mall was Woolco, [a] predecessor to Walmart. It drew business away from the mall. Anchor stores [such as Sears and JCPenney] struggled to compete.
“16 West has migrated to health and wellness, crafters, and small eateries. We struggle to keep the building viable and the bills paid. Tenants work hard to compete and eke out a living. We are reinventing ourselves once again since Crafteria left at the end of the year.”
Matt Huff, president of Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group, gave this perspective: “Retail development has always followed two basic principles for success: access and visibility. People have to be able to see stores from the road and easily be able to get their cars in and out.
“Traditional enclosed malls once drew larger crowds which overcame the obstacle of not having great visibility. That is not the case as much anymore…Valley View has been able to maintain relatively strong occupancy as a regional retail destination.
“Conversely, we are seeing many more ‘outparcels’ in core retail areas like Tanglewood, Electric, and Franklin roads because these maximize visibility and use valuable parking lot space to bring in more retail revenue.”
Malls were a Roanoke innovation in Virginia. The first mall in the Commonwealth was Crossroads, which opened in 1961. That opening was also the fifth in the nation. Close behind came Towers later that year, and Roanoke-Salem Plaza (now Roanoke-Salem Business Center) opened in 1962.
The big regional centers—Tanglewood and Valley View—opened with considerable fanfare, including a black-tie celebration for Valley View, in 1973 and 1985, respectively. There has not been a major new mall opening since the latter, but expansions, coincidental and unofficial mergers, and contractions have been regular events.
Tanglewood and Valley View are “regional” malls by definition, exceeding 400,000 square feet each. No other mall in the Valley is close to those sizes. Unofficially, there are north of 25 shopping centers of various descriptions in the Roanoke Valley.
Until recently, indoor and strip malls have mostly been confined to retail outlets, grocery stores and restaurants. One of the prime movers of mall change has been, of all things, Carilion Clinic, the region’s largest health care organization. Carilion has most recently become a major player at Tanglewood Mall.
“Bringing new life to locations whose utility has changed over time is nothing new for Carilion Clinic or the broader healthcare industry,” said Don Halliwill, executive vice president and CFO. “Long before our Carilion Children’s and Carilion Mental Health expansions at Tanglewood, repurposing existing structures has been integral to our strategy to expand existing services and introduce new services that support our mission.”
The most recognized example is what’s now known as the Riverside Campus. Another example is the Carilion Institute for Orthopaedics and Neurosciences on Franklin Road, previously the short-lived location for the Ukrop’s grocery store.
Halliwill said a “common theme with these locations is improving access to care and services and strategically bringing new life to spaces that benefit our entire community…Our Tanglewood Mall approach was based on successful blueprints from the past two decades.”
Megan Baker became Roanoke County’s economic development director three years ago, just as the county began its transformation of the Highway 419/Franklin Road intersection, concentrating on the Tanglewood Mall area.
It was referred to as the Town Center Plan and was the beginning of a plan “to reshape retail across the county,” she said. “Before COVID, the Town Center concept was popular…We were dreaming big.” COVID-19 hit hard in the early 2020s.
Then, the YMCA and Carilion jumped in with their major expansions (a workout center from the Y and a Children’s Clinic for Carilion) to add a solid anchor. Those additions were significant, bringing in hundreds of people per day, and employing hundreds more. Traffic these days is not a problem. The next phase, according to the county’s assistant director of marketing, Alex Jones, could include residences “on the mall property.”
It has been, said Baker, “a natural evolution…We are actively chasing business, and retail is one of our main buckets.” It is a Valley-wide collaborative effort.
“We are stressing working together in the long term,” said Jones. “The only part that’s missing is that of a hotel or residences.” Valley-wide’s definition includes considerable attention to Hollins, the Franklin corridor and the Starkey Road areas. Tanglewood, said Jones, “is the catalyst.”
Hall Associates President Stuart Meredith was with Glasgow Realtors when it leased Tanglewood in 1973. He said the success of malls over the years has been simple: easy parking (whether real or imagined). “It is difficult going to a popular place when it’s hard to park,” he said. “Strip malls have parking in front…People are not as inclined to walk by a lot of other places to get where they want to go.
“I’ve been in this business 53 years and everything changes. As they change, we evolve back to where we were. In 12 years, probably something else takes its place. People crave change. When condos came out, everybody wanted one, then nobody, and now, people want one again.”
Huff elaborated: “Demographics play a huge role in determining what retailers will and won’t come to our market. Retailers have extremely sophisticated tools to determine total number of people, houses, traffic, and available income for their goods in a market.”
“Carilion going to Tanglewood was a very good second generation use for this retail space,” Huff said. “It complements the retail and provides convenient locations for patients to receive treatment.
“Retailers have also come to realize that they can usually [triple or quadruple] their sales per square foot by being in a well-located, high-visibility, free-standing location versus a more traditional in-line location or mall.
“We can’t talk about retail without addressing the changes brought about by online shopping. For a while, retail took a hit as the market didn’t know what consumer preference would be. Most retailers have settled on a hybrid approach of providing both online and brick-and-mortar stores.
“I don’t think the definitions of shopping centers or malls are changing. The demand and spending habits of the consumer are changing and forcing development and investment into different categories and delivery models.”
The story above first appeared in our May/June 2026 issue.
