This mall has so many elements from the late 90's/early 2000's. I wonder how mall developers went from colorful designs to the blandness of the past 15 years.

Excellent video, I dated my now wife of over 30 years there, began my young adult life being employed by that Sears for more than 16 years, would have been longer, but I could see the writing on the wall. Thanks again, really takes me back!

Kristen you hit it out of the park on this video. Great work

This was my favorite mall as a child. By the time I was in high school (2009) it was on the decline. My grandma refused to go after the shooting. It got a bad rep for violence after that. I went in 2019 and it was surreal. There were only like three stores open and it was dark and silent.

Cinematics on point :}

This is super upsetting, I live about 10 minutes away & this was my family's favorite place to go shopping when I was young. We haven't stepped foot in there in, as a family, in years.

Brilliant bittersweet walk through, thank you, very interesting! 💮🌼👍

Really well done. I worked at this mall from 2004 to 2006. Lots of great memories. My parents took me to East Towne (AKA Knoxville Center) on opening day. It was crammed full of shoppers. I still remember it. Now it's gone, leveled to become an Amazon distribution center. Thanks for the great documentation. A lasting tribute.

Excellent production. About the best quality I've seen of this type. The video, the narration. Congratulations.

Thank you for this video... I have very fond memories of this place! I used to go to the arcade there (Aladdin's Castle). I had friends whose first jobs were there. I worked at JC Penney in 2003. Fun fact, famous WWF/ WWE manager Mr. Fuji worked at the movie theater until his health worsened. This allowed me to think back on all the great memories I had there, so for that thank you!

Kristen, you have the best female narrating voice on these deal mall channels. I would love to see Sal and you duel narrate, like two news anchors, a dead mall explore. That would be so cool.

nice video kristin and ron, love the cinematic touch! 👍

Your voice is soothing and tours are fantastic! This made me happily and sadly miss my local mall, Fiesta Mall, and hopefully not soon, Superstition Mall. There is just something so tragically beautiful about these structures that sit waiting, not knowing their fate or perhaps they are just tired.

I kinda miss my moody mall goth days back in the early 2000s where I'd go up there and hang out with my fellow mall goths at the arcade (and this was before it had a Hot Topic) and we'd just get into various hijinx (and at one point, former pro wrestler and wrestling personality Mr. Fuji worked at the movie theater there years before his death). I went there when the JCPenney's was having its closeout sale, and you could just tell the mall was on its last legs, and I was only able to go a few more times back in 2018. I wish I could've gone one last time before it closed down, but this will have to suffice, and at least this is forever. Thank you for that.

The television in that last shot is absolutely gorgeous.

The intro music sounds like the High-Score music for Out-Run!

I use to get my hair cut in a little shop beside JcPenny's when I was a little girl!! So I have some good memories of East Towne Mall!!😂

Intro music is from a video game called Out Run... a game I spent way too many quarters on in college.

Also I love that line from Elizabethtown in there.

Sad. Looks like it is still in pretty good condition

This was amazing! Sorry I missed the premiere! So well produced. One of the most underrated channels. I love the cinematography.

I remember going to this mall so many times when I was younger. It's been demolished now and they're going to build an Amazon distribution facility where it was. The one thing I won't miss is the traffic. The roads in that area were designed horribly, so hopefully they clean some of that up. An interesting note about that Regal location though, until sometime around 2017 or 2018 when Regal moved their headquarters downtown it was the closest Regal Cinema to the company's headquarters which at the time were in the Halls area.

They also attempted to revive at one time by adding a "gourmet" farmers market that failed due to the over inflated prices of non local products.

Excellent video! I was able to visit for the first and final time on New Year’s Eve. It’s definitely one of my favorite dead malls I’ve visited so far. Thanks for making a video on it!

Will always be East Towne Mall to me. Sad to hear that it closed, in high school (in the late 80's) it was always busy. 15:20 I think that was Sears. To the right the white columns with the windows was a pet store. It used to have puppies or kittens in the window.

I grew up going to this mall, worked there, made countless friends there...RIP East Town Mall. 🥺

Fantastic production with so much background! Well done!

So many memories from the mid to late 90s here! So many movies with my best friend.

"Over the top whimsy" ... I LOVE your commentary Kristen!

Love love love it didn’t get the notification but saw it on the discord and came to watch... there was something so soothing about this whole video and yet so sad such a beautiful structure going to waste.

East Town Mall was my favorite place as a kid. My mom would us off with 10 bucks and a time for pickup, and we would shop and socialize for hours. Ten bucks in 1986 would buy me a Lone Wolf adventure book from Waldenbooks, a movie at the the cinema, a slice of pizza and a coke from Luca Pizza, and leave some change for arcade games at Aladdins Castle. A free cookie from that one place would top off the trip. Good memories, its a shame to see it go...

It was so thorough, you captured every angle. Great job!

Ironically it's now an Amazon distribution center. West Town Mall is doing well at this point.

This is so sad 😭 I use to love coming here all the time with my family. It just makes me so mad that one ass hole had to ruin it for everyone!

The changes in ambiance from one area of the mall to another is fastinating.

There was talk about the local government taking over the mall & using it for their offices, but I’m not sure what’s become of this. Remarkable video! Narration & filming are really sharp! 🙂

Love the video! Wonderful!

Such a good tribute to a beloved childhood place.

This place started to go down back in 2008. Dillard's pulling out, a shooting at the mall in 2008, sketchy looking people hanging around the entrance, did this place in. And the sad thing is, this mall has so much roaming place compared to West Town mall.

Great channel, love your video style. This one made me feel sad though…just feels tragic

Very good production values on this rather sad look back. The narration was very good. I think you got every nook and cranny in the whole building. Very tastefully done.

That Payless store hung on to the bitter end…of all the stores… It and the LensCrafters next to it (where I got my first ever pair of glasses) were the two constants. 5:44- To the right was originally a KayBee Toys. 7:34- That was the same time the map of the UT campus was painted on the floor. 22:45- The space available on the right was originally a Morrison’s Cafeteria. The left was a Ruby Tuesday’s.

The Knoxville mall looks very similar to both Aventura Mall with a Sawgrass Mills Mall feel here in South Florida. The scene where the food court sails reminds me of Sawgrass Mills Mall. 🦄☺️

im an 80s kid and now im gonna be 40 new years eve. this is nostalgic and a lil bit sad because its my youth being stuttered and forgotten. oh well online is where its at i guess. thanks for your work ♥️💫

Hey, it's 'Out Run's soothing 'Game Over' music!

The closing of this mall was all on the short sightedness of SIMON Property group. I spent 10 years as a Public Safety Officer, Supervisor, and eventually Assistant Director at West Town Mall. West Town was not owned by Simon, but East Town, or Knoxville Center was. I sat in a car with Tim Hill, The manager of both West Town and Knoxville center around 2006 and explained that the reputation of crime at Knoxville center along with it's small Public Safety Department would be it's downfall. Tim asked what was needed to turn it around. I told him you have to throw money at it and double the security department. Simon refused to do so, so the mall declined and died. In the late 90s and early 2000s Knoxville center had less than half of the Public Safety man hours that West Town did. East Knoxville was known for gang violence and drug activity. Mall Rats banned from West Town would often show up at Knoxville Center and create problems because there was no real sharing of information between the properties. In the 2000s, the in-house Public Safety was contracted out to IPC International. They were a company well known in the north for mall security. While that company invested a lot of money to improve West Town, Knoxville Center was not given a video system. In the end, Simon Property Group were their own worst enemy and instead of adapting to the needs of the mall, they let it go.

It is now an Amazon distribution site.

PLOT TWIST: Jeff Bezos owns the company that will eventually do the demolition lol

I was working that day... at the thrift store across the street... I wanted to take a walk around it on my 30 but chickened out because I didn't want to be sad. I wish I had... they bulldozed it. And in its place is an Amazon distribution center.

Kristin, this is a great video. The music set the mood perfectly. Was the mall as dark as it appears? A once thriving place for thousands of good people, met their friends to congregate and spend money. Maybe it can be re-purposed into apartments or a senior center. Thanks.

I worked in this Mall in the 80's

Knoxville is an awesome place to explore! New subscriber.

I grew up going to this mall, and still went to eat there pretty regularly up until a couple yrs ago.. I absolutely cannot believe this mall closed for good completely before i even hit my 30's.. I always thought something would be in there.. I get it that things change, but this just feels WRONG!!! The future looks bleak for children and families! Sad! And its all over the country! Is this the direction we want to go??? Not having malls is just un American.. Thanks Amazon!!! So so sad and not good in my opinion. This country has fallen so far from greatness..

Thank you for the nice content. 🤗 From the information you gathered, how likely is it to reopen as a mall, even if just a portion of the complex? Was it a long drive to get there?

You do such a great job on your videos,nice !

What a great shame, you could take that mall and land it here in the UK, specifically the south west/Devon area and it would probably do well, we don't have enough malls here :(

Some of the downfall was headache of getting in and out of the location coupled with some press coverage of crime around the mall.

I went by the old mall site Saturday thinking about all the times I had been to east towne mall now looking at the new Amazon building that was in the aprox location to the old Sears building I do miss the mall tho

A poignant version of "I Still Believe" pipes through the speakers. It's as if the mall is crying.

Loving the Elizabethtown quote!

Kristen (Hi from Puerto Rico!), after watching several videos of the death of this very mall (incl. Ace's) I fell yours have been the MOST ENTERTAINING and THOROUGH of them all (right pacing, right style, your soothing voice and more info than the others). Wonder if one of these days any of you RETAIL BLOGGERS would try any of "my neck of the woods" malls, particularly Plaza Las Americas, the US 15th (16th when the one in The Meadowlands, NJ opens fully) largest mall, which is LOCALLY OWNED or one of the other large malls (Simon has 2 malls locally). Closest mall to "DEAD STATUS" is my hometown's (Bayamon in Metro San Juan) Santa Rosa Mall with a 60-70% occupancy rate...

Excellent video. The last time I went in this mall was in late 2008. Actually one month after that shooting happened. I drove for JB Hunt and had a delivery at the Sam’s Club across the parking lot. When I went in the mall I did not know anything about the shooting. Did you do the video of the mall in February 2020? Or just upload the video then? I had no idea the mall was still functioning in 2020. I would love to walk around that mall again. It would bring back some memories.

West town mall wasn’t originally owned by Simon it was purchased in the 90’s by them and still going strong today, this mall saw a lot of success in its time

I liked this mall. I miss this mall. Bye bye mall.

The building looks nice (well, except for the carpet and the lack of the fountain). Sounds like location killed it, like so many others. Found out Namdar (ugh} owns Stratford Square in Bloomingdale IL, my former neighborhood mall. But I was lucky, there was always Fox Valley, Yorktown, Oak Brook Center and Woodfield to get my mall fix. Moved to Texas, and Collin Creek is no more. I remember when my sister first moved here and Collin Creek was new and shiny. There were other malls, like Prestonwood, which is long gone. Dallas proper is over malled, and Plano is plagued by failing strip malls, FWIW. About the only mall I know that's thriving is Stonebriar....

damn you know its bad when Belk leaves. Also, sad that the medical offices didn't work out.

You're an up and comer. I started a few years ago but stopped for 2 years lol Continuing doing more. But I gotta ask you how do you keep such a steady hand.

so weird to see space wasted like this

Nice video!! I also dig the music 😉

I got to work at spirit Halloween there in 2018 it was weird having the mall closed.

Is there another mall with a circus tent roof? Incredible.

The Knoxville Center will be another Amazon fulfillment center as was the case with Rolling Acres and Randall Park malls in Ohio.

West town mall wasn’t originally owned by Simon malls they merged with the original owners in 1996 and fully became a Simon mall and still to this day is doing well

Just to set the record straight on a few things and give a different perspective from your average dead mall commentary: Many people in town hated the remodeling of this mall in the late 90’s, and the (stupid) name change. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I heard people comment on how tacky it all looked afterwards, and many locals think that “volunteer orange” is just a garish, ugly color. Nonetheless people kept shopping there in decent numbers anyway, but less than before the changes, until online shopping slowly killed it. The buyout of the mall, and subsequent management change, finally accelerated the death of the place as they immediately raised the rent on existing tenants by 500%, and many of them had no choice but to abandon the already badly floundering ship. Some people like to seem like they really miss this mall, and I’ll never understand that (especially given that many of them obviously haven’t darkened the parking lot of it for years and years). I was in it many, many times mainly as a bizarre curiosity in the last 8 years or so, and to visit old high school friends who managed a shop there, or to see a movie (often totally alone in the theater). I was with that mall from the beginning to the end. It was really not that spectacular of a place architecturally speaking, especially after that really poor remodeling job, and now that it is gone I’m actually really happy. People can stop (largely pretending) that they care about it, the place can be demolished, and life can move on.

looks like a good place hate to see this go. oh well I'm going out to Bass Pro at Forest Fair Cincinnati it will be more of the same.. heartbreaking sometimes

does this mall have any connection with the company that own forest fair mall? the bright nickelodeon-esque colors reminds me of it a lot.

Any idea on what they are going to do with it?

january 31st is my bday 🥺🥺🥺 thas sad it died on my bday

West town mall wasn’t originally owned by Simon

This is more depressing to watch after seeing the Proper People's video on this place first...

Its just plain sad.