Livonia Mall opened on October 29, 1964 as the second mall to be constructed in Livonia with
Kresge and
Sears as the original anchors. The site had been zoned for agriculture and was rezoned by the Livonia City Council for commercial use. A farm house, a large barn and other agricultural structures were demolished before construction began. The Livonia Mall became one of the first enclosed shopping malls to open in the state of Michigan. The site now hosts one of the many strip malls located within Livonia and Metro Detroit. The mall was developed by the Schostak Brothers as an enclosed mall. Livonia Mall remained largely unchanged until the late 1980s.
Children's Palace, a toy store chain, was added to the west end of the mall in 1989. This store closed three years later and was eventually converted to a
paintball arena which closed in the mid-2000s.
Value City bought the Crowley's store and two other mall-based Crowley's stores (at
Universal Mall and
Macomb Mall) in 1999, operating these as
Crowley's Value City but later removing the
Crowley's name. Konover Properties bought the mall in 2005. By 2007,
Dollar Tree,
GameStop,
Jo-Ann Fabrics and
Foot Locker were the only national chains with a presence there (besides the anchor stores), and the remaining tenants were local, independent shops. The mall also lost its Mervyns store in early 2006 when the chain exited Michigan. Konover Properties announced plans in 2007 for a possible redevelopment of the mall, including the addition of a new
big box retailer. Originally, plans called for the demolition of everything but the Sears and Value City stores. Demolition began in February 2009. ==Redevelopment==