Amigoland Mall

Brownsville ITEC Center (formerly Amigoland Mall)

Location	Brownsville, Texas
Coordinates	25.9021°N 97.5104°W / 25.9021; -97.5104
Address	301 Mexico Blvd, Brownsville, TX 78520, USA
Opening date	1974
Closing date	1999 (renovated as Brownsville ITEC Center, 2002)
Developer	Melvin Simon & Associates
Owner	Texas Southmost College
No. of stores and services	52
No. of anchor tenants	4
Total retail floor area	647,000 sq ft (60,100 m^2)
No. of floors	1-2

Amigoland Mall ("Amigo" means "friend" in Spanish) was an enclosed shopping mall located in Brownsville, Texas. The former mall, which now houses a tech center, is now called the Brownsville ITEC Center.

The 647,000-square-foot (60,100 m²) mall, developed by Melvin Simon & Associates (now Simon Property Group), opened in downtown Brownsville in 1974, with Montgomery Ward, JCPenney (which also featured a JCPenney Supermarket), and Dillard's as anchors. Other early tenants included McCrory Stores, Walgreens, and a two-screen movie theater. It later gained Bealls as an additional anchor.

In 1999, both JCPenney and Dillard's relocated to nearby Sunrise Mall.^[1] The loss of these stores caused declining traffic at Amigoland.^[2] The bankruptcy of Montgomery Ward a year later left the older mall devoid of anchors and shortly afterward, the mall was shuttered.

In 2002, the vacant mall was converted to classrooms and a tech center for Texas Southmost College.^[3]

References

1. "JC Penney store moves into new location at Sunrise Mall Retail: Old location closes its doors. - Brownsville Herald: Local News". Archived from the original on 2019-08-10. Retrieved 2019-08-10.
2. http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/comments.php?id=P12477_0_1_0_C^{[permanent dead link‍]}
3. "Brownsville Economic Development Council". Archived from the original on 2006-02-14. Retrieved 2007-02-22.