Council agreed unanimously Jan. 15 to award a contract just under $460,000 to D.H. Griffin Wrecking Company to demolish the mall’s main building. D.H. Griffin's bid was the lowest among 13 companies seeking the job.

City Manager Rodger Lentz told Council that a previous contract to remove asbestos from the building was nearly complete. City officials will meet now with D.H. Griffin for a pre-demolition conference and to set a start date. Work should be complete by this summer.

The contractor is expected to remove the building down to the slab. Parking lots will be left in place. The site will be marketed for redevelopment; a portion will be used for a stormwater project eventually. This does not affect the AMC theater or any outparcels along Tarboro Street.

Parkwood/Wilson Mall has existed since 1964 and most likely peaked in the 1990s as a premiere shopping location. It faltered in the 2000s and Hull Storey Properties closed it in 2013, leaving it mostly vacant and neglected. The City Council was able to buy it in 2023 and has been working to redevelop the site since then. The last tenant, Roses, left in 2025.

Timeline of the mall:

1964: Parkwood Shopping Center opens as a traditional strip shopping center/open air plaza, including 19 tenants and anchored by JCPenney, Winn-Dixie and Roses. Other tenants included Flowers Shoes, Singer, Barshay's, Kerr Drugs, Burton's, The Color Center, Mitchell Hairdressers, and Lynn's Hallmark.

1979: The center is enclosed and expanded into Parkwood Mall, adding major tenant Belk Tyler’s Department Store relocating from Nash Street. The mall includes 65 stores.

1990s-Early 2000s: The mall falters as vacancies soar. Nationally, the “big box” retailers (Walmart, Target, Sams Club) seek to open in free standing buildings, rather than malls.

2005: Hull Storey Properties buys Parkwood Mall, promising to upgrade and improve it. The company adds new signage, renaming it Wilson Mall. Carmike agrees to build a 10-screen theater to replace Parkwood Mall Triple. The Carmike was the first theater in North Carolina to have exclusively digital projectors. It was taken over by AMC in 2017.

2006: Belk announces it’s departing for the new Heritage Crossing shopping center, which was and is anchored by Target. Hull Storey tries to develop new anchors like Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear (2006-08) and then Rose’s.

2007: For the first time in 50 years, no new malls are opened in the U.S. This prompts Newsweek to declare malls obsolete.

Jan. 13, 2013 – Hull Storey closes Wilson Mall. The company announced plans to demolish the structure, only leaving JCPenney, the theater, Dollar Tree and Rose’s (the only remaining tenants) as the anchors of a new strip mall.

2016 – Hull Property Group proposes redevelopment of the mall as medical offices and apartments. The proposal doesn’t move forward.

October 2022 – The Wilson City Council announces plans to buy the Wilson Mall property for $3 million. Funding was made possible by the American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress as a way to re-energize the economy coming out of the COVID era.

June 2023 – The City of Wilson completes its purchase of the mall property, around 45 acres excluding some outparcels including the movie theater.

Summer 2024 – The City secures a Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant to pay for the mall’s demolition and construction of the stormwater facility. City staff begin the environmental assessment phase of the grant.

March 2025 – One of the mall’s first tenants, Rose’s is the last to close. Rose’s announces plan to move to Fikewood Shopping Center on U.S. 301 sometime this year.

April 2025 – FEMA cancels the BRIC Grant. The City had received only $100,000 of the funding for planning purposes.