Southtown Then and Now
Southtown Parking in 1960 and 2012
Southtown Center opened in 1960 with almost a million square feet of retail on 200 acres. Anchored by the Southtown Theatre and Monkey Wards department store, the mall was the first regional shopping facility south of the glorious 494 strip. Wards closed in the late 1990′s and was replaced with a Herberger’s. Mann’s Southtown Theatre was closed and razed in 1995. The area where the theater once stood has been re-branded by the city of Bloomington as the Penn–American District. Condos are going up on the corner and old Southtown has retooled to become a popular destination for bagel munching, coffee slurping and Mother’s Day shopping Best Buy employees.
