RiverGate Mall has been a personal family gathering place since its beginning. As the mall faces an uncertain future, I wanted to look back at its history, and remember it as the vital community hub it once was.
RiverGate Mall’s Beginnings
RiverGate Mall opened Oct. 6, 1971, with 37 stores, including Cain-Sloan, Castner Knott, JCPenney, Jo-Ann Fabrics, McCrory, and Walgreens. It cost $25 million to build, and was the largest mall in Tennessee until Hickory Hollow Mall opened in 1978.
When RiverGate Mall opened, my Madison-based parents were ecstatic. In their teens, the mall immediately became a place to hang out with friends. Shortly after its opening, my mom got a job at World Bazaar, the World Market of the ‘70s. My dad frequented Ireland’s and still misses their steak and biscuits.
The Mall as a Community Hub
RiverGate Mall was built during the mall boom, when hundreds of malls in city suburbs began dotting the landscape across the U.S., and remained popular for decades. The original concept of a mall emphasized a combination of communal spaces and shopping, where communities could gather to shop, eat, and visit, while later malls built in the ‘80s and ‘90s focused primarily on consumerism.
RiverGate Mall hosted many community events, from milking contests to performances. It also became, like many malls, a vital third space for teens like my parents.
All four of my grandparents also loved RiverGate Mall. Two of them would meet at the mall with friends to exercise, bringing small weights to power walk its entire length, gossiping the whole time. They did this up until their 90s, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I know I’d still be able to find them there doing their fastest walk while exchanging the latest gossip if they were still alive.
My other grandmother, who still lives across the street, was a sales fiend. She’d get there before stores opened with her biggest purse, ready to smack anyone between her and a good sale. When the doors to JCPenney or Castner Knott’s were unlocked, she leaped into action, snatching any and all deals she could find, whether or not she actually needed them. She took me clothes shopping several times a year, and I learned to stay well clear of that purse to avoid any accidental smacks.
For my family and Nashville as a whole, RiverGate Mall served as a community hub for decades. It survived the 1995 tornado that tore off its roof and injured dozens. While the mall is still open today, it’s a vestige of what it once was.
A closed KB Toys store in RiverGate. (Larry Hachucka / Wikimedia Commons)
RiverGate’s Decline
In 1998, RiverGate Mall was sold to the same company that owned Hickory Hollow Mall and CoolSprings Galleria. (Thanks to a Reddit user, here’s one of their commercials that I remember so well!) The company attempted to make it profitable with recently built Opry Mills as competition. In 2013, that company sold RiverGate to an offshore investor. Stores steadily moved out during those years, and while a handful remain, the mall is mostly empty.
RiverGate’s decline mirrors the larger decline of malls in America due to e-commerce, recessions, and an emphasis on buying local. But while malls no longer look like the shopping experience they once were, they do have the potential to be transformed into something that still serves the community.
RiverGate’s Future
In 2024, RiverGate was listed for sale, and earlier this year, we learned a Cincinnati-based company was eyeing a portion of the mall for a mixed-use project that would include public green spaces, a senior living facility, apartments, townhomes, retail, and restaurants.
The Bellevue Center Mall has undergone a similar transformation to the one proposed for RiverGate, while One Hundred Oaks has been turned into a Vanderbilt medical center with shopping and restaurants surrounding it. KIPP Antioch Global High School has moved into what was formerly Hickory Hollow Mall’s Macy’s.
Though much work remains with some of these developments, these projects show that malls can still be community hubs, a gathering place for everyone regardless of age.
