In Antioch in the 1980s and ’90s, Hickory Hollow Mall was the spot.
The 1.1 million-square-foot behemoth opened in 1978 as one of the state’s first two-tiered malls. At the time, it was the largest retail space in the state too, surpassing the now-for-sale RiverGate Mall, which opened in 1971.
North Davidson retail property opened in 1971, offers Target, Dillard’s, J.C. Penney
Teens would flock to Hickory Hollow’s food court, The Food Garden, to get Angelo’s Picnic Pizza, or to the arcade The Gold Mine (later known as Tilt and then Galaxy Arcade) to play games. Upon opening, the on-site movie theater was playing Grease. In its heyday, the mall had 137 tenants, but that number dwindled to a mere 12 stores in 2012, earning Hickory Hollow’s status as what’s known as a dead mall — a deteriorating, low-traffic shopping center, also known as a ghost mall. While local entrepreneurs sought to revive the center as Global Mall at the Crossings around that time, the site officially closed in 2019.
Metro Nashville purchased the mall site in 2022 for $24 million and its accompanying office building for $20 million, with plans to redevelop the site finalized in summer 2024. By the time Mayor Freddie O’Connell took office in 2023, the interior of the mall was in “terribly, terribly rough shape,” and it was extremely unlikely to return to its mall status, says Alex Apple, spokesperson for the mayor’s office.
As demolition begins on the former Hickory Hollow Mall, many Nashville natives are reminded of their teenage memories. With fewer traditional malls and some restrictions on mall access, where will teens of today make their own memories?
Global Mall entrance, March 2025
“I like going to the mall,” says Stratford High School student Miriam Martinez Medina. “I like window-shopping. It gives you something to do. I don’t like being at home, so I like going out, and if going to the mall is my last resort, then I’ll go. I like seeing new things. I like seeing what’s up-to-date. That interests me, even if I don’t buy anything.”
Martinez Medina attends an after-school program called Top Floor through the nonprofit Martha O’Bryan Center. If she’s not participating in Top Floor or the nearby ACE Mentor Program to learn more about careers in construction, engineering and architecture, she’s riding around looking for a place to eat with friends. If that doesn’t work out, they’ll hit up Opry Mills mall.
Going to the mall alone is a no-no, at least according to a sample of four Stratford High School teens. Getting food from Auntie Anne’s and Panda Express? That’s a yes. Two of the Stratford teens have their first jobs at a mall. They say they sought out mall jobs because they pay better than fast-food jobs.
“They get paid a lot more and they have to put up with a lot less,” says Stratford student Langston Glass Jr.
As of September 2021, people younger than 18 must be accompanied by a parent or another adult after 3 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays at Opry Mills. Management tells the Scene this policy may apply to “other select days as deemed appropriate by shopping center management” as well. The Mall at Green Hills and CoolSprings Galleria do not have such restrictions.
The restrictions are for safety purposes, according to a statement from Opry Mills: “We continuously invest in our industry-leading safety and security program, and the introduction of a Youth Supervision Program supports these efforts. … Requiring adults to accompany youths during specific hours at the center aims to create a safe and family-friendly shopping environment for our shoppers.”
Alexandra Lange, author of Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, tells the Scene that malls instituting curfew hours is relatively common, and not an especially new trend. Minnesota’s massive Mall of America was one of the first to create such a policy in 1996.
“Freaking out about teens and malls actually has been going on for quite a while,” Lange says.
Opry Mills Mall
A 19-year-old shooter opened fire at Opry Mills in 2020, but there were no injuries. In December 2023, a fight between teenagers led to a false shots-fired call and evacuation due to the sound of metal chairs hitting the floor — three teens were arrested for disorderly conduct. In February, when a domestic violence altercation broke out at Chili’s, mallgoers panicked and exited the mall in a rush.
But according to Lange, incidents like these loom larger in people’s minds thanks to TikTok.
“If teens are fighting at one mall in America and it goes viral on TikTok, then people immediately extrapolate that to ‘teens are fighting at all the malls in America,’ and the mall owners freak out and start instituting these policies,” Lange says.
In her book, Lange writes that the curfew policies are not enforced evenly across races. After the Mall of America policy was instituted, teens of color almost immediately won a lawsuit related to inequitable policy enforcement.
“I think that teenagers — because they’re loud, because sometimes they’re a little bit more indiscriminate in their movements, because they do lack some of the impulse control that adults have — are felt to be threatening by adults, especially when they’re in groups, even if they’re basically just hanging out and goofing around,” Lange says.
Teenager Teroz Dowell feels the weight of this sentiment. “Kids and people around our age tend to go to the mall and they get into fights, make a bunch of threats that they shouldn’t make, and do a bunch of crazy stuff,” he says.
Davidson County Juvenile Court Clerk Lonnell Matthews says juvenile crime has been declining overall since 2013. There are certain types that are going up, he says, including property crime, vandalism, theft and burglary. But more serious crimes like aggravated assault and homicide have seen rates decline or stay the same in the past decade. Matthews believes in the old adage, “Idle minds are the devil’s playground,” so he says it’s important to make sure young people have positive, welcoming environments to hang out in after school.
“Some people probably instead of hanging out at the mall with their friends and at least having a space where they can just not be bored, they’ll turn to other things like going out and drinking or doing drugs or something — doing things they shouldn’t do — when they could just go to the mall and at least not make, like a crazy choice,” Dowell says.
But it’s not just about boredom. Matthews says it’s very important that teens have a sense of belonging, in a group and outside of school. He says that need is a reason why some teens turn to gangs.
Stratford student Martinez Medina echoes the sentiment. She finds her belonging at after-school programs — or dining out with her friend group. As of this year, students weren’t allowed to loiter in the Stratford building after school or leave the cafeteria unattended to eat lunch.
“I think it has to do with the type of environment you place yourself in,” Martinez Medina says. “I feel like, if somebody places themselves in an environment where they see people do all these bad things that are crimes, and it becomes so normalized to them that they think it’s right, then they go and do it because they saw other people do it.”
Teens are cognizant of adverse childhood experiences and struggles at home too — circumstances that can make a person more prone to crime.
“Sometimes it’s positions that you don’t put yourself in, that you’re born into,” says Stratford student Glass. “Sometimes you gotta steal to make a living.”
Matthews says restrictions on teens can be a trauma response to violent incidents that loom large in people’s minds — whether at a mall, a bus stop, a park or a school. In the spring of last year, a teen shot and killed another teen at a park in Bellevue. A teen shot and killed another teen at downtown Nashville’s WeGo bus station in November. In January of this year, a teen shot and killed another teen before turning the gun on himself at Antioch High School.
“I think we have to really have some serious dialogue around that so that we can comfortably address, recognize and acknowledge the trauma, but also look for resolution,” Matthews says.
“How do we restore? How do we get over the harm that we experience that even puts us in a position to think we have to put up these safeguards, or we have to put up these barriers, or these guardrails for young people?”
Matthews says teens lose an opportunity to learn about social interaction when they are shut out of public spaces.
“Interpersonal skills, I definitely think some of that can be lost when we don’t give young people access,” Matthews says. “It’s not just the restriction — it’s giving them the freedom to try out social skills as they’re developing.”
Hickory Hollow Mall, 1978
These days, when it comes to malls, only the strong survive, says Lange. She notes that it’s not surprising to see some close, because the country has been “over malled” since the 1980s — meaning the United States has too much retail space per capita compared to other industrialized countries. The closing of Hickory Hollow Mall and the possible sale of RiverGate Mall, for example, could simply mean that there were too many malls in proximity.
Nashville was home to an iconic theme park like no other in the country. Then it was shuttered for ‘no compelling reason.’
Nashville youth can at times struggle to find after-school activities. Matthews recalls that in his youth, downtown Nashville wasn’t much of a destination, but he and his friends could go to Laser Quest — a now-shuttered laser-tag facility on Second Avenue. He and his fellow Hume-Fogg High School students could go to Manny’s House of Pizza for lunch. Then they had the Opryland USA theme park.
“When you were a teenager, you wanted to work at Opryland because on Sundays, they closed the park and all the workers got to go in for free and ride all the rides, and you got to bring three or four friends with you,” Matthews recalls.
Skating rinks and bowling alleys have dwindled, especially in Nashville, where commercial rent continues to rise alongside residential. Matthews points to all-ages music venue Rocketown as a good option, where kids feel like the space is just for them.
“Do I feel like my kids, especially as they head into their teenage years, have enough opportunities for them to have a really positive social life within Nashville?” Matthews says. “Probably not, at this point.”
Lonnell Matthews
Teens can hang out in the park if the weather allows, or play sports at a community center. But not all teens are interested in sports. Despite Nashville Public Library locations offering dedicated spaces for teens, those might not appeal to all, either. The mall provides a lot of necessities for teens — a space that can be accessed without a driver’s license or money for entry. There are public restrooms and shelter from the elements. And as Stratford’s Top Floor college and career coordinator Josie Greene points out, the buy-in is low, which is important for teens who may be responsible for a portion of the household income.
“Even for myself, I can’t afford to go bowling every weekend,” Greene says. “The light bill obviously has to be the main concern, so bowling or skating, or other things that are going to cost money, are going to be secondary.”
Business owners behind the early malls of the 1950s and 1960s wanted teens to come, even hosting fashion shows and teen dance parties. Arcades were instituted in malls in the 1980s to give teens their own space and segregate them from the typical mom shopper.
Teenagers like Dowell would love to play some old-school arcade games. Because the Dave & Buster’s at Opry Mills keeps the same youth policy as the rest of the mall, high schoolers were denied the opportunity to go there after prom. While several barcades like Game Terminal and Pins Mechanical Co. allow teens in during certain hours, others like Up-Down and No Quarter don’t allow teens at all.
“Arcades were initially seen as a way to have teens at the mall, attract teens to the mall, but kind of keep them in their own space,” Lange says.“The idea of having an arcade behind a curfew really doesn’t make any sense at all. … It is depressing that this thing that is fun for young people then gets separated out from the young people who probably need it the most.”
“If I’m thinking about it from the perspective of a teen, I’m probably agitated that every time I walk in here, you’re gonna ID me, or you ask questions about my parents,” says Matthews. “I’m just trying to go to Dave & Buster’s to play some video games.”
Councilmember Joy Styles — whose District 32 is home to the Global Mall — says part of the space’s new plan will be to honor the mall’s memories, including photos supplied by the public and even a mini museum of sorts. If you mention the Hickory Hollow Mall to some longtime Nashvillians, you’ll be flooded with stories, Styles says — of first jobs, Santa and Easter Bunny photos, shopping for school dances.
The plan balances a desire for a community space with retail where Metro can profit via leases. When it’s done, Styles says, it’ll be a place for all people to congregate again, and will include artist housing, green space and walking paths, in addition to a WeGo transit hub. There is already a library, a community center, a playground and an ice rink on site. Youth are a priority in the new development, she says.
Civic Design Center's Eric Hoke says mall redevelopment is 'smart growth'
“The community input process involved very heavily requesting things for youth to be able to do after school,” Styles says. “So you will see on the site some youth mental health services as well as youth socializing activities.”
Mayor’s office spokesperson Apple reiterates that the forthcoming site is intended for everyone.
“The Global plan is to transform this old mall site into a walkable, regional destination that, yes, whether you’re a young person, a retiree or anywhere in between, you would find this a place that enhances your quality of life,” he says. “That enhances the feeling of community, regardless of which necessary feature you’re most interested in.”
As a nearly 30-year-old from a rural area, I personally seem to have missed the heyday of the mall. But I did have a brief obsession with the music video for “I Think We’re Alone Now,” which features footage from ’80s pop star Tiffany’s mall concert tour. The choice to tour malls was made because the artist, 15 at the time, needed a safe place for teen fans to gather that wasn’t a bar. The trend continued into this millennium with events like teen fans of Twilight gathering at malls to meet the movie’s stars.
The mall can also introduce teens to new ideas and cultures, Matthews says.
“You have this great diversity that lives here, and it’s all about meeting new people, finding out about different cultures and backgrounds and different ways of living,” he says. “And if you don’t build those interpersonal skills, if you don’t really get to interact with some freedom, maybe you lose those opportunities to be able to share and grow from.”
“Can you make places safe and make it welcoming?” asks Matthews. “I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.”
