Miles of tunnels run beneath abandoned Detroit mall
DETROIT -- Countless shoppers visited metro Detroit's Northland Center mall during its 61 years of business.
Yet only a few ever saw the elaborate system of service tunnels that still exists beneath the nation's first regional shopping mall, which closed last April and could face demolition as early as this summer.
The underground tunnels opened with the mall in 1954 and were primarily used for making truck deliveries to Northland's stores, but also for storage, workshop space and even nuclear bomb shelters.
The tunnel network begins with a winding roadway that branches off into passageways connecting subterranean rooms, decrepit stairwells and non-working elevator shafts. Narrow, barely walkable tunnels extend to the mall's old central power plant as well as a now-closed police substation and a nearby Firestone garage.
The entire network runs several miles and includes an astounding 484 rooms, according to Jerry Witkowski, a former code enforcement official for Southfield. The tunnels emerge at two large garage doors at opposite ends of the mall.
"It's just room after room after room like this," Witkowski said. "It's like a labyrinth."
Cut off from power and heat, the dark passageways are currently navigable only by flashlight and have a post-apocalyptic look and feel. A film crew used the gritty surroundings late last year to shoot action scenes for a movie.
Several rooms are still filled with mall leftovers, such as obsolete computer parts and TVs that weren't sold during last year's Northland liquidation auction. Other rooms are locked behind metal doors and might never be opened again.
The rooms are littered with headless mannequins, piles of fur coats, furniture and even a Santa Claus statue. Another room has a mysteriously long conveyor belt and several 1980s arcade games with the electronic innards ripped out.
Gaven King, Northland's former head of security, who is still employed to guard the site, knew of no tunnel trespassing or mall break-ins since Northland closed.
He and Wassenberg do recall how there were once yellow-and-black nuclear fallout shelter signs posted in the tunnels. However, each of those Cold War relics disappeared during the mall's final months and likely were snapped up as souvenirs.
Gallery: Tunnels show history of Northland
Precursor to other suburban malls
Northland's unique system of service tunnels was one of several 20th-century innovations built into the Victor Gruen-designed mall.
Originally developed as an open-air shopping center by the J.L Hudson Co., Northland proved that people were willing to bypass the downtown Detroit department stores and do their shopping in the emerging suburbs.
Northland inspired numerous other shopping mall developments and was expanded several times, becoming an enclosed mall in the early 1970s. The 1.4-million-square-foot building finally shut its doors last year following a long and steady decline in business and number of tenants.
In December, the city of Southfield bought the 114-acre property for $2.4 million to gain control over the site and its future redevelopment.
City officials also are in the process of hiring professionals to devise a plan for redeveloping Northland into a future mixed-use project and to help determine which mall buildings — if any — could possibly be reused, said Al Aceves, executive director of the Southfield Downtown Development Authority.
Most or all of Northland's underground tunnels would likely be razed as part of the site's demolition, which is estimated to cost $8 million to $10 million and likely take a full year. Aceves said he hopes the city can start fielding demolition proposals by the summer.
"We're going to have a big hole to fill with dirt," Aceves said.