Something new and refreshing is happening at Ward Parkway Center

By Kathy Feist

There’s something new and imaginative happening at Ward Parkway Center. 

It started with Cupid’s Arrow performing love songs next to the AMC Movie Theaters on Valentine’s Day.

Then came a children’s storybook walk, with large, colorful pages from a children’s book placed sandwich-board style throughout the mall. 

Finally the Center’s much promoted MallArts exhibit in April was well received for its impressive gallery filled with different art mediums from well-known artists in the area. 

Since Fidelis Realty Properties out of Houston purchased the 550,000 sq. ft. shopping mall two years ago, the attractions have become more creative, more smile inducing, literally more colorful than your typical shopping center.

“We’re working on unusual stuff not just to get attention but to also feed back to the community and nonprofits,” says Senior Property Manager Fred Spille. Spille, a Hickman Mills native, lives in Topeka. Due to his successful career managing retail properties, including Mall of America and the Forum Shops at Caesar Palace, Spille was pulled out of retirement a year and a half ago to help with Ward Parkway Center.

“I thought ‘This is a unique one here.’ The Center has had a lot of different face lifts– some good, some not so good,” he recalls. “[The job] was an opportunity to fix things that needed to be done, bring my experience in and reimagine what this place could be.” 

One of the first changes was to beef up security. Fidelis Properties installed 30 cameras with 24-hour monitoring. Curfews were changed to 6 pm every day, not just weekends. “We’re really enforcing it now,” says Spille. “[Visitors] realize this isn’t the place to go and cause trouble.”

The comeback mall 

Spille, along with Assistant Manager Kayla Threlkeld, would like to see Ward Parkway Center become the community hub that it was after it was first built in 1959. 

“It was the community town square back in those days,” says Spille. “Then [malls] gradually became babysitters. Then they kind of fell out of flavor.”

Only 40 years ago, the US had 2500 indoor shopping malls. That number has decreased to around 800. Ward Parkway Center is one of the few that has experienced a revival. The addition of Trader Joe’s in 2011 and state-of-the-art movie theater improvements in 2012 created filled parking lots on the north end. The addition of outdoor-facing retailers, such as Home Goods, Old Navy, TJ Maxx, followed. Finally, an award-winning outdoor restaurant pavilion was built in 2019 on the south end, replacing a vacant Dillard’s department store. 

The indoor retailers and south pavilion restaurants have struggled, while the rest of the Center has thrived.

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Coming soon 

The Pavilion has become the community center for weekend summer concerts and Christmas tree lighting celebrations. (Concerts this year are on Saturdays beginning June 6th with Mr. Stinky Feet at 10:30 am and Levee Town at 7 pm. See list below.) But this is typical behavior for many shopping centers. 

Spille would like to broaden the visitors’ experience, finding activities that bring them inside, out of the oppressive summer heat–or winter cold. 

Already, a second children’s storybook walk has been installed. Visitors can enjoy an ice cream cone with their child while strolling and reading Aubri’s Story: Rising Above Bullying by Crystal Ellison. 

Teaspoon Boba will open this summer in the former Claire’s store near the north atrium. 

On June 12, Ward Parkway Center will install a new Neighborhood playground at the atrium outside AMC Theaters.  The miniature village will have a hospital, news room, theater, etc. for children to act out their imagination. (The Center is looking for sponsors on the project.)

A newly named 3rd Space Cultural Center where MallArts was held is being built out into several 14- by 15- foot open spaces. These spaces will be used for craft shows, live art workshops, real world learning centers and art exhibitions. A second MallArts exhibit is planned for July. The Cultural Center is located on the first level on the east side near the escalator. 

Contributing local artists Whitney Kerr Jr, Marcus Harris and Shay Werner have art throughout the Center. Another contributor, art restoration specialist Scout Marshall becomes a docent for the Cultural Center. 

When all is done, Spille hopes to collaborate with area schools. 

Spille and Threlkeld’s list of ideas for a reimagined Ward Parkway Center is a long one. And it keeps building. 

“The synergy keeps growing,” says Spille. “Because from doing one of these things, other things grow out of it.”

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