![]() This renovation also added the distinctive burnt-orange pyramid at the east end of the mall. It was later completely enclosed in 1975, by which time it had grown to more than 900,000 square feet (84,000 m 2) and around 70 stores. Winrock was built as an open-air mall with a screened canopy roof to protect shoppers from the elements, a first for New Mexico. In the film, the two ride a motorcycle through the mall while escaping from a bank robbery. ![]() In 1971, Winrock was featured in the American International Pictures release Bunny O'Hare, which starred Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine. Soon after, a new store was built as a replacement. Dillard's established their first store there in late 1971, when they rebranded the existing Fedway location. However, Winrock remained profitable for many years. In March 1965, the rival Coronado Center was dedicated a short distance away. Fox Winrock Theater, a freestanding movie theater off of Indian School Road, and an attached motor hotel opened in 1963. Kresge, and Safeway, with a Fedway store opening shortly afterward. The original tenants included Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, S.S. ![]() Winrock was New Mexico's first regional shopping center and was viewed as a symbol of progress and modernity, attracting around 30,000 visitors on its first day of operation. Architect Victor Gruen, who was a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, designed the mall. The $10 million project was a joint venture between the University of New Mexico, which owned the land, and soon-to-be Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller, who was also responsible for construction of the Bank of New Mexico Building around the same time. Winrock Shopping Center opened on March 1, 1961, on a 71-acre (29 ha) lot near the planned Coronado Freeway. This led to a 1958 meeting between then-UNM President Tom Popejoy and Winthrop Rockefeller, where they negotiated building a new regional shopping mall to be built on some of the last plots of UNM's East Mesa land. Soon enough, this would result in the need for the establishment of a retail area. This paved the way for new subdivisions and a new large population movement to this new part of Albuquerque. ![]() Ībout three decades later, the University of New Mexico began to sell off plots of its East Mesa site to residential developers, with the first 160 acres (65 ha) going to Ed Snow in 1953 and another 160 acres (65 ha) to Dale Bellemah in 1956. However, this idea was scrapped and the lot was left empty. The original intent UNM had with purchasing this lot was to transform it into a garden to produce vegetables for residential students. In June 1920, the University of New Mexico purchased a 480-acre (190 ha) lot on what was then known as Albuquerque's East Mesa. The town center is located on the site of the original Winrock Shopping Center, which opened in 1961 as the first regional shopping mall in New Mexico. The center is anchored by two Dillard's locations and a Regal 16-screen IMAX and RPX Theatre. Winrock Town Center is an open-air mixed-use development under construction in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States.
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