HUNTSVILLE, AL – For the past 20 years, Huntsville’s Parkway Place Mall has been the center of attention for many passing by on Memorial Parkway.

To celebrate this milestone, Parkway Place is hosting an anniversary event starting at 12:00 on Saturday, December 03.

Events include:

12-12:30 p.m.: A professional magic show with Lance Johnson
12:30-3 p.m.: Meet-and-greet with mural artist Jessie Andrews
1-3 p.m.: Free face painting and balloon art
1-4 p.m.: Live music from Lowery Riethmaier
1-3 p.m.: Freeze modeling with models from the PAMA Agency
12-4 p.m.: Free cookie cake and a live decorating session at Great American Cookie
1-3 p.m.: Storytime and photos with the Christmas Grouch and Little Who

The anniversary celebration will also include a throwback photo challenge for a $25 gift card. Guidelines for the gift card challenge can be found here.

The original Parkway Shopping Center opened in 1957 with an open-air style venue with 25 stories. After a tornado destroyed the south side of the shopping center in 1974, the center was closed down until 1976, when CBL Properties updated the property to become a single-level enclosed mall and named the location Parkway City Mall.

Initially housing 467,000 square feet of retail space, the mall would be expanded in 1984 and 1994 to compete with Huntsville’s largest mall: Madison Square Mall. The stores and property owners experienced the pains of the economic downturn in 2001, in which various stores in the malled closed down, including Montgomery Ward, one of three major anchors to the mall. In 2002, Parkway City Mall was slowly renovated and reconstructed, and eventually received the name of Parkway Place that stands strong 20 years later.

For a full list and information on Saturday’s events, please visit Parkway Place Mall’s website.