Meadows Shopping Center

Meadows Shopping Center was one of the larger shopping centers in Muncie, with a plethora of big name stores in its history. The plaza was announced in 1956, and was built in the meadows of the Otto Carmichael estate, and cost 1.5 million to build. It was the first shopping center in the city to prioritize vehicles, with plentiful parking and two service stations. 

Meadows had stores like Zayre, Payless, Eavey Supermarket, the third Ponderosa Steakhouse in the country, and Hook’s Drug Store, as well as local businesses like Amber’s Beauty Salon. Despite several ownership changes and redesigns, stores started steadily closing, like Zayre at the end of 1989, and despite a renovation and brief resurgence in the early-1990s that saw Haney’s Pharmacy and Soda Fountain move in, the center would lose its now-Ross grocery at the end of 1998 and Haney’s would close in the summer of 1999.

Ontario Systems, a technology company, moved into one building and renovated the center in 1995. Tenants of the shopping center stayed on until their leases ended, with the last business, Tasty Chinese Restaurant, closing mid-2000. After th\at closure, Ontario Systems moved into the whole shopping plaza, eventually razing it all and building their current office park.