The departure of its anchor stores, beginning with the bankruptcy of Montgomery Ward in 2001, left more than half of the mall empty.

Due to the waning popularity and litigation involving the deterioration of the building, the mall was sold in 2007 to Strode Property Company, and the remaining few tenants were told to vacate.

Smith's wife, daughter, and Son in Law Mr. and Mrs. William L. Patton, Jr. and John Cella of St. Louis who owned Oaklawn Jockey Club, the thoroughbred racetrack in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

George Cella and Bill Patton, children of the original corporation owners, were mentioned in the later litigation regarding the property that led to its closure and sale in 2007.

The mall complex comprised 565,000-square-foot (52,500 m2) leasable square feet, the rest for parking of 2,500 cars, and was a single level structure when it opened.

It became a favorite place for many walkers, including retirees and heart patients from St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, located just across University Avenue.

This expansion gave the mall its most distinctive feature, an unusual nine-story Teflon-coated tent-like structure towered over the new concourse, referred to as "the skylight" because it let so much light in.

[1] A grand four-day reopening was held in November 1988, with special guest Corbin Bernsen of the television show L.A. Law.

The Park Plaza shopping center was almost 30 years old at the time, and a landmark of the rapidly expanding West Little Rock area.

[1] The first indications of decline at University Mall started appearing in the 1980s when tenants voiced concerns about remodeling and marketing efforts.

[citation needed] In 2001, Montgomery Ward went bankrupt and closed all its stores, leaving a two-story 140,900-square-foot (13,090 m2) vacant building on the University Mall site.

In April 2001, after the departure of Montgomery Ward, a report by the Urban Land Institute of Washington, D.C., said 40 percent of the mall was vacant.

A team of inspectors hired by the landowners to document the condition of the mall testified in 2005 that the vacant Montgomery Ward space was full of puddles, moldy ceiling tiles, and dead pigeons.

Paschall Strategic Communications, who was assisting with Simon's public relations campaign on the project, said that the negotiations were "going very well"; however these plans did not come to pass.

[3] In June 2007, US District Judge Bill Wilson, Jr. ruled that Simon must make more than $7 million in repairs to get the mall into "good and tenable condition".

[9] (Both businesses relocated to Shackleford Crossings, on the property which had been slated as the long-disputed potential Summit Mall site.)