The history of the Old Pueblo Museum in the Foothills Center in Tucson, Arizona is a case study in the benefits a museum can bestow on a mall and the dangers of success when the standard is profitability rather than service.  In 1984 the Foothills Mall was a financial wreck with a 50% occupancy rate.  Federated Stores abandoned its half interest in the mall leaving the remaining owner, the AT&T Retirement Trust, with the choice of dumping the property at a loss or trying to save it and possibly throwing good money after bad.  They opted for the latter but had the good sense to hire a brilliant real estate manager, Don Baker, who realized that the entire character of the mall had to change if it was going to compete with other larger, more favorably located malls.  He spent $2,000,000 creating a dramatic 6,000 square foot, two level museum in the center of the mall and focussed the entire advertizing campaign of the mall on the cultural aspects of the exhibitions and programs of the Museum.  Opened in 1986, the Museum was named Old Pueblo because that was the original name of the settlement that became Tucson.  We were looking for a link to something beyond the mall.  Even the name of the mall was changed to Foothills Center.  

Admission was free because the objective was to bring more people to the mall to spend their money in the shops.  Half of the Museum was devoted to two long term exhibits, a hypothetical Paleo-indian cave with butchered mastedon bones and other artifacts, and a display of exotic, but local, gems and minerals borrowed from the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  The main portion of the Museum was for changing exhibitions, ranging from "Classic Navaho and Hopi Textiles" to "25 Years of Space Photography" and "Antique Bicycles and Bicycle Posters" to "Dogs: Magical, Mystical, Inspirational" (a contemporary art exhibition).  Over the next four years the Old Pueblo Museum became the second most popular museum in Tucson (the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum stayed far ahead), attendance at the mall doubled, the empty stores were rapidly being rented, and Don baker transferred to another project (and sadly passed away shortly afterward.)  The new mall management took stock of the mall and its museum, and determined a museum was no longer necessary.  Advertizing reverted to traditional merchandise based appeals.  Funding was withdrawn and the Museum was closed in 1994.