Regional discount chain Roses arrived to quickly fill the void left by Grant's.

Grant's was obviously the first to go, closing their store at the mall in 1976. This anchor lineup obviously could not last considering that Winn-Dixie has been gone from North Carolina for 12 years and none of the other stores still exist. Next to the mall on the west side, a Gateway Cinema was opened in 1973 and right behind it to the right a Mammoth Mart discount chain. Its design features an front and rear entrance corridor, main corridor and spacious center court with high ceilings and high windows functioning as skylights: a design very common in malls constructed in the 1965-1973 period.

Its design was essentially a small town mall combining typical strip mall tenants with a regional department store in an enclosed mall. It is unclear who originally built the mall, but it was owned throughout much of the 1970's and 1980's by Federal Realty. Constructed from 1967-1969, Southgate Mall opened with four anchors: Belk Tyler, Grant's, Winn-Dixie and People's Drugs.

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