Its success over the following two decades was limited, and as a result, many of the merchants failed by the end of the 1990s. Hunt Valley Mall never recovered from its inauspicious opening. Burlington takes up the entirety of the Macy's building's second floor. Once they did, the stairs at the rear mall entrance were replaced with escalators, which remained in place after redevelopment. The passenger elevator, freight elevator, and escalators inside the store space were removed prior to the stores moving in (one of the escalators was kept and reused). When Macy's closed, the building was subdivided into Dick's Sporting Goods and Burlington Coat Factory on the upper and lower floors, respectively. Small zigzag-shaped waterfalls were at opposite ends of the mall.
There were two sets of escalators as well as a prominent glass elevator at the center of the mall surrounded by a fountain. Hunt Valley Mall's non-anchor stores included Hair Cuttery, Chess King, CVS, Piercing Pagoda, Kay Bee Toys, Sun Coast Video, Listening Booth Music, Florsheim Shoes, Hess Woman's Apparel, Art Explosion, Merry Go Round, Hudson Trail Outfitters, Deb, Paul Harris, The Wild Pair, Sir Walter Raleigh Inn and others. Other major department stores were in negotiations with the mall, such as Hutzler's, which was slated for the location across from the food court, and JCPenney. The mall had space for four anchor tenants, but Sears and Bamberger's, which became Macy's in 1986, were the only ones to open, leading the mall to a fate that paralleled Seaview Square Mall in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Some of Hunt Valley's "sister malls" were Valley Hills Mall, Beachwood Place, White Marsh Mall, Charleston Town Center and Stratford Square Mall, after which it was modeled. Tanenbaum and Kravco Company of King of Prussia, PA, and designed by Leonard Kagan of RTKL Associates. Despite this, and the Baltimore County executive at the time, Donald Hutchinson, refusing to attend the opening ceremony, the mall opened on September 17, 1981. Hunt Valley Mall was planned as early as 1979, but its construction was opposed both by local residents, citing spreading suburbification and the potential for runoff into Loch Raven Reservoir, and by the Baltimore County government, who preferred that development be focused in Owings Mills and White Marsh.