Lynch's Springfield Shopping Center

Here follows an excerpt from "Post WW2 History of Springfield, Virginia and The Crestwood Construction Corp." as written by Robyn Carter:

Growing Pains and Gains:
Since Springfield was a brand spanking new community, there wasn't an abundance of conveniences in that first year and the "Springfield Pioneers" had some inconveniences in the beginning. For instance, up through April of 1953, as the community grew by an average of three families per week, the only local store in Springfield was a little country store called Gallahan's Grocery. Outside of that, the next closest retail offerings were in Franconia but those were also small and sparse at the time. The closest major retailers were still located in Washington, Arlington and Alexandria with some stores available in Annandale since they had just gotten a brand new Safeway supermarket in September of 1951 as well as had a pharmacy, a hardware retailer, a dress shop and other smaller shops.

A big step forward came from Vernon Lynch and Sons when they started the very first shopping center in Springfield. Fully opening in May 1953, as a five unit center on Brandon Avenue at the southwest corner of Bland Street, it consisted of The Springfield Market for groceries, The Springfield Pharmacy, The Springfield Cleaners, Springfield Hardware and Paint, Inc. and a much needed U.S. Post Office headed by Postmaster Roy T. Bowman.

Bowman, who along with two employees were the first to set up shop in the new center on February 2, 1953.
Almost immediately he and members of the brand new Springfield Civic Association began working to promote the sales of stamps, post office boxes, and residential mail boxes in order to amass the revenue that was required by The United States Postal Service to advance its class status and move towards house to house delivery. The efforts were extremely swift and successful because the office reached 2nd class status as of July 1, 1953 and the house to house delivery began in the Crestwood section on December 1, 1953. Delivery to the other subdivisions came shortly thereafter.

Additions on either side of the original units (and wrapping around to face Bland Street) greatly expanded the center during the years through late 1956, allowing for a much larger drug store and the additions of many various small retailers, Lynch's realty offices, and some doctor's offices thus reducing the need to go outside of Springfield for as many basic services and essentials. Another multi-unit section across Bland Street to the north (about 1958) added even more retail space and Springfield's "Downtown" area kept blooming around it.