Vancouver Mall is a shopping mall owned by Cenntenial Real Estate, and located in the city of Vancouver, Washington, U.S., which is within the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan area. It is anchored by Gold's Gym, H&M, JCPenney, Macy's, Cinetopia and Old Navy. Longtime past anchor stores included Meier & Frank, Sears, Nordstrom and Mervyn's. Opened in 1977, it was known as Westfield Vancouver mall from 1998 to 2015.

History

Vancouver Mall opened in August 1977 with Meier & Frank, Nordstrom and Sears as anchors. During phase two of mall expansion, a JCPenney was added. A Lipman's was also planned,^[1] but was not built.{{citation needed|date=August 2014}} Eventually, Mervyns would open where the Lipman's had been planned.

While the mall is now located within the Vancouver city limits, until 1993 the property was in an unincorporated part of Clark County.^[2]

In 1993, the mall added a new food court and underwent a renovation of its interior. The mall was acquired in 1994 by Westfield America, Inc.

In 1998, the mall was renamed "Westfield Shoppingtown Vancouver", at which time the mall had 146 stores using {{convert|870,000|ft2|m2}} of space.^[3] However, "Shoppingtown" was dropped from the name in September 2005,^[4] making it Westfield Vancouver mall.^[2]

In mid-2005,^[5] work was started on a {{convert|60,000|ft2|m2|adj=on}} expansion to the Meier & Frank store by its then-owner, the May Department Stores Company, adding 30,000 square feet on each of two levels, completed in 2006.^[6] Following the acquisition of the May Company by Federated Department Stores, the Meier & Frank store was renamed Macy's in September 2006.^[5]

The {{convert|82,225|ft2|m2|adj=on}} Mervyn's closed in January 2007. On June 1, 2012, it was converted to the Cinetopia "Vancouver Mall 23" video movie theater.^[7][8]

In February 2014, it was announced that Nordstrom would be closing its store at the mall.^[9] The store closed in January 2015, at which time the mall managers announced that Gold's Gym would move into the upper level and H&M would move into the lower level of the former-Nordstrom space.^[10]

In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Westfield Vancouver, into Seritage Growth Properties.^[11]

On December 18, 2015, Vancouver Mall along with some other U.S. Westfield properties were sold to Centennial Real Estate Company. Vancouver Mall was sold to Centennial for 45 million dollars. "Westfield" was removed from the mall's name.^[12] Any other references to Westfield online or at the property were removed the same day. Mall management was retained.

On August 22, 2018, Sears announced that its store would also be closing as part of a plan to close 46 stores nationwide. The store officially closed after 41 years on November 25, 2018 ^[13] After the store closed, Macy’s, JCPenney, Gold's Gym, Old Navy, Cinetopia, and H&M are the remaining anchors left.

In March 2019 it was announced that Hobby Lobby and Round One Entertainment would move into the vacant Sears space. Chick-fil-A and Five Guys are also planning on opening stores on the mall property in 2020.

References