Janesville Mall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Janesville Mall | |
| Mall facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | Janesville, Wisconsin, USA |
| Opening date | September 1973 |
| Developer | Janesville Properties Company |
| Management | CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. |
| Owner | CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. |
| No. of stores and services | 68 (+ kiosks) |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4 (JC Penney, Sears, Boston Store, Kohl's) |
| Total retail floor area | 627,128 square feet |
| Parking | 2,700 spaces |
| No. of floors | 1 (the Sears anchor has 2 floors) |
| Website | http://www.janesvillemall.com/shop/janesville.nsf |
Janesville Mall is a regional shopping mall located in Janesville, Wisconsin. Janesville Mall is the largest shopping mall in Rock County, Wisconsin, and the largest mall between Madison, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois. It attracts more than three and a half million shoppers a year.
Contents |
[edit] Origins
The concept for what would become Janesville Mall began in 1970 with developer Roger Benjamin, who was looking for a site to locate a strip mall featuring a Welles Department Store (a Midwestern discount department store chain). In flying over various sites in southern Wisconsin, Benjamin chanced upon acres of open land on the north side of Janesville, fronting the main street between downtown Janesville and Interstate 90, Milton Avenue. He had already determined that the Janesville trading area was large enough – nearly two hundred thousand people – to support a shopping mall. The area also had the financial wherewithal to support a mall, given the large General Motors assembly plant on the south side of the city. Additionally, the Montgomery Ward department store chain had already begun to build a store on one of the sites he was considering, a site which would allow exiting shoppers to take a right turn to access the interstate. This was highly desirable, as the developers’ research had shown that women - who were expected to be the majority of their shoppers - preferred not to take left-hand turns. Together with two partners, Benjamin created Janesville Properties Company, purchased forty acres of land adjoining the Montgomery Ward store under construction, and began planning the mall.
With the agreement of Montgomery Ward management, the plan for the site was changed from a strip mall to an enclosed mall. Under the new plan, Welles and Montgomery Ward would anchor the ends of the mall, with smaller stores lining the hall between the two. Within a year of the initial plan, Rockford-based department store Charles V. Weise (owned by Bergner's) would sign on to become a third anchor. Their anchor would be located midway between the other two anchors, with a prominent central courtyard outside their mall entrance.
Disaster struck in early 1973, when the Miller-Wohl Company - which owned the Welles chain - declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and terminated their plans to open a store in Janesville. The sudden loss of Welles forced the developers to scramble for a tenant to occupy the partially-constructed north anchor slot. Sears Roebuck, which operated a store in downtown Janesville, was approached, but the chain declined, as they already operated a mall location at nearby Beloit Plaza. Luckily, another national department store chain was willing to take Welles’ slot: JC Penney, which had a cramped downtown location. To accommodate the larger anchor JC Penney planned, the developers tore down part of the former Welles wing.
The design of the mall typified many shopping malls built in the 1970’s: nondescript, bland, boxy anchors, connected by straight runs of inline mall shops. The interior featured frosted skylights and dark tile. While the façades of the JC Penney and Montgomery Ward anchors were very basic, the Charles V. Weise anchor featured an attractive and (for the time) stylish combination of dark wood and mirrors on its façade.
[edit] 1970s
Janesville Mall opened in September 1973, featuring a grand total of fifteen stores (including the three anchor tenants). Sales from the first year of business amounted to only $15 million. However, the desirable location of the mall, combined with its indoor design (as opposed to the outdoor design of Beloit Plaza), made Janesville Mall an attractive destination during the cold Wisconsin winters, and the mall’s interior rapidly filled with tenants – Radio Shack, Fannie May, and even a twin-screen United Artists movie theater. The sunken center court, outside the Charles V. Weise anchor, became a prime location for presentations of all types, especially during the Christmas season.
[edit] 1980s
Financial pressures from a weakened national economy, combined with layoffs at the local General Motors plant, softened the market for Janesville Mall’s stores as the 1980s began. Adding to the problem was increased competition from malls in Madison, Rockford, and Beloit, where the aging Beloit Plaza was finally enclosed in 1981. Sears Roebuck, long expected to leave downtown and build a new store at or near the mall, instead left Janesville completely in 1981 in favor of their Beloit Plaza location; the empty store was bulldozed for a parking lot. In 1985, following their acquisition of the Boston Store chain, Bergner’s made the decision to rename all the Charles V. Weise properties as Bergner’s, as management considered the Bergner’s name stronger. At the same time, Montgomery Ward closed their Janesville Mall store as part of a corporate restructuring; luckily, Milwaukee-based Kohl’s Department Stores decided to acquire a majority of the empty anchor to add to their expanding chain. Mall management complemented the addition of Kohl's and Bergner's with a multimillion dollar remodeling in 1986, refinishing the mall courts with new flooring, new benches, and even live fig trees. As the decade drew to a close, revitalized local and national economies began pumping money into the mall’s shops, fueling a heyday reminiscent of the mall’s first years.
[edit] 1990s
As Janesville Mall flourished, Beloit Plaza began to flounder, hampered by weaknesses of the mall’s location and the city’s industrial base. When Bergner’s declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991, the Beloit Plaza location was closed, but the Janesville Mall location remained open and would be renamed as a Boston Store (as the Bergner’s name was considered “tainted” by the chain’s bankruptcy). The mall was remodeled again in 1991, this time featuring a brighter, pastel-based color scheme; as part of the remodeling, all the fig trees planted in the mall five years prior were removed.
Meanwhile, the intersection of State Highways 14 and 26 – located less than a mile from Janesville Mall – became a hotbed of "big box" activity, with Wal-Mart and Target adding facilities near existing ShopKo, K-Mart, and Blain's Farm and Fleet locations. Local supermarket Woodman's Food Market built a massive warehouse-sized market within plain view of the mall. As these new stores attracted customers to the area, it also attracted new customers to Janesville Mall; the anchors were experiencing tremendous sales gains, though the mall itself suffered as tenants left the mall for less-expensive parcels adjoining the newer “big box” stores.
Conscious of the need to attract more business for the mall proper, Janesville Mall management again looked to Sears, whose land-locked store at Beloit Mall was now unbearably cramped. Janesville Mall’s management approached Sears in 1996 and made them an unbeatable offer: space opposite Janesville Mall's Boston Store anchor to build a new, larger store; an outparcel for a detached Auto Center; and various financial incentives, including tax breaks. Sears accepted the offer and - in place of Janesville Mall's main entrance - built an 110,000 square foot, two-story anchor store, which opened in 1997; mall management renovated the mall's common spaces to "celebrate" the new anchor tenant. The “move” of Sears from Beloit to Janesville devastated the Beloit Mall, which did not recover from the loss of their strongest anchor and shortly thereafter became a dead mall.
In 1998, CBL & Associates Properties, Inc.,added Janesville Mall to their extensive shopping mall portfolio. That same year, Kohl’s expanded their anchor by extending it into the mall proper, as their location left little room for outward expansion. The mall’s movie theater closed in 1999, a victim of larger theaters with more screens elsewhere in the area. Further “big box” development continued north of the mall with the addition of the Brobdingnagian Pine Tree Plaza strip mall in 1998, which featured an enormous Home Depot as its anchor.
[edit] 2000s
With a strong lineup of anchors and inline tenants, as well as a robust local economy, Janesville Mall has continued to thrive. The trade area has increased to 304,955 people in 2000, and is expected to expand further to 329,012 people by 2009. The mall has increased from its original 500,000 square feet to 627,128 square feet (including the anchors). The mall is completely occupied, with Chuck E. Cheese having taken over the empty movie theater slot in 2003; national retailers such as Gap, Gymboree, and Victoria’s Secret are well-represented. Unfortunately, the mall is now land-locked, with no room to expand but upwards (which would be cost-prohibitive).
Meanwhile, the city approved a huge Wal-Mart Supercenter in 2006 near Pine Tree Plaza, drawing more traffic to the north side of Janesville; the former Wal-Mart location on Milton Avenue is under redevelopment. In 2007, Menards will open a new 224,000 square foot showplace home center approximately one mile north of Janesville Mall, at the junction of Milton Avenue and Interstate 90.
[edit] Links
Map of Janesville Mall's location, courtesy Mapquest. [1]
[edit] References
Leute, Jim. “My, How Time Flies”. The Janesville Gazette, 3 February 1997.
“Annual Report 2003” and “Janesville Mall Demographics 2004”, from the CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., Website.
