Westfield Great Northern

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Facts and statistics
Westfield Great Northern


Location	North Olmsted, Ohio, USA
Opening date	1965
Developer	Biskind Development Company (original)
Management	The Westfield Group
Owner	The Westfield Group
No. of stores and services	175
No. of anchor tenants	5
Total retail floor area	1.2 million ft²
No. of floors	1
Website	http://westfield.com/greatnorthern

Westfield Great Northern, formerly Great Northern Mall, is a single-level enclosed shopping mall in North Olmsted, Ohio. Its anchor stores are Dick's Sporting Goods, Dillard's, JCPenney, Macy's, and Sears.

1 History
2 Anchors
3 Notable Stores
4 External links

[edit] History

Originally, a small shopping center was opened by Saul Biskind in 1957 on what was a field of strawberries. A freestanding May Company Ohio store was the first major anchor in the mid-1960s, followed by the mall itself with JCPenney and Sears in the mid-1970s. The 1980s saw the opening of the Plaza South attached to the original strip (now renamed the Plaza), the 1986 addition of the award-winning South Court to the mall and the construction of two mid-level hotels, two high-rise residential towers (Victoria Plaza and the Westbury Condominiums) and several office facilities such as Corporate Center and Technology Park. These all served to feed customers into the Mall and Plazas--along with the strategic location at Lorain Avenue, Brookpark Road and Great Northern Boulevard next to the Interstate 480 freeway.

In 1980, Hexalon Real Estate, an affiliate of Rodamco, N.V. of the Netherlands became an investor in the mall. In 1991 when Hexalon bought out the remaining Biskind stake in the mall, it hired The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation as its management company, a relationship that lasted until 2000, when Rodamco acquired Urban Shopping Centers, which assumed management. Rodamco undertook a significant upgrade and remodel of the mall in 1992-1993. The Biskind family eventually sold off the Plazas to Developers Diversified Realty Corp.

May Company Ohio was renamed Kaufmann's in 1993, and became Macy's in 2006. Dillard's was added in 2003, expanding the South Court into a full-fledged new wing. The Westfield Group acquired the shopping center in early 2002, and renamed it "Westfield Shoppingtown Great Northern", dropping the "Shoppingtown" name in June 2005.