Alton Square Mall is a shopping mall located in

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the ...

. Its anchor store is

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

. A second anchor structure formerly housed a

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

, and currently houses an eight screen

NCG Cinemas Neighborhood Cinema Group, branded as NCG Cinemas, is a movie theater chain headquartered in Owosso, Michigan and are owned and operated by the Geiger family. The chain consists at present of 25 theaters with 147 screens. Most of the theaters ar ...

theater, while a third anchor structure, housing a Macy's, was demolished in 2017.

History

The mall was built by

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

and groundbreaking began in 1976. The

Famous-Barr The Famous-Barr Co. (originally Famous and Barr Co.) was a division of Macy's, Inc. (formerly Federated Department Stores). Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, in the Railway Exchange Building, it was the flagship store of The May Department Sto ...

anchor store, a division of May, was the first portion of the mall to open, on October 16, 1978. The remainder of the mall, including the J. C. Penney anchor store, opened on November 15, 1978. It was later sold to May Centers, Inc., the mall development arm of

May Department Stores The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

. They subsequently sold it to CenterMark Properties Inc. of St. Louis, which sold it to Melvin Simon and Associates of Indianapolis in February 1993. A third anchor structure,

, was added during a renovation in 1997. The

anchor store was converted to

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

in 2006. Simon Property Group Inc. sold the mall to Coyote Management of Texas in 2007. In 2009, a 10-screen

Premiere Cinemas Premiere Cinemas, officially known as Premiere Cinema Corporation., headquartered in Big Spring, Texas, is a privately held motion picture exhibitor. It is among the largest independently owned motion picture exhibitors in the U.S. and is ranked by ...

theater was announced for the mall, but it did not open. Coyote Management sold the mall to NorthMarq Capital in 2010. In April 2012, it was announced that Sears would close as part of a plan to expand the stores to make way for the Hayner Public Library. Sears closed on June 3, 2012. Sears was converted to Illinois Wholesale Furniture, which also soon closed. In 2015, NorthMarq sold the mall to

Hull Property Group Hull Property Group is a shopping mall management company based in Augusta, Georgia. It was founded in 1977. The company owns, manages, and re-develops shopping malls in relatively small communities, mainly in the south and mid-west United States. ...

. That same year, a

Ross Dress For Less Ross Stores, Inc., operating under the brand name Ross Dress for Less, is an American chain of discount department stores headquartered in Dublin, California. It is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S.; as of 2018, Ross operates 1,483 stor ...

store was added, along with

Hibbett Sports Hibbett Sports, Inc. is an American publicly traded holding company for Hibbett Sporting Goods, a full line sporting goods retailer headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. As of January 29, 2022, the company operated approximately 1,096 retail st ...

. In March 2017,

Family Christian Stores Family Christian (formerly called Zondervan Book Store, Family Book Stores, and Family Christian Stores) headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan is a Christian themed web retailer.Hallmark A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term ''hallmark'' can al ...

and

Things Remembered Things Remembered is an e-commerce retailer specializing in personalized gifts, messaging and engraving. History Things Remembered was founded as "Can Do" in 1967 as a subsidiary of Cole National Corporation by Joseph Edmund Cole. At the time Col ...

would both be closing their locations inside the mall. On November 22,

Vitamin World Vitamin World USA Corporation is a global retailer of vitamins and nutritional supplements and is headquartered on Long Island, New York in the United States. Background information Vitamin World was founded in 1977 by Arthur Rudolph and is head ...

announced they would close all their St. Louis area stores, including the Alton Square Mall location and the food court. Over the years, the mall continued to struggle with store after store closing. In February 2019,

Slackers CDs and Games Slackers CDs and Games, often shortened to Slackers, is a small chain of entertainment retailers located in the Midwestern United States. The store specializes in both new and used video games and music. It was founded in 1993 in Columbia, Missour ...

announced it would be moving to the Christian bookstore's former space from elsewhere in Alton. In April 2021, the NCG Cinema was added in the old Sears space, becoming the third anchor of Alton Square Mall.

References

External links

* {{Shopping malls in Illinois Alton, Illinois Hull Property Group Shopping malls in Illinois Shopping malls established in 1978 1978 establishments in Illinois Tourist attractions in Madison County, Illinois