Battlefield Mall is an enclosed

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

. Opened in 1970, the mall features 153 stores in of mall shop space. The anchor stores are

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 ...

, 2 Dillard's stores, and

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 ...

. There is 1 vacant anchor store that was once

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 ...

. It is managed and owned by

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in India ...

, the successor of the same company that built it.

History

Melvin Simon & Associates, now known as

, built and developed Battlefield Mall. Their plans had begun in 1963 with a proposed

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

department store. By 1968, J. C. Penney and Dillard's had also been confirmed as the second and third anchor stores. After two years of construction, it opened to the public on July 23, 1970. On opening day, the mall was 93 percent occupied, consisting of of shop space along with the three department stores. Among the tenants of the mall at the time were a McCrory dime store,

Piccadilly Restaurants Piccadilly Restaurants is an American chain of cafeteria-style, casual dining restaurants in seven, mainly southeastern United States with the majority located in the Gulf Coast region. They are owned by Piccadilly Holdings LLC. In addition to ...

, and

Osco Drug Osco Drug and Sav-on Drugs were the names of a pair of chain pharmacies that operated in the United States. Osco Drug was founded by the Skaggs family. Alpha Beta grocery store was purchased by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers boug ...

. After only five years in operation, the McCrory store was closed and converted to local department store Heer's, which opened there in 1975. The mall's owners announced an expansion plan in 1979, to consist of over of mall shops and two new anchor stores. Upon opening in 1982, this expansion added about 85 stores, including a

department store and a new location for Dillard's. At the same time, the original location of Dillard's in the mall was sold to

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 S ...

. In 2001, following the closure of Montgomery Ward, Dillard's moved some of its departments into the former Montgomery Ward location, while retaining other departments in the store built in 1982. This new store, known as Dillard's South, opened in 2002. The addition of Dillard's South allowed the chain to offer a greater variety of merchandise between the two stores. On May 30, 1998,

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of the Old Navy stores are its ...

opened at the mall. Another anchor store change ensued in 2006 when Federated Department Stores (now

Macy's, Inc. Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito' ...

) acquired Famous-Barr's parent company

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 ...

, and renamed all of that company's stores to Macy's. On February 6, 2020 Sears announced after many years in business that it would be closing its Battlefield Mall location in mid April 2020 as part of a plan to close 39 stores nationwide.

Notes

External links

Official website, including complete store listing
{{Simon Property Group Shopping malls in Missouri Simon Property Group Buildings and structures in Springfield, Missouri Tourist attractions in Springfield, Missouri Shopping malls established in 1970 1970 establishments in Missouri