Westfield Montgomery (formerly known as Montgomery Mall) is a

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 ...

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in ...

. Major tenants include

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 ...

, Macy's Home, and

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...

, as well as specialty brands like

Fabletics Fabletics is a global, active lifestyle brand that sells both men's and women's sportswear, footwear and accessories, commonly referred to as "activewear". The company operates on a membership model and is known for its e-commerce business approa ...

Madewell J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dr ...

Vineyard Vines Vineyard Vines is an American clothing and accessory retailer founded in 1998 in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, by brothers Shep and Ian Murray. The brand markets high-end ties, hats, belts, shirts, shorts, swimwear, bags for men, women, an ...

, and

Untuckit Untuckit LLC (styled as "UNTUCKit" in branding materials) is an American casual men's apparel company established in 2011 and headquartered in New York City. The company focuses on selling casual shirts that are designed not to be tucked into pa ...

History

Westfield Montgomery Exterior Nordstrom View

The mall opened in March 1968, with three anchor stores and 58 smaller shops. It was built as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between

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 Strouse, Greenberg & Co., based on the design of John Graham, Jr. and Ward and Hall. The original anchors were

Hecht's Hecht's, also known as Hecht Brothers, Hecht Bros. and the Hecht Company, was a large chain of department stores that operated mainly in the mid-Atlantic and southern region of the United States. The firm originated in Baltimore, Maryland. By 20 ...

Garfinckel's Garfinckel's was a prominent department store chain based in Washington, D.C. that catered to a clientele of wealthy consumers. Its flagship store at 14th and F in the city's F Street shopping district is listed on the National Register. It file ...

, and

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 ...

. Smaller shops included a

Bond Stores Bond Clothing Stores, Bond Clothes, Bond Clothiers, or Bond Stores, was a men's clothing manufacturing company and retailer. The company catered to the middle-class consumer. History The company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914, when Mort ...

outlet. The Mall was also where longtime fugitive

William Bradford Bishop William Bradford Bishop Jr. (born August 1, 1936) is a former United States Foreign Service officer who has been a fugitive from justice since allegedly killing his wife, mother, and three sons in 1976. On April 10, 2014, the Federal Bureau of In ...

bought a ball peen hammer and gas can to allegedly kill and burn his entire family on March 1, 1976. The old mall logo was an owl-shaped "M". A mid-1970s expansion included a ,

Woodward & Lothrop Woodward & Lothrop was a department store chain headquartered in Washington, D.C. that began as the capital's first department store in 1887. Woodies, as it was often nicknamed, maintained stores in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Its flagship s ...

store and of additional retail space for 40 stores. The renovation completed in October 1991 included new floors, brass railings, glass elevator, which was removed in 2013, and removal of all the fountains to allow for more kiosk and seating space. The grand re-opening featured a concert by

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...

. An expansion wing featured the first

in Maryland and the third in the

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area The Washington metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the National Capital Region, is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. The metropolitan area includes all of Washington, D.C. and parts of the states of Maryland, Virgi ...

, and

Crate & Barrel Euromarket Designs Inc., doing business as Crate & Barrel (stylized as Crate&Barrel), is an international furniture and home décor retail store headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. They employ 8200 employees across over 100 stores in the Uni ...

. The Boulevard Cafes food court is located on the second level.

Expansion

A plan to expand the mall by was approved by Montgomery County in September 2007. With the expansion, Westfield Montgomery has more than , the fourth largest mall in the Washington area behind

Tysons Corner Center Tysons Corner Center is a shopping mall in the unincorporated area of Tysons in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States (between McLean and Vienna, Virginia). It opened to the public in 1968, becoming one of the first fully enclosed, climate-contr ...

Westfield Wheaton Westfield Wheaton, formerly known as Wheaton Plaza, is a 1.7 million square-foot, two-level indoor shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. It is owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Its anchor stores include Macy’s, Tar ...

, and

Fair Oaks Mall Fair Oaks Mall is a shopping mall in the Fair Oaks census-designated place (CDP) of unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, just northwest of the independent city of Fairfax. It is located at the intersection of Interstate 66 and U.S. Route 5 ...

. In 2014, a 16-screen Arclight Cinemas opened at the mall but was forced to close down in April 2021 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. In February 2022,

AMC Theatres AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

acquired the lease to the cinema and announced that it would reopen in March of that year. In June 2018, Westfield announced Sears will close and transform into additional stores and an open-air mixed-use center.

2016 shooting

On May 6, 2016, former federal police officer Eulalio Tordil shot three people in the parking lot. One victim died. After the 2005 acquisition 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 ...

Federated Department Stores 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 ...

, the Hecht’s at Montgomery was renamed Macy’s in 2006.

Anchors

Current anchors

* Macy's Home *

Former anchors

* J. C. Penney (took over Woodward & Lothrop store, 1995)Washington Post, March 21, 1999
/ref> *

* Arclight Cinemas

References

External links

*
Westfield Montgomery Leasing Information
at ''The Westfield Group'' * {{WestfieldUnitedStates Montgomery, Westfield Montgomery Tourist attractions in Montgomery County, Maryland Shopping malls established in 1968 1968 establishments in Maryland Shopping malls in the Washington metropolitan area Potomac, Maryland Bethesda, Maryland