Towne West Square is an enclosed

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

located in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Opened on Friday, March 6, 1981, it comprises more than 50 stores in of

gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

. The mall's three

anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wi ...

s are

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized as "DICK'S Sporting Goods") is an American sporting goods retail company, based in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company was established by Richard "Dick" Stack in 1948, and has approximately 854 stores ...

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The ...

Clearance Center and

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, Gi ...

. The original anchor stores in the mall were:

, Henry's,

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 curr ...

and

Service Merchandise Service Merchandise was a retail chain of catalog showrooms carrying jewelry, toys, sporting goods, and electronics. The company, which first began in 1934 as a five-and-dime store, was in existence for 68 years before ceasing operations in 2002. ...

(formerly Wilson's Catalog Showroom). Henry's closed in 1988. The structure was later sealed off from the rest of the mall and currently houses 54 West Music Hall.

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 ...

opened in 1993 (12 years after the rest of the mall) moving a store from the open air Twin Lakes Shopping Center. Montgomery Ward closed in March 05, 2001 due to filing for bankruptcy, alongside the Wichita Mall store. Sears closed in December 2014. Their anchor store structure was taken over by Convergys and converted to office space, which was no longer accessible from the interior of the mall. In 2017, Dillard's closed their women's store anchor on the mall's north side and converted their men's store (located in the former Montgomery Ward) into a Dillard's Clearance Center. Sears Hometown, operated in the old Henry's, but closed in 2019. Later, Convergys was renamed Concentrix. In 2021, the former Concentrix space was purchased and is now MC

On July 31, 2020, JCPenney put 21 stores for sale as part of their bankruptcy, this location included. The store was reaffirmed in 2021 and remains open and operating. Towne West contains a mix of local and national retailers. In 2023,

Evergy Evergy, Inc. is an American investor-owned utility (IOU) with publicly traded stock that has its headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, and in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was formed from a merger of Westar Energy of Topeka and Great Plains E ...

has disconnected power from the mall several times, first on June 20th, the second time on September 8th, and the third time on November 6th. The anchor stores have separate accounts by Evergy and did not get affected by the service disconnection. In all of those days, the mall's electric bill have been paid and power was restored.

References

External links

Official website
*https://zamzool.com/lets-get-to-digital-tour-of-towne-west-square/ Shopping malls in Kansas Buildings and structures in Wichita, Kansas Tourist attractions in Wichita, Kansas Shopping malls established in 1981 1981 establishments in Kansas Kohan Retail Investment Group {{US-mall-stub