West Town 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 ...

located in

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Opened in August 1972, this one-level mall is located in the western portion of Knoxville in the West Hills community. West Town Mall is located along Interstates 40/75 and

Kingston Pike Kingston Pike is a highway in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, that connects Downtown Knoxville with West Knoxville, Farragut, and other communities in the western part of the county. The road follows a merged stretch of U.S. Route 11 ...

. The mall has 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 ...

, making it the largest of any enclosed shopping mall in Tennessee. The anchor stores are

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 ...

, Dick's House of Sport, 2

Belk Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, ...

stores,

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 ...

, and Cinebarre. There is a

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...

in the center of the mall. This was the original location of a junior anchor Frankenbergers Department Store. This food court was the first mall location for Knoxville-based

Petro's Chili & Chips Petro's Chili & Chips is a small fast-food chain based in Knoxville, Tennessee, with several locations in Knoxville and other parts of East Tennessee. History Petro's got its start at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. Joe and Carol Schoentr ...

. On October 15, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 142 stores nationwide. The store closed on January 6, 2019, and demolition began on January 9, 2020 Subsequent to the demolition, it was replaced by Dick's House of Sport, a new concept by Dick's Sporting Goods.

Movie theaters

In 1998, Knoxville based

Regal Entertainment Group Regal Cinemas (also Regal Entertainment Group) is an American movie theater chain headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. A division of Cineworld, Regal operates the second-largest theater circuit in the United States, with over 7,200 screens i ...

opened a Funscape entertainment complex in the mall.Deconstructing the Mall
/ref> In 2018, the Regal Cinemas was rebranded to Cinebarre.

Anchors

(current location) (opened in 1994 as part of an expansion) *

(opened in 1972 as Miller's, became

Hess's Hess's was a department store chain based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company started in 1897 with one store, originally known as Hess Brothers, and grew to nearly 80 stores by its peak in the late 1980s. The chain's stores were closed or sold ...

in 1987 and closed in 1992 and expanded and became Dillard's in 1993) *

(opened in 1972 as

Proffitt's Proffitt's was a department store chain based in Alcoa, Tennessee. On March 8, 2006, the Proffitt's and McRae's stores were converted into Belk stores. Belk acquired the two chains in July 2005 from Saks, Inc. History Beginnings Jeweler Dav ...

, expanded in 1995 and became Belk in 2006) * Belk Men's, Children's and Home (opened in 1994 as Parisian in a pad originally slated to be Parks-Belk as part of an expansion, became Belk Men's, Children's and Home in 2007) * Dick's House of Sport (opened in 1972 as

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 ...

, demolished in 2020 and then rebuilt as Dick's House of Sport which opened in 2020 as well.

Former anchors

* JCPenney (original location) (opened in 1972, relocated in 1994, lower level became more mall space, while the upper level became Regal Cinemas in 1998, became Cinebarre in 2018) * Frankenbergers (now the food court) *

(opened in 1972, closed in 2019, demolished in 2020)

References

External links

* {{coord, 35.92497, -84.03722, region:US-TN_type:landmark, display=title Shopping malls in Tennessee Shopping malls established in 1972 Buildings and structures in Knoxville, Tennessee Simon Property Group Economy of Knoxville, Tennessee Tourist attractions in Knoxville, Tennessee 1972 establishments in Tennessee