Uptown Janesville

Uptown Janesville

Location	Janesville, Wisconsin, USA
Coordinates	42°42′42″N 88°59′55″W
Opening date	September 1973
Developer	Janesville Properties Company
Management	CBL & Associates Properties, Inc.
Owner	CBL & Associates Properties, Inc.
No. of stores and services	68 (+ kiosks)
No. of anchor tenants	4 (Sears, Boston Store, Kohl's, Dick's Sporting Goods)
Total retail floor area	627,128 square feet (58,262 m2)
No. of floors	1 (the Sears anchor has 2 floors)
Parking	2,700 spaces
Website	www.janesvillemall.com

Janesville Mall is an enclosed shopping mall located in Janesville, Wisconsin, United States. Opened in 1973, the mall currently features more than 68 tenants, including Boston Store, Kohl's, and Sears, Roebuck and Company as anchor stores.

Origins

In 1970, developer Roger Benjamin began scouting a site to construct a strip mall featuring Welles, a Midwestern discount department store chain. Flying over southern Wisconsin, he identified acres of open land in the Town of Janesville along Milton Avenue, between the main downtown streets and Interstate 90. Benjamin determined that with nearly 200,000 people, the Janesville trading area had a large enough population and sufficient financial resources to support a mall. Montgomery Ward had already begun to build a store on one of the sites he was considering.

Benjamin and two partners created Janesville Properties Company, which purchased 40 acres (160,000 m²) of land adjoining the Montgomery Ward site, and began planning the development. With the agreement of Montgomery Ward management, Benjamin modified his original plan for a strip mall in favor of an enclosed mall where Welles and Montgomery Ward would serve as anchor stores. Within a year, Rockford-based department store Charles V. Weise (owned by Bergner's) signed on to become a third anchor; its store would be located midway between the other department stores, and a prominent central courtyard would be constructed outside its entrance. Plans to construct the $10 million enclosed mall were announced in November 1970 with groundbreaking set for spring 1971.

In early 1973, the Miller-Wohl Company (which owned the Welles chain) declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and terminated its plans to open a store in Janesville. The sudden loss of Welles forced a search for another tenant to occupy the partially constructed north anchor slot. Mall developers approached Sears, which operated a store in downtown Janesville. Sears declined, as it already operated a mall location in nearby Beloit Plaza. J.C. Penney (which also owned a small store in downtown Janesville) agreed instead to fill the already-built Welles space, which was subsequently enlarged at J.C. Penney's request.

1970s and 1980s

Janesville Mall opened in September 1973, featuring the three anchor stores and twelve other tenants. Unlike nearby Beloit Plaza in Beloit, the newer mall was enclosed, and thus considered more desirable in Wisconsin's often cold climate. The remaining interior spaces of the mall soon filled up with national chain tenants.

In 1985, Illinois-based Bergner's acquired all of the Charles V. Weise stores, re-branding them all as Bergner's that year. Montgomery Ward closed its store at Janesville Mall in the 1980s, with Milwaukee-based Kohl's taking its place. Mall management undertook a multimillion dollar remodeling in 1986, refinishing the mall courts with new flooring, new benches, and live fig trees.

1990s

The nearby Beloit Plaza began losing its inline stores due to competition from the upgraded Janesville Mall. When Bergner's declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991, its store at Beloit Plaza was closed, and the Bergner's at Janesville Mall was re-branded as Boston Store. The mall was remodeled again in 1991, this time featuring a brighter, pastel-based color scheme; in addition, the fig trees were removed.

Janesville Mall's management approached the Sears chain again in 1996 in a second attempt to bring a Sears anchor to the mall. This time, Sears was offered the opportunity to shutter its Beloit Plaza store in favor of a new store at Janesville Mall; various financial incentives, including tax breaks, were also part of this deal. Sears accepted the offer and, by 1997, a new 110,000-square-foot (10,000 m²), two-story Sears was built onto Janesville Mall as a fourth anchor, while the older Beloit Plaza Sears was closed.

In 1998, the mall was acquired by CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., a real estate trust based in Tennessee. That same year, Kohl's expanded its store into what had previously been smaller mall shops. The mall's movie theater closed, with Chuck E. Cheese's taking its place.

2000s

Since the addition of the Sears store, the mall has been 627,128 square feet (60,000 m²) in size.

On May 3, 2014, the Janesville Mall J. C. Penney store closed, one of 33 closures nationwide by that chain. In December, 2014, the Janesville Mall announced plans for a multi-million dollar renovation. On October 2, 2015 Dick's Sporting Goods opened in 40,000 square feet of the former J. C. Penney space.

External links

• Janesville Mall website
• Leute, Jim. "My, How Time Flies". The Janesville Gazette, 3 February 1997.
• "Annual Report 2003" and "Janesville Mall Demographics 2004", from the CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., Website.
• CBL Properties property sheet