Washington Square Mall (Evansville, Indiana) facts for kids
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Washington Square Mall, April 2016
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| Location | 5011 Washington Ave #1 Evansville, Indiana, United States |
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| Coordinates | 37°57′37″N 87°29′27″W / 37.960219°N 87.490764°W |
| Opening date | October 31, 1963 |
| Developer | Erie Investments |
| Management | Hahn Kiefer Real Estate |
| Owner | Evansville Holdings, LLC |
| No. of stores and services | around 55 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 (both vacant) |
| Total retail floor area | 800,000 sq ft (74,000 m2) |
| No. of floors | 1 (2 in anchors) |
| Parking | around 1,500 |
Washington Square Mall is a shopping center in Evansville, Indiana, United States. It first opened on October 31, 1963. This made it the very first enclosed shopping mall in all of Indiana.
The mall was built by a company called Erie Investments. When it first opened, it had two main "anchor" stores. Anchor stores are usually large department stores that attract many shoppers. The first anchors were Sears and an A & P supermarket. Later, in 1969, a second big department store, Stewart Dry Goods, was added. This store later became part of the L. S. Ayres chain in 1980.
Contents
Mall History: Changes Over Time
Facing New Competition
In 1982, a bigger mall called Eastland Mall opened nearby. This made it hard for Washington Square Mall to keep its stores and shoppers. To stay competitive, Washington Square Mall was updated and made bigger in 1987. This helped for a while, and the mall was sold to a new owner, Facet Financial.
Losing Anchor Stores
Over time, many department store chains started to combine or close. The L. S. Ayres store at the mall closed in January 1992. A new store, Elder-Beerman, opened in that spot in October 1993. However, Elder-Beerman closed in December 2000. They said the mall did not have enough other strong stores to attract customers.
After Elder-Beerman left, many other stores also became empty. Shoppers started going to Eastland Mall instead. In 2002, a local real estate developer named Gene Hahn bought the struggling Washington Square Mall.
New Owners and Updates
Parts of the old Elder-Beerman store were used by different discount stores for a few years. In November 2016, a new real estate company from New York bought the mall. This company is called Evansville Holdings LLC. They decided to rename the mall simply "Washington Square."
Hahn Kiefer Real Estate Services became the company in charge of renting out spaces and managing the property. Over the next year, improvements were made slowly. New lights in the parking lot and new signs gave hope to people living nearby.
Sears Closes Its Doors
On January 4, 2018, Sears announced that it would close many of its stores across the country. This included the Sears store at Washington Square. On April 8, 2018, the Sears store closed for good. This meant that Washington Square Mall no longer had any large anchor stores.
