Next door along Pacific Avenue, Sherwood Mall shut its interior for redevelopment in 2022 and emerged as the parking-lot-facing Sherwood Place in 2023. Weberstown Mall kept its roof.
Weberstown is an enclosed shopping center in north Stockton, California, open since February 15, 1966, when it linked a two-year-old Sears to a new Weinstock's brought up from downtown.
JCPenney arrived in 1974. Dillard's built its first California store here in 1997, on ground cleared by demolishing Weinstock's.
Sears closed in August 2024 after 60 years, leaving a 210,000-square-foot former Sears space listed for lease separately from the mall.
Mershops bought the mall property for $50.8 million in August 2025.
The mall was advertised as having more than 80 businesses in July 2026, and the 60th-anniversary ceremony that February drew a Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting to center court.
Sixty years of department-store turnover ran through this property, and it's still open seven days a week. The story is mostly about who owned which parcel, and it starts in a dirt field in 1964.
The anchor that opened two years early
Sears opened in May 1964 on undeveloped land north of the Calaveras River, well clear of the East Oak Street store it had just left.
Photographs from that year show the building sitting by itself in a field of graded dirt.
There was no mall yet. There wouldn't be one for 21 months.
The store ran two selling levels and carried clothing, appliances, tools, automotive goods, and home merchandise.
It gave the project a working anchor and a stream of customers before a single mall storefront was framed.
The family that pulled Stockton north
Charles M. Weber III, grandson of Stockton's founder, pushed the shopping-center project through the early 1960s. He was a civil engineer, a rancher, and a former member of the California Assembly.
The city's business establishment lined up behind him.
A Stockton Record editorial on January 27, 1962, welcomed the planned northward moves of Sears and Montgomery Ward as evidence that the city was growing.
At a luncheon marking the start of construction, Weber and first Sears manager James O. Williams said the new center would pull more retail business into Stockton.
The site developed as a group of separately owned mall and department-store properties, so different companies could hold different pieces of the same shopping center.
That divided ownership still shapes the site.
Weberstown opened on February 15, 1966
Weberstown Shopping Center opened at 4950 Pacific Avenue on February 15, 1966, an enclosed mall in north Stockton with Sears at one end and a new Weinstock's at the other.
Weinstock's had shut its downtown store at 306 East Main Street three days earlier, on February 12.
The Sacramento chain had come into Stockton in 1963 by buying Smith & Lang, so it arrived on Pacific Avenue with a customer list already built.
The layout was standard for the year: one enclosed concourse on a single level, department stores at the ends, small shops facing the walkway, surface parking in every direction.
One climate-controlled route ran anchor to anchor. Center court handled the seasonal displays, the promotions, and the public events.
A fallout shelter under the Sears floor
The Sears building had a basement, and the basement had an assignment. It was designated Stockton's largest civil-defense shelter, rated to hold 5,840 people for two weeks.
The stock matched the rating: 25 tons of biscuits, water containers, sanitation equipment. The shelter was built into the store during the Cold War, beneath the selling floors.
Federal and local planning of that era treated a new suburban department store as a reasonable place to put several thousand residents underground.
A third anchor, then a rival across the street
JCPenney opened in 1974 as the third department-store anchor, with more than one selling level and doors on both the parking lot and the concourse.
The company kept a reduced downtown operation running while it moved the real Stockton business north. Downtown kept losing that argument, store by store.
Five years later, the district got a second enclosed mall. Sherwood Mall opened just north along Pacific Avenue in 1979 with Macy's and Montgomery Ward.
Anchors and specialty chains split between the two properties, and the Pacific Avenue corridor from March Lane north toward Robinhood Drive became the concentration of regional retail for Stockton and much of San Joaquin County.
The parking deck and the 1992 remodel
The 1992 renovation updated the interior, added food-service space, and put up a two-level parking deck on a property otherwise covered in flat asphalt.
The deck cut the amount of ground the mall needed to absorb a December Saturday. More interior work followed in 1993.
Old Navy arrived in 1995, taking a space Pier 1 Imports had held. It was one of that chain's early stores, and it stayed at the mall through every ownership change that came afterward.
When Weinstock's went dark in 1996
Federated Department Stores bought Broadway Stores in 1995, and Broadway Stores owned Weinstock's.
Federated already ran the Macy's at Sherwood, just north along Pacific Avenue. In 1996, it closed the Weberstown Weinstock's after 30 years.
The damage went past the one empty building. By the following year, about a quarter of the mall's selling space sat vacant.
The Los Angeles company Hapsmith Co. controlled the property by then. Its president, Fred Nicholas, confirmed the replacement in 1996, and it came from Arkansas.
Dillard's picked Stockton to enter California
The Weinstock's building came down.
Dillard's took 11 acres of the cleared ground and built a 200,000-square-foot store, which opened in late October 1997 as the chain's first location in California and one of its first steps onto the West Coast.
Dillard's paid higher rent than the mall's other anchors and got no free building out of the arrangement.
Barnes & Noble moved in from another Stockton location in 1998. Management expected the new anchor to bring in higher-priced apparel tenants and fill the empty space back up by mid-1998.
Managers at both malls said the opening was already helping the district.
The numbers behind a $101.6 million mall
Glimcher Realty Trust took an interest in the mall in 1998 through a five-mall deal arranged with Nomura Asset Capital that valued Weberstown at $24 million.
Glimcher held 20 percent and ran the place.
In May 2006 the property refinanced with a $60 million loan against 605,300 square feet of it. The mall was 98.5 percent leased that month, with 8,900 square feet empty in the financed area.
Sales in the small shops had climbed from $375 per square foot in 2004 to $401 in 2005, and the property appraised at $101.6 million.
The whole complex measured 859,300 square feet across 59 acres, with 4,144 parking spaces. Dillard's owned its own store outright, so the lender's collateral stopped at that anchor's doors.
Sold, refinanced, and put through Chapter 11
Washington Prime Group bought Glimcher in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $4.3 billion including assumed debt, which closed on January 15, 2015.
The combined company called itself WP Glimcher for 19 months, then went back to Washington Prime.
In June 2016 it borrowed $65 million against ownership interests tied to the mall, replacing debt that had just matured.
Then came a change nobody inside the building could see.
Solar panels went up on the roof and were finished in September 2020, sized to produce 1.9 million kilowatt-hours a year, with the landlord buying the electricity generated over the stores.
On June 13, 2021 Washington Prime filed for Chapter 11. It came out on October 21 with nearly $1 billion less debt and SVPGlobal as its majority owner. The mall stayed open through all of it.
Sears closed after 60 years on the site
The liquidation sale ran through the summer of 2024, and the doors shut in August.
The first building on the property became its largest empty one: two levels, 210,000 square feet, its own address at 5110 Pacific Avenue.
The old ownership split came back into view.
Transformco controls and markets the Sears real estate separately from the mall's owner, so the people who run the rest of the center can't decide its future on their own.
Jones Lang LaSalle has marketed it as one 210,000-square-foot block. In July 2026 it was still available, with no replacement named.
A $50.8 million sale in 2025
In April 2025 Washington Prime put the rest of its shopping centers on the market and began winding the company down. It had already disposed of about half its properties over the previous year.
The $50.8 million sale was announced on August 4, 2025. The buyer was Mershops, the shopping-center investment company founded by the Mersho family, and this was its sixth enclosed mall.
Steerpoint Capital led the purchase and stayed on to advise on leasing and asset management.
The next day, Spinoso Real Estate Group announced that it was taking over operations, management, and leasing.
The new owners have talked about selective reinvestment and updating dated sections of the mall.
The marketing now calls the property Mershops Weberstown. In Stockton it's still Weberstown.
What Weberstown is now
On February 17, 2026, the mall held its 60th-anniversary ceremony in center court, with a Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting, prizes, and a live radio broadcast.
The mall was advertised as having more than 80 stores, services, restaurants, and food counters in July 2026.
Dillard's, JCPenney, and Barnes & Noble carry the anchor duty now. Old Navy and Five Below hold large spaces.
The rest of the list includes Victoria's Secret, Hollister, Shoe Palace, Zales, Work World, El Grullense, Wetzel's Pretzels, Milk & Dream Ice Cream, and a 9D virtual reality attraction.
Parking is free. Most weekdays the doors open at 11 and close at 8.
San Joaquin Delta College sits directly across Pacific Avenue, the University of the Pacific is a little over a mile south, and the regional transit district's Mall Transfer Station is on Yokuts Avenue beside the property.
Sherwood's enclosed interior shut for redevelopment in 2022 and emerged as Sherwood Place, facing its parking lot.
That left Weberstown as Stockton's only enclosed mall, with a sheltered indoor walking loop. The 2026 calendar put a farmers market in its parking lot and walking sessions inside it.
Sources and further reading
- The saga of Sears and sprawl - Stocktonia News, July 3, 2024. A local historical account of the Stockton Sears store, the Weber family's development plans, the city's northward retail shift, and the building's civil-defense shelter.
- Dillard's Invades California / Arkansas retailer opens department store in Stockton - SFGATE, November 1, 1997. Contemporary reporting on Dillard's first California store, its 200,000-square-foot building, and conditions at Weberstown Mall when it opened.
- Glimcher Realty Trust Form 10-K for 2007 - U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2008. Provides primary financial and property information on Weberstown Mall, including its 2006 mortgage financing.
- At Weberstown Mall - Transformco Properties, accessed July 2026. Lists the former Sears building as a two-level, 210,000-square-foot property offered for lease through JLL.
- Mershops Acquires Weberstown Mall in Stockton - Steerpoint Capital, August 4, 2025. Announces Mershops' $50.75 million acquisition and outlines Steerpoint Capital's continuing role at the property.
- Spinoso Real Estate Group Expands Partnership with Steerpoint Capital for Weberstown Mall - Spinoso Real Estate Group, August 5, 2025. Identifies the firm responsible for operations, property management, and leasing after the acquisition.
- Retail Stores - Weberstown Mall, updated through June 2026. The mall's current directory documents its active mix of national retailers, local businesses, services, and entertainment tenants.
- Brixton Capital to Redevelop and Rebrand Stockton's Sherwood Mall as Sherwood Place - Brixton Capital, December 2021. Explains the closure of Sherwood's main interior mall and its redevelopment into Sherwood Place.
