Towne East Square in Wichita, Kansas is a two-level enclosed mall at Kellogg Drive and Rock Road, and none of its anchor buildings sit empty.
It was drawn up as Kellogg Mall and built as Towne East Square. JCPenney opened first, in January 1975. Henry's came in May and Dillard's in August. Sears arrived in 1977. J.M. McDonald lasted until 1982.
Henry's closed in 1993 and its building came down. Sears closed in March 2019, after 41 years. Von Maur replaced Henry's in 2002, and SCHEELS took the Sears shell in 2023.
JCPenney and Dillard's never left. More than 100 stores trade inside now, under four major retail anchors. A Shoe Palace is on the way.
Kellogg Mall, renamed before construction
Melvin Simon came to Wichita with a model of the center he wanted to build.
On the drawings it was still called Kellogg Mall, a working name dropped for Towne East Square before construction.
His company, Melvin Simon & Associates, was the Indianapolis developer he ran with his brothers.
The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission approved the design by March 23, 1973, and the City Commission signed off on April 4.
Construction started that July at Kellogg Drive and Rock Road, budgeted at $35 million.
Nothing the firm had built came close to it. Towne East was its first enclosed mall over a million square feet.
JCPenney opened months before the grand opening
The mall opened in pieces, and shoppers were inside it months before the official opening date.
JCPenney opened on January 22, 1975.
Henry's grand opening followed on May 11, the Wichita chain moving its Twin Corners operation over from Douglas and Oliver. Dillard's took longer.
Its 182,000-square-foot store at the north end opened August 14, and that date became the grand opening for the whole center, nearly seven months after the first customers walked in.
Sears was last to the site. By July 10, 1975, plans called for a 200,000-square-foot store. What opened on August 4, 1977 ran 224,000.
Buses back at the doors by 1979
Kellogg carries U.S. 54 and 400 through Wichita. Rock Road is the east side's main north-south street. The address is 7700 East Kellogg Drive.
Plenty of shoppers got there without a car.
In November 1975, weeks after the grand opening, the city routed the College Hill bus through the mall, and a 1976 eastside plan used Towne East as a transfer point.
For a stretch, riders were made to get off out on Rock Road, which quickly proved a safety hazard.
On February 14, 1979, buses were allowed back up to the doors.
By 1976 the finished center was valued at $50 million, $15 million above the construction estimate.
The anchor box that kept changing hands
J.M. McDonald anchored the west end and closed in 1982. That box kept getting reused.
Wilson's opened there in November 1983, the chain's 79th store.
Service Merchandise bought Wilson's in 1985 and ran the showroom into the 1990s, then closed at the end of 1998 over weak sales, putting 55 full- and part-time employees out of work.
Stein Mart moved in during 1999. By 2004 the space belonged to Steve & Barry's, which went under in the chain's 2008 liquidation.
By 2011, a private college rented the old department store. Wright Career College opened its Wichita branch there in April.
Henry's closed, Von Maur built
Henry's lasted 18 years at Towne East and closed in 1993. Its anchor sat empty for the rest of the decade before the building came down.
Von Maur spent nearly two years putting up its own store on the cleared ground.
It opened on August 3, 2002, refilling the end of the mall Henry's had held since the first spring.
At the end of 2002, the property carried two loans with a combined balance of $74.5 million, both due January 1, 2009.
Occupancy held anyway. In 2004 Towne East measured 1,169,200 square feet of leasable space and ran at 93.7 percent full.
The $8 million renovation done at night
Towne East was updated in 1988 and again in 2001. The 2008 job changed what shoppers actually stood on.
Crews laid new tile on the lower level and carpet on the upper, hung new lighting, put in soft seating and a children's play area, and installed new escalators.
The entrances were reworked in natural stone.
Most of the work ran overnight so the doors could open in the morning, and it stretched into 2009. The project was budgeted at $8 million.
Coach was due in late June and Forever 21 by summer's end, with Dillard's, Sears, JCPenney, and Von Maur all still trading.
From Sears shell to SCHEELS store
On December 28, 2018, the Towne East Sears landed on a list of 80 Sears and Kmart closings.
The doors shut in March 2019, after 41 years, leaving 224,000 square feet empty.
The west end was moving too.
Wright Career College folded in April 2016 when the school closed every campus, and Round1 took part of the space for a 44,000-square-foot bowling and arcade hall.
Simon closed the whole mall at 7 p.m. on March 18, 2020 and reopened it May 4. Round1 finally opened July 18.
SCHEELS took the Sears shell.
Its 220,000-square-foot store opened July 1, 2023 with 85 shop areas inside, a saltwater aquarium, and more than 400 employees.
What Towne East Square is in 2026
The mall is still enclosed and still Simon's outright: 1,157,200 square feet with no debt against it as of March 31, 2026.
More than 90 stores trade inside, under Dillard's, JCPenney, Von Maur, and SCHEELS.
Towne West Square, the city's other enclosed mall, told its interior tenants to clear out in 2025 so it could become a business park.
Towne East kept leasing, and Toys "R" Us came back in November 2025 with 13,000 square feet near Dillard's.
High-school seniors short on credits take classes on site at the Simon Youth Academy, run with Wichita Public Schools.
Buses 25, 29, and 201 serve the mall, and a Shoe Palace is going in.
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