The Mall at Lexington Green is a shopping center in Lexington, Kentucky, that combines both indoor and outdoor spaces. It is located in Fayette County, in the heart of the Bluegrass region.
The mall is located where New Circle Road and Nicholasville Road meet, right next to Fayette Mall, placing it in the busiest shopping area of the Lexington metro region.
It serves as a high-end shopping, dining, and entertainment spot for Lexington and nearby central Kentucky, offering about 165,000 square feet of retail space anchored by Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
The center opened on September 11, 1986, and has operated continuously since, distinguishing itself through its lakeside setting, the Lakeside Live concert series, and a 174-room Embassy Suites hotel on the same site.
A Bookstore That Changed Lexington Green's Fate
On September 11, 1986, a two-level shopping center opened at the corner of New Circle Road and Nicholasville Road in Lexington, Kentucky.
Much of it was empty from the start. It was designed as a mix between an enclosed mall and an open strip center, which left it feeling like an awkward in-between.
Only a few businesses moved in. Disc Jockey Music took one end. Sears Homelife anchored another. Joseph-Beth Booksellers set up in its own corner and focused on its work.
For the next three years, little improved. Both levels had many vacant spaces. Few people came through.
The center was supposed to benefit from being next to Fayette Mall, a large regional mall with dozens of stores, but that traffic did not carry over as expected.
In 1989, the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce named Joseph-Beth Booksellers Small Business of the Year. The store had built a strong local following.
It was more than a place to buy books. It hosted events, created a sense of community, and brought in customers from nearby neighborhoods who came just for the store.
In the mid-1990s, Langley Properties, a local development group, purchased the mall.
How Joseph-Beth Took Over the Mall at Lexington Green
Most of the upper and lower level spaces - the ones that had never found permanent occupants - were converted into room for Joseph-Beth to expand.
The bookstore grew from its original footprint into the physical center of the complex.
By the time the renovations were complete, only about seven enclosed retail spaces remained in the traditional mall portion.
Lexington Green was now a destination built around a bookstore, with some retail attached. CompUSA moved into the old Joseph-Beth space as the store pushed deeper into the building.
Wild Oats Markets eventually occupied the footprint that Sears Homelife had vacated after that chain closed its Lexington Green location and folded its furniture operations back into the main Fayette Mall store.
By 2004, the center contained 168,500 square feet and ran at 94.7 percent occupancy.
Its three biggest tenants were Joseph-Beth at 44,600 square feet, Wild Oats at 26,700 square feet, and CompUSA at 19,800 square feet.
Losing Ground Before the Rebuild
The mid-2000s came hard. Sears Homelife was already gone. Then CompUSA closed in 2007. Disc Jockey Music closed the same year.
The tenants that had been operating in the spaces around them followed. Lexington Green went into visible decline - the slow kind, where anchor storefronts go dark and stay that way.
Wild Oats was by then operating as Whole Foods Market, having been acquired by that chain, and the grocery anchor held for a while.
The Sears Homelife space had been renovated to bring in Wild Oats before that transition, so the center had managed to replace one departed anchor with a functioning grocery store.
But the identity that had carried the center through the 1990s and early 2000s - Joseph-Beth as the hub, complementary retail filling the perimeter - was fraying.
The loss of CompUSA was particularly felt because that store had occupied the original Joseph-Beth footprint, one of the larger spaces in the building.
By 2011, Langley Properties had brought in Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate to handle leasing, and the plan shifted to a full redevelopment of the property as a lifestyle center.
That same year, a Langley-affiliated buyer paid $3.9 million at auction to acquire the Joseph-Beth and Davis-Kidd bookstore names along with three remaining store locations, including the Lexington flagship.
The Fashion Pivot That Remade the Property
Work on the redevelopment had started around 2010, but it was 2012 and 2013 before new tenants started arriving in numbers.
The direction was fashion retail: pull in national apparel names, remove tenants that did not fit, and upgrade the physical environment to match.
Two fountains went in. Brick pavers replaced the existing surfaces in key areas. Colored concrete was poured.
Joseph-Beth got a full interior remodel, with children's operations moved to a lower lakeside level and the Bronte Bistro refreshed alongside it.
Ann Taylor LOFT signed in 2012. On January 18, 2013, Anthropologie opened in the former Disc Jockey space - the first Anthropologie in Lexington, the second in all of Kentucky.
White House Black Market and Chico's were confirmed in February 2013. Charming Charlie, Lululemon, and Francesca's followed in July.
Heavenly Ham and Willis Music were pushed out as the fashion concentration tightened. Regatta Seafood Grille and Tony Roma's closed as management looked for higher-end replacements.
Hot Mama, a women's apparel chain aimed at mothers, also signed during that same period.
By the end of 2013, Lexington Green had added more new fashion tenants in eighteen months than it had seen in the previous decade.
A Competitor Opens and Takes the Tenants
Whole Foods announced in 2014 that it was leaving for The Summit at Fritz Farm, a new mixed-use development a short distance away on Nicholasville Road.
Litigation followed between the two developers.
The Summit was a bigger project with more funding, more outdoor shopping areas, and stronger main stores, and Lexington's high-end shopping area was being split between two competing centers.
When The Summit opened in 2017, it did not stop at taking the grocery anchor. Anthropologie relocated there. Lululemon followed.
Lexington Green had spent five years assembling that tenant mix, and its two most visible fashion additions left for a newer address inside the same trade area.
The pavers, fountains, and remodeled interiors were all still there. The bookstore held its position.
But the change meant to secure a new identity was weakened by a competitor with more money, more land to build on, and a stronger attraction for the national brands Lexington Green had tried to bring in.
LOFT, White House Black Market, and Chico's stayed. The center went looking for a different strategy.
Lakeside Live and the Turn to Atmosphere
Lexington Green sits by the water. For years, that did not matter much.
That began to change in June 2016, when Jax Burgers and Brews opened facing the lake. The work that followed expanded the space around it.
A dock was added. Covered lounge seating went in. There was a fire pit and a fountain that moved and changed color with live music.
That same summer, Lakeside Live started as a free weekly concert series during the warmer months.
Crowds came. About 1,500 people on a typical Friday or Saturday night. Around 3,000 during Fourth of July weekend.
Families showed up without plans to shop. Young adults came for the music and stayed for dinner.
The waterfront gave people a reason to come, something the fashion push in 2012 and 2013 - with Anthropologie, Lululemon, and several other national brands - had not fully accomplished on its own.
Jax Burgers and Brews closed in 2021, and Cattywampus Station moved in. The concerts continued, drawing about 1,500 people each night.
The series became a regular part of the property's events, not just a seasonal trial.
In 2024, the opening night took place, but the rest of the early season was canceled before the series came back and finished the season.
New Tenants and a Shifting Identity Since 2018
Logan's of Lexington moved into the center in 2018. Total Wine and More opened in April of that year in a 27,000-square-foot space, one of the larger individual retail footprints at the property.
CYL Sauna Studio opened in 2020. In 2021, the former Jax Burgers and Brews lakeside space became Cattywampus Station.
A parcel at 200 Lexington Green Circle sold in June of that year for $5,175,000, 29,000 square feet at $178 per square foot.
In December 2022, Shelia Bayes Jewelers opened in a new permanent space at the center.
Image Studios and a Fidelity Investments branch were both added in 2023, bringing a personal services tenant and a financial services office into a property that had spent the previous decade focused on a mix that included apparel, dining, and other uses.
The current tenant list includes Joseph-Beth, Palmers Fresh Grill, Logan's of Lexington, Total Wine and More, LOFT, Comedy Off Broadway, LensCrafters, Tunies Boutique, 100% Chiropractic, Urban Sweat, Woodhouse Day Spa, and Ammortal, among others.
The 165,000-square-foot center also shares its site with a 174-room Embassy Suites hotel, two Class A office buildings, and roughly 1,500 parking spaces.
What Lexington Green Is Now
Joseph-Beth Booksellers is still the center's largest tenant, four decades after the store first opened there. LOFT remains from the fashion repositioning of the early 2010s.
Lululemon and Anthropologie both left for The Summit, but Tunies Boutique filled out the apparel side of the lineup afterward.
The center does not fit cleanly into any retail category. It is not the enclosed mall it was in 1986, not the pure lifestyle center the 2013 repositioning was aiming for, and not a conventional strip center.
It runs on a bookstore, a lakeside concert series, a hotel, a mix of dining and service tenants, and a limited apparel mix.
Comedy Off Broadway holds one of the interior spaces. Woodhouse Day Spa and 100% Chiropractic occupy others. The Embassy Suites on the property has 174 rooms.
The former Jax Burgers and Brews lakeside space was later occupied by Cattywampus Station, which opened there in 2021 and closed in 2024.
Notable Milestones
1986 - The Mall at Lexington Green opened in Lexington, Kentucky.
2004 - The mall contained 168,453 square feet, had 94.7 percent occupancy, and Joseph-Beth, Wild Oats, and CompUSA as major tenants.
2011 - A Langley-affiliated buyer paid $3.9 million for the Joseph-Beth and Davis-Kidd names and three stores, including the Lexington flagship.
2012 - A major repositioning was underway, with physical upgrades and a shift toward an upscale fashion-focused tenant mix.
January 18, 2013 - Anthropologie opened at Lexington Green.
2013 - White House Black Market, Chico's, Charming Charlie, Lululemon, and Francesca's were added during the fashion-center push.
2014 - Whole Foods announced plans to leave Lexington Green for The Summit at Fritz Farm.
June 2016 - Jax Burgers & Brews opened on the lakeside, and Lakeside Live launched as a major event feature.
2017 - Whole Foods, Anthropologie, and Lululemon had moved to The Summit, marking a major tenant loss for Lexington Green.
2018 - Total Wine & More opened at the center, and Logan's of Lexington moved in.
2020 - CYL Sauna Studio opened.
2021 - A parcel at 200 Lexington Green Circle sold for $5,175,000, and Cattywampus Station took the former Jax space.
December 2022 - Shelia Bayes Jewelers opened in a new permanent space.
2023 - Image Studios and Fidelity Investments were added to the tenant mix.
2025 - Goodwood Brewing's Lexington Green location faced a landlord lawsuit that was dismissed in October 2025.
December 23, 2025 - Playground Abode was announced for Lexington Green with an early 2026 opening plan.
February 13, 2026 - Sam's Hot Dog Stand at Lexington Green closed.
