The store that gave The Mall at Whitney Field its original name closed in early 2020. The building it left behind remains one of the two largest spaces on the property, and it is still empty.
The mall has served North Central Massachusetts since 1967. Over those decades, it cycled through department stores, discount chains, electronics retailers, and toy stores, replacing each one when it failed with whatever the market offered next.
JCPenney, which had itself replaced an earlier department store roughly four decades ago, is still open. The food court installed during the 2004 renovation still has tables.
The rest of the original roster is mostly gone. What happened in between is a half-century record of lease substitutions.
The Mall at Whitney Field Began as Searstown, Built Around Sears
When Searstown Mall opened in Leominster in 1967, the name told you everything. Sears was the anchor, the draw, the reason to drive to Commercial Road.
The store sold clothes, appliances, tools, and automotive goods under one roof, which made it a complete destination rather than a specialty stop.
For North Central Massachusetts, Searstown was a regional retail center at a moment when enclosed malls were displacing older downtown shopping patterns.
Route 2 and the Interstate 190 corridor gave the site its commercial logic. Shoppers could reach it from Fitchburg and Leominster, from the smaller towns along Route 2 to the west, and from Worcester to the south.
Large parking fields surrounded the building on all sides. This was retail designed entirely for cars.
The Early Roster: Department Stores, Discounters, and a Grocery Draw
Searstown opened with more than Sears. R.H. White was a traditional department-store anchor. Bradlees sold discounted merchandise. Sage-Allen filled a mid-range niche.
DeMoulas/Market Basket later operated within the broader complex, which made the site something other than only a conventional enclosed mall.
A shopping center where you could also buy a week's worth of groceries was a different kind of place.
The early design used large-format boxes alongside a conventional enclosed-mall corridor.
The result was a building that could absorb some new tenants into old spaces, though later changes sometimes required larger renovations, demolition, or new construction.
In Searstown's first decade, that cycle had not yet started. Each anchor would eventually leave, and each vacancy would need a new answer.
From R.H. White to JCPenney: The Mall Remakes Its Anchor Lineup
R.H. White closed around 1980. Its departure left the first large vacant anchor box the property had faced, with no obvious candidate to fill it.
Renovation phases in 1986 and 1988 cleared the way. By the late 1980s, the former R.H. White area had been reworked to make room for JCPenney.
JCPenney's arrival expanded the property from its original department-store lineup into a broader regional-mall format. JCPenney was, by the late 1980s, one of the standard anchors for regional malls of this type.
The building's basic retail format still reflected its 1967 origins, but it had been expanded and reworked: one enclosed level, large anchor boxes connected to a central interior corridor, and surface parking surrounding it.
Sage-Allen closed in the early 1990s and was replaced by Service Merchandise, a catalog-showroom chain with a large national presence.
Service Merchandise closed in 1999. The space was divided around 2000 to accommodate Circuit City and Old Navy, two retailers then at the center of American consumer shopping.
A 1994 renovation is documented for the property, though the available source does not describe its scope; by the mid-2000s, the mall was still listed as one level, with surface parking fields and its position on Commercial Road.
Bradlees Falls, Filene's Rises, Whitney Field Begins
Bradlees closed in 2001 when the chain collapsed. The building came down in 2002.
That demolition created the most significant physical opportunity the property had seen since it opened, and it came with a new mall entrance configuration to match.
Out of the cleared space came a new two-level department-store building: Filene's.
It was the first multi-level structure in the mall's history, and it brought a major New England department-store name at a moment when the property still had Sears, JCPenney, Circuit City, and Old Navy.
The 2004 renovation followed. New food court. A children's soft-play area. Soft seating, new carpet, and new tile.
The project modernized the common areas and closed out the Searstown identity. The property became The Mall at Whitney Field.
By April 2005, the mall counted about 658,400 square feet of gross leasable area, 73 stores, and roughly 3,300 parking spaces.
Filene's held about 140,000 square feet; Sears about 145,600; JCPenney about 90,400; Circuit City about 40,000; Old Navy about 26,200.
Filene's became Macy's in 2006 when a national consolidation absorbed former May Department Stores nameplates across the country.
The Leominster store continued under the new sign.
The Strong Years: A Full Roster Before the Decline
The 2006 tenant list covered every major category of American mall retail. Apparel ran from Gap and American Eagle Outfitters to Aeropostale and Pacific Sunwear.
Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works handled the personal-care segment.
FYE, RadioShack, Waldenbooks, and KB Toys covered media, electronics, books, and toys. The food court mixed sit-down and quick-service options: Friendly's, Subway, Panera Bread, Golden Wok, and Dairy Queen.
Home Depot, Market Basket, and outparcel restaurants kept the Commercial Road corridor busy well beyond the enclosed mall itself.
No regional mall competitor sat within 20 miles; the trade area covered more than 735,000 people and more than 276,000 households, with an average household income of about $82,900.
In 2007, the mall sold for about $82 million, including the assumption of a $74.5 million loan.
That price reflected commercial real estate values near their pre-recession peak. It would soon look like a number from a different era.
The 2010 Foreclosure and the Mall's Long Descent
In November 2010, with commercial real estate values well off their 2007 peak, the lender foreclosed with about $72.2 million outstanding on the loan.
The building did not close. Tenants continued to operate.
But the financial structure had broken in the same pattern that would play out with the mall's anchor stores over the following decade: a sharp drop, then a long working through of what remained.
Circuit City had already closed during the chain's national bankruptcy. Ultimate Electronics briefly occupied part of that former electronics-store space before its own failure ended that arrangement.
The property entered a turnaround period in 2013.
Burlington signed for about 66,000 square feet of the former electronics-store space, opened in 2014, and drew consistent traffic at a price point the struggling mall needed.
The 2013 acquisition value was about $36 million, less than half the 2007 sale price.
Toys 'R' Us still operated as an outparcel. Macy's still anchored the two-level structure. JCPenney remained. From Commercial Road, the mall still looked like a functioning regional center.
Sears, Macy's, and the End of the Anchor Era
Toys 'R' Us closed in 2018 as the chain liquidated its U.S. stores. Gardner Outlet Furniture occupied the former Toys 'R' Us space in 2019, then relocated to a new spot with a ribbon-cutting in October 2022.
In November 2019, Sears announced the Leominster store would close by February 2020. That closure ended more than 50 years of Sears at 100 Commercial Road.
At about 145,600 square feet, it was the largest single vacancy the property had ever carried.
On Christmas Eve 2019, Leo Ma Mall LLC, a Hull Property Group affiliate based in Augusta, Georgia, purchased the mall for $16 million.
The City of Leominster's appraisal at that time placed the property's value at about $6 million.
The mall had sold for $82 million in 2007. Twelve years later, the city valued it at $6 million, and the new owner paid $16 million.
In January 2020, Macy's announced the Leominster store would close, with clearance sales beginning that month.
The store had operated for about 18 years, first as Filene's and then as Macy's. JOANN closed its location in late April 2025 when the chain shut down nationally.
What Remains at Whitney Field, and What May Replace It
The Mall at Whitney Field is open. Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
JCPenney, Burlington, Launch, Old Navy, Hot Topic, Torrid, LensCrafters, Panera Bread, Golden Wok, Yakumi Sushi, Hannoush Jewelers, Finish Line, and a mix of service and specialty tenants make up the current directory.
The food court still has tables.
The holiday programming still draws families: Malloween in the fall, the Jingle Jamboree that ran in December 2025, and Santa visits for children who know this as the place you go in winter.
Discussions between Costco and Hull Property Group became public in May 2025.
By February 2026, Hull Property Group appeared before the Leominster Conservation Commission with an informal proposal: demolish approximately 512,000 square feet of the existing mall and construct a 275,000-square-foot wholesale club.
The former Sears space, the former Macy's structure, and a large portion of the mall's northern section would come down.
JCPenney, Burlington, and Launch would remain.
A Costco-operated gas station was included in the plan; the Commission noted it could trigger additional environmental review, requested documentation showing how the project met state environmental criteria, and expressed support for the overall concept.
No opening date has been confirmed.
What started as Searstown in 1967 is now a mall where the two biggest buildings are vacant, and a warehouse club may take their place.
Whether that proposal moves forward, and on what timeline, is pending.
