By the end of 1961, Paka Plaza had opened at the I-94 and US 127 junction in Jackson. In 1976 a stereo shop there printed directions for Lansing shoppers coming down US 127.
As Jackson Crossing after 1990, it held Gilbert Chocolates, Alpha Koney Island, and a pretzel stand, with a 10-screen cinema at the edge of the property.
Sears closed in 2018. Today a shelter offers cats and rabbits for adoption in the Target wing, and the halls hold a Secretary of State branch and college-aid help.
In September 2026 Target filed a contract suit against the mall's owners. That leaves the shelter in its wing, the shops, the state office, and the question of what the case means for each of them.
Paka Plaza opens, and Sears leaves downtown
In 1959 a Jackson father and son from the family behind Acme Industries arranged to buy land at the spot where I-94 met US 127.
By the end of 1961, Paka Plaza had opened on that ground: an open-air shopping center of 34 stores in Jackson, Michigan, with no roof over the walk between its storefronts.
Kroger ran the grocery, and W.T. Grant and Woolworth ran variety stores a few doors apart.
The plaza soon drew a much bigger store out of the city center.
Sears had been trading downtown at 287 W. Michigan Avenue, and in 1964 the company announced it would give up that address for the new shopping district out at the highway.
In 1966 the new Sears opened at Paka Plaza, a full department store selling appliances and clothing, with automotive service attached.
Westwood Mall opens, and the walkway gets a roof
In 1972 Westwood Mall opened as the first enclosed mall in Jackson.
Paka Plaza answered in 1973, when its owners closed in the open-air walkway and put the whole row of stores under one roof.
The plaza kept adding tenants after the enclosure, and by 1975 it counted 43 stores against the 34 it had opened with.
Under that roof the stores kept long hours.
In 1976 Jackson Music Mart traded next door to Sears, selling stereo equipment, turntables, and tape recorders from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
Its advertising reached past the city line: Lansing shoppers were told to drive south on US 127, pass under I-94, and turn into the plaza.
The center kept the Paka Plaza name through the 1980s.
Ramco doubles the plaza as Jackson Crossing
What had been Paka Plaza became Jackson Crossing after Ramco-Gershenson bought it in 1990.
The redevelopment cost $25 million and left the center more than twice as large as before.
Target arrived in 1991, while Kohl's and Best Buy were added later in the 1990s, and Bed Bath & Beyond took a space in 2002.
Target and Sears each owned their own building, apart from the part of the center Ramco held.
A 2005 reshuffle made room for TJ Maxx by combining several smaller spaces into a store of about 31,000 square feet.
A local candy maker came along with the chains. Gilbert Chocolates, in business in Jackson since 1900, moved a shop into the center in 1991.
In the Ramco years the mall ran on a single level, with wings reaching out toward Target, Kohl's, and Sears.
Shoppers ate at Alpha Koney Island, Jackson Popcorn Depot, and Pretzel Maker inside, while the Jackson 10 cinema and several freestanding restaurants stood out on the edge of the property.
In February 2007 the local Human Relations Commission scheduled its oratorical contest in the mall.
Toys "R" Us and Sears close in 2018
MC Sports had moved into a larger store at Jackson Crossing in 2016. In 2017 the chain liquidated, and its store went empty.
Toys "R" Us went out in 2018 with its own chain. That August, Sears announced that the Jackson Crossing store would close.
Liquidation sales started at the end of the month, the auto center was set to keep working until late October, and the department store shut in November 2018, about 52 years after it had come out from downtown.
The leasing numbers had already fallen by then. At the end of 2006, about 97 percent of the space Ramco owned at the center was leased.
At the end of 2017, before the company was renamed RPT Realty, the share was about 87 percent.
In November 2018 RPT sold its part of Jackson Crossing, about 420,000 square feet, for $25 million.
By 2019 the mall belonged to Jackson Crossing Realty LLC, an entity tied to Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management, and the new owners started with three of the center's largest stores standing empty.
Hobby Lobby and Burlington fill the old Sears
In 2019 Dunham's Sports brought the city a plan to renovate the former Toys "R" Us into one of its sporting-goods stores, a space that ranked third in size among the stores in that part of the center.
In March 2020 Michigan's stay-home order closed Jackson Crossing.
The Sears building was divided among several tenants.
Hobby Lobby had been announced for a May 30 opening, and on May 27, 2022, three days early, it opened in 55,000 square feet of the old Sears, its 31st store in Michigan.
The city's 2023 plan for the whole Sears site showed about 150,000 square feet of buildings, with Burlington in the southeastern part of the old store, Planet Fitness and Eyemart beside Hobby Lobby, and restaurant spaces set around them.
Bed Bath & Beyond left in early 2022, before the chain's 2023 bankruptcy and wind-down.
In October 2023 Ross Dress for Less opened in the space it had held.
An adoption center opens in the Target wing
The rival from 1972 fared worse than Jackson Crossing.
In July 2025 a count of storefronts found about 13 percent of Jackson Crossing's empty, while 23 of the 45 at Westwood Mall were dark.
Part of Jackson Crossing's space now goes to public services.
Cascades Humane Society opened a second adoption center in the mall's Target wing in June 2026, for cats, kittens, rabbits, and birds, open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
A Michigan Secretary of State branch has a storefront in the mall.
A college and career access center helps students with financial aid and applications, and its resource days in the Target wing are set to run into February 2027.
The U.S. Postal Service and military recruiting offices have spaces as well.
The mall is closed on Thanksgiving and is scheduled to open at 7 a.m. on Black Friday.
At noon that day, the Jackson District Library is set to read Santa Stories next to the Vintage Carousel by the Dunham's entrance, with an American Sign Language interpreter on hand.
From then through December 31, local vendors and live musicians are booked into the main windowed hallway for Holiday in the Halls.
Gilbert Chocolates still has its shop in the mall, and the 10-screen cinema on North Wisner Street is showing films.
Target's contract dispute, and a state office stays
In September 2026 Target filed a contract suit in federal court against the mall's owners. The case is pending.
The dispute is between one anchor and the landlord, and the stores keep trading: Target is open, and so are Kohl's, Best Buy, and TJ Maxx.
In 1976 a stereo shop at the plaza was advertising to shoppers as far away as Lansing.
Fifty years later, the mall's halls also draw people who come for something other than the stores: the state has leased its Secretary of State branch there through May 2031, and the shelter in the Target wing has cats and rabbits up for adoption.
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