The mall at 1941 South 42nd Street in Omaha, Nebraska, hasn't been a retail center in years. It's a five-story building full of small offices.
The Center opened in 1955, one of the first enclosed multi-level shopping centers in the country. Younkers anchored it. Offices took most of the fourth floor from opening day.
A 1969 fire destroyed the fifth floor. Younkers closed in January 1996, and the last shops followed.
More than 100 tenants rent here now, including a dentist and two small museums. A developer has proposed demolishing all of it for 500 apartments and office space.
The hillside that had to move first
In 1954, crews cut into a steep embankment at 42nd and Center Streets in Omaha and hauled more than 100,000 cubic yards of earth off the site.
John Wiebe was behind it. He'd come to Omaha with the Navy in 1943 and built 150 houses in Loveland.
A shopping center built around the car was partly his wife Harriet's idea; she couldn't find parking downtown.
He hired Kenneth C. Welch and the J. G. Daverman firm of Grand Rapids. Then he needed a department store.
J. L. Brandeis & Sons, Omaha's dominant chain, said no. Younkers, of Des Moines, said yes.
Younkers opened first. The Center opened seven weeks later.
Younkers opened at 1941 South 42nd Street on September 6, 1955, its first branch in a shopping center.
The dedication followed on October 24, with Governor Victor E. Anderson and Mayor John Rosenblatt attending.
The Center was Omaha's first enclosed shopping center: five stories, fully enclosed, with 200,000 square feet of leasable space.
Shops filled the first three floors, each connecting straight into its own level of the surrounding garage.
Room for 1,600 cars. Offices sat on the fourth floor from opening day.
Downstairs: Big Chief supermarket, Hested's variety store, Thom McAn shoes, and a children's store, Lollipop Lane.
Southdale in Minnesota, usually called America's first enclosed mall, opened a year later.
Bowling, cocktails, and a place to leave the kids
The fifth floor was where the building did its socializing. It opened with the Center Roof Garden restaurant, and Al Green's Sky Room followed.
Two more arrived in 1959. Ben Kava's Cimarron Room, a restaurant with cocktail service, opened on July 15.
Sky Lanes opened on September 6 with 24 lanes, two spectator lounges, a bar, and the Kiddie Korral, supervised child care for parents who wanted to shop or bowl.
So you could park once and reach a department store, a grocery, a drugstore, and dinner without stepping outside.
It also put the restaurants and the bowling alley directly above the office floor.
The fire on October 17, 1969
Fire destroyed that fifth floor on October 17, 1969, and badly damaged the fourth floor below.
Damage ran past $5 million, and the complex closed for repairs.
It came back over 1970 and 1971. The Cimarron Room reopened in November 1970 with a new lounge called the Devil's Nest.
Reconstruction changed what shoppers saw.
Dark wood-look trim and ornamental detailing in an Old English style replaced the mid-1950s finish, and portions of it are still in the corridors in 2026.
Younkers returned and the tenants came back. The mall spent those two years rebuilding for a retail market that had already moved on.
Crossroads, Westroads, and no room to grow
Crossroads opened at 72nd and Dodge in 1960, built by Brandeis with Sears inside. Bigger, and closer to the new houses.
Wiebe built the next competitor himself: Westroads, near 100th and West Dodge, several times the size of his 1955 project.
The Center couldn't answer either one.
The hillside that made the parking clever left little room to expand, while newer malls spread across much larger sites.
The upper-floor restaurant and bar closed in 1975.
In 1978 Wiebe sold the building to Management, Inc., a partnership of three of his employees, who converted 120,000 square feet to offices while Younkers and Sky Lanes kept trading.
January 1996: the last department store closes
The anchor kept changing names. Younkers bought Omaha's Kilpatrick's chain in March 1961, and by that May the store was Kilpatrick-Younkers.
The styling drifted to Younker-Kilpatricks, then went back to plain Younkers in August 1982.
Oak View Mall opened in southwest Omaha in 1991.
Younkers held on for five more years and closed in January 1996, and the last conventional shops left soon after.
Sky Lanes lasted well into the 1990s.
What remained was a mall-shaped building full of small offices. The corridors stayed where they were.
The people walking them were employees, clients, patients, and program participants.
More than 100 tenants inside an old mall
Inside today you'll find the South Omaha Immigrant History Museum, Mama's Attic: The Doll Museum of African American History, a dentist, and a branch of Access Bank.
Reconnect, Inc. has run programs for adults and juveniles here since 2016.
More than 100 tenants were using the complex in 2026.
In July, a lease listing described the 227,574-square-foot Class C office building, with space at $7.25 to $14.50 per square foot a year and covered and surface parking.
Old storefront openings and mall corridors are still legible between the office partitions.
Parts of the garage have aging concrete and standing water.
Lockwood wants to replace The Center with 500 apartments
In spring 2026 Lockwood Development proposed demolishing the complex for 500 apartments, market-rate and affordable, and offices.
The plan depends on tax increment financing, so future property-tax increases from the site would cover part of the cost.
The site has to sit inside a Community Redevelopment Area first.
Omaha's Planning Board voted 5-0 in June to recommend that designation.
Residents in Hanscom Park and Morton Meadows objected to the boundary map and to the blighted and substandard wording the process requires, while other neighbors supported redevelopment.
Tenants have a narrower problem: clients arrive by bus, and cheap central space with covered parking is hard to replace.
The City Council's first reading is expected in September. Nothing has been demolished, and the building is still full.
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