Meadowood Mall entered 2026 with over 100 tenants and 117,800 square feet of former anchor space still listed for lease. It also entered 2026 as the only enclosed regional shopping mall still operating in northern Nevada.
The mall opened in south Reno in 1979 and spent the next four decades accumulating and then losing department-store anchors.
The former Sears building at 5400 Meadowood Mall Circle has been in various stages of reuse and vacancy since Sears closed in July 2018. Round1 now runs a bowling alley and arcade in part of it. The rest is still available.
How an enclosed mall built around department stores keeps functioning after the department stores leave is a question Meadowood has been answering in real time, one closure and one replacement tenant at a time.
Meadowood Mall Opens in South Reno, 1979
Taubman Centers, a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, developer behind many large American enclosed regional malls, built Meadowood at 5000 Meadowood Mall Circle, at the junction of South Virginia Street and South McCarran Boulevard.
Reno already had Park Lane Mall as its main enclosed shopping center. Park Lane would later close in 2007 and be demolished, leaving Meadowood without an enclosed competitor in the region.
Meadowood was conceived as a larger south Reno property with a three-anchor department-store lineup, a modern enclosed design, and a site with highway access and room for surface parking.
The mall followed the late-1970s regional model: anchors at the main nodes, specialty stores filling the climate-controlled corridors between them.
The building sat inside a loop road system off Meadowood Mall Circle, with surface parking surrounding the retail building.
The site was organized for access from South Virginia Street, South McCarran Boulevard, Neil Road, and nearby freeway connections. Parking accommodated 4,600 cars.
The site's location near the Reno-Sparks Convention Center added hotel and convention traffic to a customer base that also included shoppers from Sparks, Carson City, and the surrounding region.
How Meadowood Ended Up with Two Macy's Stores
Two Macy's stores still operate at Meadowood Mall. Both trace to the property's first years.
When the mall opened in March 1979, its original anchors were Macy's, Liberty House, and JCPenney. Liberty House was a full-line department store that gave the mall a second major draw.
When Liberty House left in the early 1980s, Macy's absorbed the building in 1984. The former Liberty House space became a separate Macy's location, and that arrangement has never changed.
JCPenney's Meadowood store opened in October 1979, completing the anchor lineup a few months after the mall itself.
Park Lane Mall had begun losing ground to the new South Reno property.
The 1995 Sears Expansion and the Palms Food Court
Copeland's Sporting Goods arrived in 1989, adding a large category-retail tenant and expanding the anchor mix beyond traditional department stores.
The bigger change came in 1995. Sears opened in a new anchor wing that also included a new hallway with additional in-line stores and the Palms Food Court, with multiple food vendors.
For Park Lane, the Sears move was another setback in a competition it was already losing.
With two Macy's, JCPenney, Copeland's, and Sears, Meadowood by the mid-1990s had become substantially stronger than any other enclosed mall in the city.
Taubman to Simon: Meadowood's Changing Ownership
Taubman built and managed Meadowood from March 1979. In 1998, General Motors Pension Trusts acquired interests in a group of Taubman-connected mall properties, and Meadowood moved into that portfolio.
A recapitalization in 2004 placed a half-interest in the mall on the market. Mills Corporation acquired it.
In 2007, Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital acquired Mills Corporation, and Meadowood entered Simon's management system.
Simon acquired Farallon's remaining stake in a group of Mills assets in 2012; Meadowood was listed at 876,800 square feet in that transaction, and Simon's total interest in the property reached 50 percent.
The Sears wing, the Palms Food Court, and both Macy's stores were unchanged through all of it. The ownership line changed repeatedly, but Simon has been the consistent management presence since 2007.
The mall was refinanced twice in its later decades, borrowing roughly $125 million around 2011 and then $108 million again in December 2021, each time replacing old loans with new ones.
Meadowood's Early-2010s Renovation: New Finishes, New Tenants
Concrete planter walls came down. New carpet, ceramic and wood flooring, and glass handrails replaced older finishes throughout the common areas. Lighting, signage, and restrooms were updated.
Three primary entrances were rebuilt with curtain-wall glazing systems, automatic sliding doors, metal panels, tinted sidewalk finishes, and new landscaping.
Work happened while the mall remained open, with temporary barricades and overnight construction keeping corridors and entrances usable during business hours.
Forever 21, Vans, and a 22,000-square-foot H&M store joined the mix, with H&M offering women's, men's, young women's, young men's, children's, maternity, and plus-size collections.
Many enclosed malls were losing exactly these national fashion tenants to outdoor lifestyle centers and open-air shopping districts during this period.
Meadowood's renovation added them instead.
By 2013, the trade-area population stood at 367,670, with a daytime population of 177,400, figures large enough to sustain a regional anchor lineup.
Sears had been there for 18 years by then, JCPenney for 34, and both Macy's locations had been sharing the building since 1979 and 1984.
Dick's Sporting Goods Opens; Sears Closes in 2018
Dick's Sporting Goods opened at 5354 Meadowood Mall Circle on October 7, 2016. It was Dick's 662nd store nationally and its third in Nevada.
The store included branded Nike and Under Armour shops, apparel, team-sports merchandise, fitness, camping, hunting, and fishing departments, and in-store services for bike, golf, and fishing customers.
Dick's arrival resolved a long sporting-goods transition: Copeland's had filed for bankruptcy in 2006, Sports Authority succeeded it and then closed its Meadowood location in 2011, and the large sporting-goods anchor space had been in flux for years.
The west-side expansion that brought Dick's also generated a public dispute over a proposed 60-foot movie theater sign, which the Reno City Council ultimately reduced to 46 feet after an appeal on aviation safety grounds.
Dick's opened on schedule. The theater was not built.
Sears closed in July 2018, following an announcement that April as part of Sears' national store-closing program.
The store had been at Meadowood since the 1995 expansion, a run of 23 years. Its building at 5400 Meadowood Mall Circle became the largest vacancy the mall had faced.
Round1 Fills Part of the Former Sears Building
Round1 became the major entertainment tenant in the former Sears space. The Round1 location at 5400 Meadowood Mall Circle includes bowling, arcade games, billiards, karaoke, party rooms, and prize games.
In the second quarter of 2023, Ethan Conrad Properties, a firm known for buying and repositioning commercial properties, purchased the former Sears building for $7.6 million, separating it from the main mall's ownership structure.
The purchase price for 156,900 square feet of former anchor space reflected the changed market for large attached former department-store anchor buildings.
As of April 2026, 117,800 square feet of the building remained available for lease across two spaces: a first-floor block of 35,700 square feet, divisible to 12,000, and a second-floor block of 82,200 square feet, divisible to 25,000.
Meadowood Mall in 2026: Still Open, Still Adapting
Meadowood remains open and occupied. Two Macy's stores, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Round1 anchor a tenant roster of more than 100 stores, restaurants, and service businesses.
Simon markets the property as northern Nevada's only enclosed regional shopping mall.
Current tenants include H&M, Coach, Hollister, Bath & Body Works, American Eagle, Victoria's Secret, Build-A-Bear Workshop, The Cheesecake Factory, Sbarro, and others.
Fun Zone Mini Golf and Arcade is coming to Suite 112. Qargo Coffee is also expected to open. Los Cipotes Pupuseria recently joined the food court.
The food court sits near the Round1 wing; a children's play area in front of JCPenney is set up for children under 42 inches tall. Not everything has held.
Eddie Bauer entered Chapter 11 in February 2026, and its Meadowood store appeared on the closure list that month; the planned bankruptcy auction was later canceled after no qualifying bids came forward in March.
Francesca's entered Chapter 11 the same month with court-approved store-closing sales across its full fleet.
Claire's, which went through its own Chapter 11 process, had its Meadowood location designated as non-closing, though the filing reserved the right to redesignate stores later.
The Palms Food Court is still there. JCPenney has been at this address since October 1979. Both Macy's locations, whose histories date back to 1979 and 1984, are still open.
What ended was the department-store era: four anchors, one roof, and enough combined draw to make Meadowood the primary enclosed mall for the entire northern Nevada region.
Sears left in July 2018, and no equivalent anchor has replaced it.
What remains is a more varied building, one that has added bowling, arcade games, and new food options in the same corridors that once linked department-store anchors and in-line shops, with 117,800 square feet of former anchor space at 5400 Meadowood Mall Circle still looking for its next use.
