By 2009 the corridors of Midway Mall in Sherman were dim. Three tent roofs still rose about 50 feet over its courts, above palms and marble planters.
A company from Florida bought the mall in 2022 and went to work on a roof where, by early 2023, only about one in 10 of its 110 air-conditioning units still worked. By September 2023 only one corridor was open to the public.
Dillard's kept trading, but shoppers could reach it only from the parking lot. By 2024 the halls had new floors, the air conditioning was running again, and storage had moved into the back.
Burlington moved out in June 2026. What is still open in the front of the building?
Midway Mall opens between Sherman and Denison
On Saturday, July 5, 1986, the actor known for playing the Lone Ranger came to a new mall on Texoma Parkway and met visitors at its festivities.
Midway Mall opened that year at 4800 Texoma Parkway in Sherman, Texas, as an enclosed shopping center on one level, laid out on a branching plan.
It stood on State Highway 91 between Sherman and Denison, near U.S. 82 and east of U.S. 75.
Dillard's had signed on before the July festivities, with a lease on 72,800 square feet that began in March 1986.
The area already had one enclosed mall, Sher-Den Mall, which had opened in Sherman in 1970.
By the end of 1986 the two towns had a second, newer one on the road between them, and Midway was the larger of the two.
Leases that began in the 1990s brought in more stores: Taz Jewelers and GNC in 1995, Buckle in 1997, and Victoria's Secret in 1999.
JCPenney moves to the U.S. 75 corridor
Sherman's newer retail went up on U.S. 75, the highway west of the mall's parkway site.
Sherman Town Center was completed there in 2004, and in 2007 JCPenney moved its store from Midway Mall to the new center.
Several major tenants had left by July 2008, when the loan on the mall was moved into special servicing.
By January 2009 Mervyn's and Goody's had gone, Burlington had taken the Mervyn's space, and a store called Famous Labels had moved into a former Old Navy.
That January the inside of the mall was dim. Many storefronts were empty, and the food court was nearly deserted.
Broad courts left wide stretches of open floor, while carpeted corridors wound through the building.
Three tent-shaped roofs rose about 50 feet overhead, with tall indoor palms and marble planters below.
Bealls, Dillard's, Sears, and Burlington were the four anchors left trading. A new shop, Miss Mango, began its lease that October.
Simon Property Group, which had counted Midway among its Texas malls in 2005, was tied to the property as late as 2009.
By November 2010 the mall had new management.
The cinema reopens and amusement moves in
The mall's original movie theater had closed by 2009.
In September 2012 the managers announced that the five-screen space would reopen within a few weeks. It took longer.
A sneak-preview weekend was set for mid-November, with a grand opening the week after, and the cinema came back in late 2012 as Midway Theaters.
Under the new management, other empty space was filled with amusement and events.
The Expo Hall was offered for rent as event space by January 2012.
Kiddie rides went in under a lease that began in 2011, and an amusement center called Jump N Land leased about 21,500 square feet from May 2012.
Smaller shops followed, Art of Threading in 2013 and Mish Mash in 2015.
By 2013, when TNP Sites owned the mall, the doors opened to walkers at 7:30 a.m., Monday through Saturday.
Santa was in Center Court every day from mid-December 2012 until Christmas, and Malloween ran on Halloween that year and again, from 5 to 7 p.m., in 2017.
Santa's photographs in 2017 were taken near Victoria's Secret and Buckle.
That March a carnival set up in the parking lot for the second half of the month.
Food in the 2010s came from tenants such as Little Shogun and Candy N Lots.
Sears closes and the mall narrows to one corridor
In June 2017 Sears announced it would close its Sherman store and its Auto Center, and a liquidation sale began that month.
The Auto Center was set to shut first, in early July, with the store itself to follow in early September.
Bealls had gone before Sears did.
With Sears closed, the mall that had four anchors trading in 2009 was down to two by 2019: Burlington, in 62,300 square feet, and Dillard's.
Burlington had started a new lease term in 2017, the year Sears announced its closing.
A few national chains, local shops, amusement uses, and kiosks filled much of the rest of the occupied space.
Jump N Land kept its lease. The revived theater, about 14,000 square feet, was empty by then.
In April 2021 the main entrance, faced in mirrored tile, opened onto corridors that were temporarily all accessible again.
Large parts were unlit. By late 2021 a wall near the main entrance blocked access to the rest of the mall.
The food court was empty, sections of floor had been pulled up or patched, and Jump N Land was closed.
The train sat idle, while old arcade machines had been left in a vacant shop.
The Buckle and Victoria's Secret storefronts were vacant, and so was the shop Miss Mango had taken in 2009.
GNC had closed, and the old JCPenney and Sears spaces sat unused. Taz Jewelers and Mish Mash were open.
The tent roofs remained in place over the courts, and the former Bealls store had become a community center.
Dillard's kept trading, but only from its outside entrance, with no way through to the mall.
The mall sells and storage takes the back
In May 2021 the city announced a contract to sell the mall, with a new use possible by that summer.
The sale closed in March 2022, about 10 months after the announcement.
Mustard Street Management, a company based in Florida, paid $4.5 million for 530,000 square feet of the mall in a sale arranged by Friedman Real Estate.
The buyer planned to shrink the retail and bring in other uses.
A few tenants were trading inside when the deal closed, among them Mish Mash, Art of Threading, and Candy N Lots.
What the buyer took over needed basic repairs first: new carpet, a fix for leaks in the roof and ceilings, electrical service restored, and extensive work on the air conditioning.
Repairs began in April 2022. In February 2023 the roof carried 110 air-conditioning units, and only about one in 10 of them worked.
Seven new units had just gone in, and the replacements were planned over three to five years.
By 2023 the mall tract was held by Star Midway LLC.
The conversion needed the city's approval, and it came in the summer of 2023.
In June the city granted permits for mini-warehouse and warehouse use at the mall, and in July the City Council approved a rezoning that kept retail in the front and put self-storage and warehouses in the rear.
The design added sprinklers and air handling for an indoor storage area that vehicles would drive into.
The new air conditioning was running by August 2024, the public areas had new floors and fresh paint, and climate-controlled storage had opened in the back.
That month dozens of local vendors set up a market inside.
More space was leased in 2025.
In the first months of that year a suite of about 11,500 square feet was fitted out for The Well Church Texoma, a job estimated at $1 million.
By July 2025 a gym was growing by more than 6,000 square feet, and a florist, Lily's Floral and Gift Store, was in business.
Markets became monthly as well.
Midway Mall Markets took one weekend each month, and in September 2025 Texoma Trade Days filled the Expo Hall with more than 100 vendors over a Saturday and Sunday.
Burlington leaves for Sherman Commons
Burlington announced in April 2026 that it would leave Midway Mall for the former Joann store at Sherman Commons, on U.S. 75, with construction expected to finish that spring.
The new store opened there in June 2026. It was the route JCPenney had taken in 2007, from the parkway to the highway.
In August 2026 Sherman's planning commission approved a SpaceX site plan for the parking lot beside the former Burlington building: an antenna yard of 40 satellite antennas, each about two meters across, in a compound of about 100 by 200 feet on existing pavement.
Star Midway LLC owns the tract, about 43 acres.
Midway Mall is still open, in part.
Dillard's trades at Suite 400, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
Echo Crue Clothing is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the restaurant Leidy's Kitchen operates from Suite B704.
Nifty Collectibles keeps its flagship in the Expo Hall, and in early October 2026 Rhea Lana's of Texoma held its fall and winter consignment event at the mall.
In January 2009, under dim lights and three tent roofs, four anchors traded at Midway Mall.
One of them is left. Once a month, on Texoma Trade Days weekends, the Expo Hall fills with vendors' tables.
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