West Towne Mall is an enclosed regional shopping center in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital. It sits on the city's west side in Dane County.
The mall covers about 77 acres along Gammon Road and is easy to reach from the Beltline Highway, which bypasses downtown Madison.
It serves as a main shopping hub for nearby west-side neighborhoods and for a wider trade area of 430,000 people, drawing visitors from across Dane County.
West Towne Mall opened on October 15, 1970. It was the first enclosed mall in Madison and the first within 70 miles. This gave it a strong retail position on the west side that it has held for more than 50 years.
West Towne Mall Opens on a Former Cow Pasture
The west side of Madison in 1970 had been zoned for industrial development. Instead, on October 15 of that year, a shopping mall opened there - the city's first large enclosed mall.
The site covered 100 acres off Gammon Road and offered parking for 5,000 cars.
The people behind it were Jacobs, Visconsi, and Jacobs Company of Cleveland, Ohio, the same firm that developed Brookfield Square in Brookfield.
The architect was Lou Resnick. What they built was not just a collection of stores under one roof.
The main entrance featured half-inch glass made by Pilkington in England, hung in curtain form with no visible support across a 50-by-26-foot opening.
Because the glass shipment was delayed, emergency heaters kept the tropical plants alive during construction.
Those plants - palm trees and other tropical species shipped from Florida - nearly didn't make it. A helicopter placed 30 HVAC units on the roof.
On opening morning, mall manager James M. Roche skipped the ribbon-cutting. His explanation: "We feel the shopper has come out to see the center.
Our 'grand opening' will be symbolized by all stores opening their doors promptly at 9:30 a.m." Young women called "mall-ettes" handed out balloons, flowers, and mall directories.
Only 28 of the planned 60 stores were open that first day. Sears and JCPenney, two of the four anchors, opened later.
West Towne Mall's Art, Design, and Original Tenants
Detroit sculptor Joseph A. McDonnell spent seven months creating five metal sculptures for the mall's interior.
Four of the five were motorized to rotate. A 15-by-15-foot chandelier-like piece hung near the east entrance.
McDonnell had only seen one other shopping center invest more in art.
Sculptor Clarence Van Duzer, from Cleveland, designed three of the four fountain areas, a suspended sculpture, and a water sculpture at the mall's center.
One central fountain piece stood 19 feet tall, with multiple nozzles circulating 800 gallons of water per minute.
Van Duzer also created four magnesium sculptures suspended from the ceiling between the fountain and one of the sunken lounge areas.
The fountains and sunken lounges were removed during a late-1980s remodel.
The original anchor lineup was Prange's, Sears, JCPenney, and Manchester's. Manchester's was the chain's sixth location and its largest at the time.
The 56,000-square-foot Manchester's space was eventually converted into a food court.
By 1987, West Towne had grown to 66 tenant stores plus its attached anchors, and the owners maintained a strict policy against any religious activity, leafleting, or soliciting on the premises.
West Towne and a Wisconsin Supreme Court Property Rights Case
The conflict started in March 1984, when the Nu Parable dancers, an anti-nuclear performance group, attempted to perform and distribute leaflets at West Towne and East Towne.
Their demonstration ended with a staged "die-in."
Mall ownership obtained a restraining order and later secured an injunction that prevented the group from entering either mall except in the role of ordinary shoppers.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court reviewed the case, Jacobs v. Major, and delivered its decision on June 23, 1987. By a 4-3 vote, the court sided with the mall owners.
It held that the Wisconsin Constitution does not obligate private mall owners to permit expressive activities without consent.
The court pointed to the physical design of the malls, including enclosed corridors, controlled indoor climate, fountains, tropical landscaping, and carpeted seating areas.
Despite significant public use, the court concluded that these features did not turn the malls into public forums.
The decision also provides a snapshot of West Towne during that period. The mall had 66 tenant stores and followed an operating approach established in the early 1970s.
West Towne and East Towne, which opened in 1970 and 1971, respectively, were presented throughout the case as jointly owned and operated properties.
CBL Buys West Towne and Spends $2.8 Million on a Makeover
January 31, 2001, is the date CBL & Associates Properties completed its acquisition of 21 malls and two associated centers from the Richard E. Jacobs Group for $1.3 billion.
West Towne was one of them. At the time of the sale, the mall totaled 1,021,000 square feet, with Boston Store, JCPenney, Sears, and Younkers as its four anchors.
The original 1970 anchor tenants - Prange's and Manchester's - were long gone, replaced by Boston Store and Younkers before CBL arrived.
CBL also picked up West Towne Crossing, the open-air center immediately west of the mall, which at that point included Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Cub Foods, Gander Mountain, Kohl's, OfficeMax, and ShopKo.
In November 2003, CBL unveiled a renovation described as drawing on design elements from the Wisconsin State Capitol, with high chandeliers and wooden tables and benches.
The project replaced flooring with high-gloss tile, added skylights, redesigned entrances, and updated lighting and seating throughout.
The cost was $2.8 million. It was the first big change to the mall since 1989, when a fourth anchor store was added.
DICK'S Sporting Goods opened the following year, in October 2004, in a newly constructed space that cost $5.5 million, combined with the East Towne DICK'S, replacing the former Boston Store location at both properties.
The Sears Breakup and Two New Anchors for West Towne Mall
In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 properties into Seritage Growth Properties, including the West Towne Sears.
A city of Madison planning file submitted on September 23, 2016, laid out what came next: the existing 138,600-square-foot Sears would be carved into a 56,000-square-foot Sears, a 31,600-square-foot Dave & Buster's, and a 25,000-square-foot future retail space.
Dave & Buster's opened on April 9, 2018. Three days later, on April 12, Total Wine & More opened in the former Sears footprint, becoming Dane County's largest liquor store.
Less than three months after that, on June 28, 2018, Sears announced it would close the remaining store at West Towne by the end of September - part of a plan to shutter 78 stores nationwide.
The remaining Sears store, downsized under a redevelopment plan approved in 2016, was now set to close.
Boston Store closed in August 2018 as part of parent company Bon-Ton's bankruptcy. The West Towne location had 124 employees at the time.
On December 16, 2020, it was announced that demolition of the old Boston Store would begin later that month to clear space for Von Maur.
CBL filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 1, 2020, and emerged from reorganization exactly one year later.
Hobby Lobby opened June 28, 2021, at 53 West Towne Mall C, a 56,000-square-foot space in the former Sears area, relocating from its previous Monona location.
Von Maur opened October 15, 2022 - 52 years to the day after West Towne's original opening - in an 85,000-square-foot store where Boston Store once stood.
West Towne's Neighborhood Is Being Remapped Around It
In 2020, before a district plan was approved, Madison, Wisconsin, added a sidewalk requirement in a standard West Towne site approval.
It required new buildings along West Towne Way to connect the site to a future Bus Rapid Transit stop. This shows early planning that went beyond the mall's limits.
The Odana Area Plan was adopted on September 21, 2021.
Mixed-use zoning, bike lanes, and parks made the area around the mall one redevelopment zone, not just a group of separate strip parcels around a regional shopping center.
That same November, CBL came out of Chapter 11 using similar language, describing enclosed malls as future mixed suburban town centers.
Madison's West Area Plan came next on September 10, 2024. The west side has more than 23,000 jobs. The plan identifies West Towne as one of the area's important employment and redevelopment nodes.
At 53 West Towne Mall - the address where Sears operated until September 2018 - a Seven Brew Coffee drive-thru was under final city review in early 2026.
