Frontier Mall on Wyoming's busiest street in Cheyenne
Frontier Mall is at 1400 Dell Range Boulevard in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is a single-level enclosed mall with 520,000 square feet of retail space. That makes it the second-largest shopping mall in Wyoming.
In Cheyenne, it is the main enclosed mall, which matters when the weather turns, and people still need somewhere to go. Dell Range is the most heavily traveled street in the state, and the mall sits on it for a reason.
Cheyenne also sits where Interstate 25 and Interstate 80 meet. The location gives the property steady visibility and steady traffic.
Frontier Mall draws shoppers from a six-county trade area in southeast Wyoming. It functions as the dominant shopping center for that region, in part because indoor mall options in the state are limited.
The ownership has been consistent. CBL & Associates Properties has owned and managed the mall since it opened in 1981. The company later rebranded as CBL Properties in October 2017.
CBL focuses on malls in mid-sized cities where they can hold a strong market position. Frontier Mall has kept that role over time, even as its tenant mix and vacancy levels have changed.
1978 proposal and 1979 start of development
The plan came up in October 1978, when CBL & Associates Properties announced a new large shopping center for Cheyenne.
CBL was a new company, started in 1978 by Charles B. Lebovitz and five partners. The company had just finished its first mall, Plaza del Sol in Del Rio, Texas, in March 1979.
Frontier Mall was one of their first projects, built at a time when indoor malls still seemed like a big improvement for a city.
The original plan was for 550,000 square feet of shopping space. Building started in 1979, right on Dell Range Boulevard, a busy road that already brought in lots of people and attention.
Cheyenne had the right kind of jobs, travelers passing through, and was far enough from other towns that one big indoor mall could attract shoppers from a wide area.
The mall was meant to be a basic part of the city, not just something new or different. Put it on the busiest street.
Give it the well-known main stores. Let the highways bring in people who decide to shop while they are in town.
Sears opens early, then the 1981 debut
Sears arrived first. On October 8, 1980, it opened five months before the rest of Frontier Mall, moving from downtown Cheyenne.
That move took everyday shopping farther north, to bigger parking lots and the simpler layout of a new shopping area.
The rest of the mall opened to the public on March 18, 1981, and was finished earlier than planned. The main stores moved in quickly.
Sears was already there. Fashion Bar was another main store. JCPenney joined in 1982 as the second big store.
Joslins, a department store from Denver, opened in 1983 as the third big store.
Inside, the first stores offered the usual mix that made long drives worth it: Chick-fil-A, Denim Connection, Foxmoor, Kinney Shoes, Taco Etc., Thom McAn, Western Ranchman Outfitters, and Zales' Jewelers.
The hallways were designed to keep people walking, looking around, and, in the end, buying things they did not plan to buy.
Fountains, clock tower, and the 1990 carrousel
Frontier Mall's early interior had long corridors with planters and fountains.
A clock tower stood inside the mall and served as a meeting point. In the mid-1980s, the interior used a light blue-gray and white color scheme.
In 1990, the mall installed Wyoming's first double-decker "carrousel," spelled with two r's.
The carousel replaced an earlier fountain display. It became a central feature for families and a common reference point inside the mall.
The carrousel was removed sometime before the 2000s.
The mall also operated with several notable tenants and attractions during that period. Timeout Arcade ran in the mall.
Taco John's and Country Buffet were food options. A mini neon golf setup operated near JCPenney. A Toys "R" Us Express operated during Christmas seasons.
A First Interstate Bank play area sat between Dillard's and Sports Authority. A bungee jumping setup operated at the west end of the mall for a time.
1990s facelift and the two-Dillard geography
In the early 1990s, Frontier Mall started changing in ways shoppers could see. Fashion Bar's space was converted into Gart Sports, which widened the tenant mix and gave the mall a stronger athletic retail draw.
In 1995, the mall went through a major renovation that reset the look of the building. The work added new entryway facades and replaced interior tile throughout the mall.
The result was a cleaner, more updated interior, and it roughly set the visual style that has carried forward into the present.
Dillard's arrived in 1997 as a new anchor. The bigger shift came a year later, when Dillard's acquired Mercantile Stores Company in 1998, the parent company of Joslins.
The mall did not lose one store to the other. Instead, Dillard's operated two locations. The original Joslins building became "Dillard's West," with men's, kids', and home furnishings departments.
The newer building that opened in 1997 became "Dillard's East," focused on women's merchandise.
For a long stretch, Frontier Mall functioned with two Dillards under one roofline, split across the property and treated as complementary halves of the same anchor.
Quiet 2000s, dining edges, cinema shifts
The 2000s were a stable period for Frontier Mall, with fewer headline changes and more incremental adjustments.
The mall continued as the dominant enclosed shopping center for its regional trade area, and most shifts came through chain ownership changes rather than major redevelopments.
In 2003, Gart Sports was acquired and converted into Sports Authority.
The space stayed in the same general category as an athletic retailer, and the change did not alter the mall's layout so much as the name on the storefront.
Dining options expanded on the property. By 2007, Olive Garden and Chipotle had opened as outparcel tenants, adding sit-down and quick-service choices without requiring shoppers to leave the mall site.
2011-2016 Jo-Ann arrives, Sports Authority ends
In the early 2010s, Frontier Mall made a practical shift in its tenant lineup by adding a larger specialty draw. On September 15, 2011, Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts opened a new store of about 11,000 square feet.
The space was created by replacing several smaller tenants, including Twills, Natural Lites, an Asian Gifts storefront, and a RadioShack location.
The change reduced the number of small storefronts in that section and gave the mall a single, higher-traffic crafts and fabrics anchor.
The mall's theater operation continued as a regular part of the draw. Carmike Cinemas operated the "Frontier 9" at the mall.
In December 2016, AMC Theatres acquired Carmike and later rebranded the location as AMC Classic Frontier 9.
The theater shifted from second-run to first-run films and kept lower ticket pricing under the AMC Classic format.
The mall's first major anchor vacancy of the decade arrived in 2016. Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the Frontier Mall location closed in July 2016, leaving a large athletic retail space empty.
2017-2019 Sears ends, Planet Fitness, JAX
In November 2017, Sears announced it would close at Frontier Mall. Liquidation began before the end of the year, and the store closed in January 2018.
Sears had served as one of the original anchors for nearly four decades.
Its departure left a large vacant box and removed a tenant that had been part of the mall's identity from the start.
The mall refilled space quickly where it could. Planet Fitness opened in the former Sports Authority location in February 2018, bringing in a fitness anchor built around memberships and frequent visits.
The former Sears space was also lined up for reuse. In 2019, JAX Mercantile Company announced it would open JAX Outdoor Gear, Farm and Ranch in that location, its first store in Wyoming.
JAX opened in late November 2019, shifting the old department store footprint toward outdoor gear and farm-and-ranch retail.
The Dillard's layout also changed in 2020. The original Joslins building, which had operated as Dillard's West, was converted into a Dillard's clearance center.
2020-2022 cinema dark, cookies light up
In 2020, Dillard's East - the newer building that opened in 1997 and had been used as the women-focused store in the two-store setup - was upgraded to full-line status.
The store stayed in place as one of the mall's main anchors, with the older Joslins-era building still tied to the reduced role it had taken on.
In January 2021, AMC announced the closure of AMC Classic Frontier 9. The theater space was about 17,000 square feet, and it remained vacant after the shutdown.
The dark entrance and empty lobby became one of the most visible changes on the property, and the vacancy stood out because that size is difficult to repurpose quickly.
In 2022, the mall added a new high-traffic tenant in the corridors. Crumbl Cookies opened on August 26, 2022, with hours from 8 AM to 10 PM daily.
The store brought a steady flow of short visits and quick purchases and fit the mall's broader mix during this period, which combined national retailers with smaller local and regional businesses operating side by side.
2023-2025 new anchors, vacancy, and play
After the mall reopened from pandemic closures, Dillard's abandoned its clearance center in the old Joslins building.
The space sat empty until May 2023, when Appliance Factory and Mattress Kingdom moved in. By 2024, the mall was still described as successful for the Cheyenne region, even with the usual churn.
Late 2024 brought another anchor turn. JAX Outdoor Gear closed at the end of December after roughly five years in the former Sears footprint.
Bomgaars Supply followed, holding its grand opening April 25-27, 2025, and remodeling the space, removing interior walls to create an open floor plan.
Jo-Ann closed in May 2025 after the chain's March 2024 Chapter 11 filing and the May 31 final-closure wave. Vacancy rose from 8% in Q1 2025 to 12% in Q2 2025.
As of 2025, the anchors are JCPenney, Dillard's, Planet Fitness, Bomgaars, and Appliance Factory Mattress Kingdom.
The mall's 63 shops lean on the local base - Warren Air Force Base, state government, schools, and the medical center - plus about 20,000 college students within 40 miles, including 11,000 in Laramie.
In early 2025, announcements listed The Playground opening February 7 and Nay & Jays March 15; in August, Interaction: Amusement Experience was reported as scheduled to open near Bomgaars.
2024-2025 condition: clean halls, visible vacancies
Frontier Mall comes across as a functioning but uneven property. The main corridors read as generally clean and maintained, with seasonal presentation still in place when it is put up, including large holiday displays.
At the same time, the mall shows visible gaps where major spaces are not in use, including the former theater, and several interior storefronts are empty.
The overall interior looks dated in places, and the vacant stretches make parts of the building feel thinner than a fully leased mall.
The mall still works as an indoor shopping and walking destination for Cheyenne, but the condition is defined as much by what is missing as by what is operating.
