Alton Square Mall is a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

located in

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), Riv ...

. Its anchors are

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...

and an 8-screen

NCG Cinemas NCG Cinemas (short for Neighborhood Cinema Group) is a movie theater chain headquartered in Owosso, Michigan and are owned and operated by the Geiger family. The chain consists at present of 25 theaters with 147 screens. Most of the theaters are ...

, which is located in a converted

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

anchor store. A third anchor store, formerly Macy's, was demolished in 2017.

History

The mall was built by

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American holding company of department stores founded in 1877 by David May. It operated several regional department stores throughout the United States, which were managed as distinct business divisions ...

and groundbreaking began in 1976. The

Famous-Barr The Famous-Barr Co. (originally Famous and Barr Co.) was a division of Macy's, Inc. (formerly Federated Department Stores). Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, in the Railway Exchange Building, it was the flagship store of The May Departmen ...

anchor store, a division of May, was the first portion of the mall to open, on October 16, 1978. The remainder of the mall, including the J. C. Penney anchor store, opened on November 15, 1978. It was later sold to May Centers, Inc., the mall development arm of

May Department Stores The May Department Stores Company was an American holding company of department stores founded in 1877 by David May. It operated several regional department stores throughout the United States, which were managed as distinct business divisions ...

. They subsequently sold it to CenterMark Properties Inc. of St. Louis, which sold it to Melvin Simon and Associates of Indianapolis in February 1993. A third anchor structure,

, was added during a renovation in 1997. The

anchor store was converted to

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

in 2006. Simon Property Group Inc. sold the mall to Coyote Management of Texas in 2007. In 2009, a 10-screen Premiere Cinemas theater was announced for the mall, but it did not open. Coyote Management sold the mall to NorthMarq Capital in 2010. In April 2012, it was announced that

would close on June 3, 2012. Sears was converted to Illinois Wholesale Furniture, which also soon closed. In 2015, NorthMarq sold the mall to

Hull Property Group Hull Property Group is a shopping mall management company based in Augusta, Georgia. It was founded in 1977. The company owns, manages, and re-develops shopping malls in relatively small communities, mainly in the south and mid-west United States ...

. That same year, a

Ross Dress For Less Ross Stores, Inc., operating under the brand name Ross Dress for Less, is an American chain of discount department stores headquartered in Dublin, California. It is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S.; as of July 2024, Ross operates 1,795 ...

store was added, along with

Hibbett Sports Hibbett, Inc. (formerly Hibbett Sports, Inc.) is an American sporting goods retailer headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JD Sports. the company operated 1,169 retail stores, which include 960 Hibbett Sport ...

. In March 2017, Family Christian Stores closed, and

announced a redevelopment of the mall. The old Sears site would be made into a movie theater.

, which also closed in 2017, was demolished, leaving

and Ross Dress for Less as the only anchor stores left. As part of the redevelopment, the smaller stores from the second level would be moved to the first level so they could have room for 5 anchor stores. In May 2017, the mall announced that

Hallmark A hallmark is an official Mark (sign), mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term ''Wikti ...

and Things Remembered would both be closing their locations inside the mall. On November 22,

Vitamin World Vitamin World USA Corporation is a global retailer of vitamins and nutritional supplements and is headquartered on Long Island, New York in the United States. History Vitamin World, Inc. was founded in 1977 as a subsidiary of NBTY Inc, later th ...

announced they would close all their St. Louis area stores, including the Alton Square Mall location. Over the years, the mall continued to struggle with store after store closing. In February 2019,

Slackers CDs and Games Slackers CDs and Games, often shortened to Slackers, is a small chain of entertainment retailers located in the Midwestern United States. The store specializes in both new and used video games and music. It was founded in 1993 in Columbia, Missour ...

announced it would be moving to the Christian bookstore's former space from elsewhere in Alton. In April 2021, the NCG Cinema was added in the old

space, becoming the third anchor of Alton Square Mall. In December 2024, The Cookie Factory closed its doors after 46 years of operation.

References

External links

* {{Hull Property Group Alton, Illinois Hull Property Group Shopping malls in Illinois Shopping malls established in 1978 1978 establishments in Illinois Tourist attractions in Madison County, Illinois