Square One 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 along US Route 1 (Broadway) between Main Street and Essex Street in

Saugus, Massachusetts Saugus is a New England town, town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. The population was 28,619 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Saugus is known as the site of the first integrated iron work ...

Anchor store In North American, Australian and New Zealand retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are ...

s are

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 ...

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized in all caps as DICK'S Sporting Goods) is an American chain of sporting goods stores founded in 1948 by Richard "Dick" Stack. It is the largest sporting goods retailer in the United States and is listed ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

and

TJ Maxx TJ Maxx (stylized as T•J•maxx) is an American discount department store chain. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in the country. TJ Maxx is the flagship chain of the TJX Comp ...

. Additional stores in the mall include

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay, San Francisco, Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of t ...

Forever 21 F21 OpCo LLC, trade name, doing business as Forever 21, was a multinational fast-fashion retailer. It was originally founded as Fashion 21 in Highland Park, Los Angeles, Highland Park, Los Angeles in 1984.Forever 21History & Facts, n.d. Retrieved ...

Famous Footwear Famous Footwear is a nationwide retail chain, chain of retail stores in the United States dealing in branded shoes, footwear, generally at prices discounted from suggested retail price, manufacturer's suggested prices. The chain is a division of ...

, and Bath & Body Works. In 1955, Alan and Milton Green purchased the former town farm property with plans to construct a large

shopping center A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

. The New England Shopping Center was completed in 1961 and included a W. T. Grant, Touraine's, and the largest

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 ...

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

. In the 1980s, the property was acquired by Stephen R. Karp's New England Development Corporation, which planned on redeveloping the property into a shopping mall. The project was stalled by a lack of financing, but construction began in 1993 after financing was secured from several banks. The construction of the mall was unique since it incorporated the previously built structure of Sears, signs of this being the difference in building materials between Sears and the rest of the mall. The mall opened for business on August 17, 1994. Its first anchor stores were Sears,

Service Merchandise Service Merchandise was a retail chain of catalog showrooms carrying jewelry, toys, sporting goods and electronics. The company, which first began in 1934 as a five-and-dime store, was in existence for 68 years before ceasing operations in 2002 ...

Filene's Filene's was an American department store chain founded in 1881 by William Filene. The historic Filene's Department Store in the Downtown Crossing district of Boston, Massachusetts housed the flagship store and headquarters, while branch store ...

Filene's Basement Filene's Basement, also called The Basement, was a Massachusetts-based chain of department stores which was owned by Retail Ventures, Inc. until April 2009 when it was sold to Syms. Founded in 1909 and one of the oldest off-price retailers in ...

, and

Lechmere Lechmere was an American retail store chain founded in 1913 by Abraham Cohen. The name was inspired by the Lechmere Square part of Cambridge, Massachusetts where the first store was located. It originated as a harness shop, and evolved to incl ...

. In 1998, Lechmere was replaced by TJ Maxx. In 1999, New England Development Co. sold 14 of its malls, including Square One Mall, to

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in Indian ...

, for $1.725 billion. In 2002,

acquired six of Service Merchandise's top-performing locations, including its Square One Mall location, as part of the chain's liquidation. In 2004, the store gained a new anchor tenant with the construction of a new space for Dick's Sporting Goods. Filene's Basement, one of the malls anchors, filed for bankruptcy protection on May 4, 2009. It was acquired at auction by Syms Corporation, which reached an agreement with Simon Property Group to keep its Square One Mall, South Shore Plaza, Northshore Mall, and Arsenal Mall locations open until December 2011. In 2015,

Sears Holdings Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20th-l ...

spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Square One Mall, into Seritage Growth Properties. Sears downsized its store to the lower level in 2017. The upper level of Sears is now vacant. On June 30, 2020, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 28 stores nationwide. The store closed on September 13, 2020.

References

{{Simon Property Group, northeast 1994 establishments in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Saugus, Massachusetts Shopping malls established in 1994 Shopping malls in Massachusetts Simon Property Group