Polaris Fashion Place is a two level shopping mall and surrounding retail plaza serving Columbus, Ohio, United States. The mall, owned locally by Washington Prime Group, is located off Interstate 71 on Polaris Parkway in Delaware County just to the north of the boundary between Delaware and Franklin County. The mall features five anchor stores, Saks Fifth Avenue, Von Maur, Macy's, JCPenney, and a combination of Dick's Sporting Goods/Public Lands, as well as an outdoor promenade which includes Dave & Buster's and Barnes & Noble.
 The Main Entrance is located between Molly Woo's and Brio Tuscan Grille. | |
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| Location | Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°08′44″N 82°58′53″W / 40.145596°N 82.981500°W |
| Address | 1500 Polaris Pkwy. |
| Opening date | November 2001 |
| Developer | Glimcher Realty Trust |
| Management | Washington Prime Group |
| Owner | Washington Prime Group |
| No. of stores and services | 200 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 5 |
| Total retail floor area | 1,278,277 square feet (118,756 m2)[1] |
| No. of floors | 2 |
| Public transit access |   41, 102 PARTA 200 |
| Website | polarisfashionplace |
The mall is part of the much larger 1,200 acre POLARIS Centers of Commerce real estate development in northern Columbus. This development includes the McCoy Center, the Polaris Founder's Park along with over a hundred other commercial and residential developments.[2]
History
editGlimcher Realty Trust began construction on Polaris Fashion Place in June 2000.[3] The mall opened in November 2001 with 146 inline tenants.[4] The developers chose to include several tenants which were lacking in the market,[3] including four of the seven anchor stores: Kaufmann's, The Great Indoors, Lord & Taylor, and Saks Fifth Avenue.[5][6] The other three anchors were JCPenney, Sears and Lazarus; all three relocated from Northland Mall, which closed on October 31, 2002 following the loss of its remaining inline tenants and the Northland Mall was demolished in February 2004.[7][8]
In 2003, the Lazarus store was dual-branded as Lazarus-Macy's, and then to just Macy's in 2005. After the 2006 acquisition by Federated Stores (now Macy's, Inc.) of Kaufmann's parent company, May Department Stores Company, the Kaufmann's store was shuttered and sold to Glimcher for redevelopment.[9] In 2007, the store was demolished for an outdoor expansion comprising Barnes & Noble, Forever 21 and several restaurants, including Benihana, The Cheesecake Factory and Dave & Buster's.[10] This concourse opened in 2008.[11] Lord & Taylor was repositioned and shuttered entirely in 2004. It was replaced with Von Maur, whose location at the mall is also the first in the state.[12]
On February 22, 2012, Sears Holdings Corporation announced it would be closing all 9 of its Great Indoors.[13] In March 2015 it was announced that the space would be replaced by a new Dick's Sporting Goods and Field & Stream (now Public Lands) by October 2015.[14]
In 2019, Sears closed.[15] In 2020, it was announced that the space will be razed for a mixed-use development.[16]
In March 2021, the mall saw two separate shooting incidents within the interior corridors, on March 3[17] and 15.[18] These were the first such incidents in the mall's history.
References
edit- ^ "Leasing & Advertising". polarisfashionplace.com. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
- ^ "POLARIS Centers of Commerce Plat" (PDF). Retrieved July 24, 2012.
- ^ a b Umlauf-Garneau, Elyse (1 November 2001). "New Columbus center puts the super into super-regional". Retail Traffic Mag. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Moss, Meredith (10 November 2001). "A mall with it all". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Sheban, Jeffrey (23 December 2004). "Lord & Taylor to close its Ohio Fashion Place store". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ "Polaris Fashion Place Offers Blend of New and Familiar Names". PR Newswire. 17 July 2001. Retrieved 5 June 2010. [dead link]
- ^ Goins, Tony; Kathy Showalter (17 October 2003). "Federated shutting Lazarus-Macy's store in downtown Columbus". Business First of Columbus. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Ball, Brian R. (12 August 2002). "Northland Mall buyer to face myriad issues". Business First of Columbus. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ "Federated to sell Polaris Kaufmann's to Glimcher". Business First of Columbus. 24 July 2006. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ "More tenants on track to open at Polaris in '09". The Columbus Dispatch. 28 December 2008. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Rose, Marla Matzer (10 August 2008). "Polaris with the top down: Outdoor addition, opening this fall, lures big retailers". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ "Glimcher Announces Von Maur Is Coming to Polaris Fashion Place". PR Newswire. 21 July 2005. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Sandra M. Jones. "Sears closing all nine Great Indoors stores". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
- ^ "Field & Stream, Dick's taking over Great Indoors space at Polaris - Columbus - Columbus Business First". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
- ^ Thomas, Lauren (2018-12-28). "Sears is closing 80 more stores in March, faces possible liquidation". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
- ^ "Sports complex to anchor revamped Sears space at Polaris Fashion Place".
- ^ Narciso, Dean. "Polaris mall to reopen as Columbus police seek 2 suspects after shots fired Wednesday". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
- ^ Bruner, Eric Lagatta and Bethany. "'I'm very, very anxious.' Shooting at Polaris reported for second time in two weeks". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2021-03-16.