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 six anchor stores: H&M, JCPenney, Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Von Maur, and a combination of Dick's Sporting Goods/Field & Stream, as well as an outdoor promenade which includes Forever 21, Dave & Buster's, and Barnes & Noble.
The mall is part of the much larger 1200 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[]
Glimcher 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 (whose store was the only location in Ohio[5]) and Saks Fifth Avenue.[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 closed in 2004 and was replaced a year later 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 stores as the part of extensive restructuring plan, including the Polaris Fashion Place location.[13] In March 2015 it was announced that the space would be replaced by a new Dick's Sporting Goods and Field & Stream by October 2015.[14]
On December 28, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 80 stores nationwide. The store closed in March 2019.[15]
In October 2019, the former Sears department store was used as a "Spirit Halloween" temporary store.
On October 23, 2020, it was announced that the former Sears space would be demolished for a mixed-use development anchored by a FieldhouseUSA.[16]
On February 16, 2021, owner Washington Prime Group failed to meet a February loan payment deadline.[17] This has created concern as lower-performing tenants have liquidated stores.
In March 2021, the mall saw two separate shooting incidents within the interior corridors, on March 3[18] and 15.[19] These were the first such incidents in the mall's history.
On April 2, 2021, Field & Stream announced that their store will permanently close on Friday, April 9, 2021.[20]
41, 102 PARTA 200
City of Columbus, Ohio
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