Glenbrook Square

Glenbrook Square is located at 4201 Coldwater Road, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Built in 1966 by Chicago-based Landau & Heyman and originally known as Glenbrook Center, Glenbrook Square has been owned and managed by Brookfield Properties Retail Group, and its direct predecessors General Growth Properties and GGP, since 2003. The major anchor stores are Barnes & Noble, JCPenney, and Macy's.
== History ==
Since the mall's opening in 1966, Glenbrook has been expanded and/or renovated five times. These expansions and renovations occurred in 1976, 1981, 1990, 1994, and 1998; with the 1976, 1981, and 1998 renovations also being major expansions. Glenbrook Square annually receives over 15 million visitors, and is the only enclosed super-regional mall in northeast Indiana. Based on leasable square feet, Glenbrook Square is also one of the three largest malls in the state of Indiana along with Castleton Square in Indianapolis and Southlake Mall in Merrillville. In total, Glenbrook Square has a gross leasable area of 1,210,000 square feet (112,000 m2).
Glenbrook Square features spaces for five anchors, currently occupied by Barnes & Noble, JCPenney, Macy's, and Sears, with one unused space. L.S. Ayres (now Macy's) is Glenbrook Square's original anchor, in continuous operation since the mall's opening. Sears also opened simultaneously with the mall; this store closed in 2018. The building for JCPenney was added in the 1976 expansion, another building (now unused) was added in the 1981 expansion, and the Barnes & Noble store was converted in 2007 from several smaller stores. In addition to three anchors, Glenbrook Square contains 152 stores and kiosks. A food court can be found, along with casual dining restaurants P.F. Chang's, Red Robin, Granite City Food & Brewery, TGI Fridays, and BJ's Brewhouse.
Hudson's, and later Marshall Field's, operated a store in the 1981 anchor space until May 2005 (shortly before the Federated Department Stores/May Co. merger). Macy's, Inc., the successor company to both Federated and May, continued to own the former Marshall Field's store until December 12, 2007, when Macy's sold the vacant store back to GGP for $1 million. Between GGP's acquisition of the space from Macy's and the search for a new anchor, the former Marshall Field's space was used in several ways. These included temporary retailers such as Glowgolf, a fashion show sponsored by local Christian radio station WLAB Star 88.3, and a Habitat for Humanity gift-wrapping station and display of Department 56 houses that operated during several holiday seasons.
In 2007, Target opened south of the mall.
On December 12, 2012, GGP announced that Carson's would anchor the long-vacant space starting in the fall of 2013. Carson's began construction in January 2013 and opened to the public on September 10 at 9:00AM of that year after over $1.6 million in renovations to the space. The holiday Habitat for Humanity display continued for one more season at a new location in the mall in the Carson's wing.
A water main break occurred at Glenbrook Square on October 31, 2013 during overnight hours. 50 stores were damaged in the incident, but all five anchor stores were unaffected. Most affected stores were repaired and reopened within weeks, and all damaged stores except one reopened by Black Friday 2013.
In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Glenbrook Square, into Seritage Growth Properties.
Like many GGP malls, Glenbrook Square has a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The mall provides used building materials to the group, and donates all change placed in the fountain in front of JCPenney to charities including Habitat and The Rescue Mission, the latter being a local Fort Wayne group focused on helping the homeless.
In April 2018, it was announced that the Carson's store would be closing due their parent company, The Bon-Ton Stores, going out of business. The store was closed on August 31, 2018.
On August 22, 2018, Sears announced that the store would also be closing as part of a plan to close 46 stores nationwide. The store was scheduled to close in November 2018 after 52 years in business. After the Sears store closed on Black Friday weekend 2018, Barnes & Noble, JCPenney and Macy’s were the remaining anchors. Plans are in place to renovate the former Carson's and Sears spaces; these plans will be revealed in full at a later date after leases are signed. Part of the upper level of the former Sears is expected to become Dave & Busters. Cinemark Theatres is planning to build a movie theater on the Seritage site.
The former Sears has become an outdoor mall part of the mall, which includes Verizon, Five Below and HomeGoods.
Category:Malls in Indiana
Category:Malls in the United States
Category:Shopping Malls
Category:Malls that opened in 1966
Category:Multi-Level Malls
Category:Brookfield Properties Retail Group Malls
Category:Seritage Locations
Category:Partially-Indoor Malls