Westfield Southcenter

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Facts and statistics
Westfield Southcenter

Location	Tukwila, Washington, USA
Opening date	July 31, 1968
Developer	Allied Stores
Management	The Westfield Group
Owner	The Westfield Group
No. of stores and services	157
No. of anchor tenants	4
Total retail floor area	1,270,000 sq. ft.
Parking	7,143
No. of floors	1
Website	http://westfield.com/southcenter

Westfield Southcenter, formerly known as Southcenter Mall, is a shopping mall located in Tukwila, Washington, USA. It is currently anchored by JC Penney, Macy's, Nordstrom, and Sears and owned by The Westfield Group. A Rainforest Cafe is also at the mall.

1 History
2 Current renovations
3 Anchors
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Opened July 31, 1968, and developed by Allied Stores, Southcenter Mall was anchored by Allied's The Bon Marché, Frederick & Nelson, JCPenney and Nordstrom Best. The original marketing campaign in the late '60s and early '70s featured a very young, relatively unknown KIRO "assistant" anchor, Sandy Hill (who later co-hosted Good Morning America). In fact, KIRO partnered with Southcenter in the '70s, occasionally broadcasting the noon news from a set near the Bon Marché. The advertising jingle focused on "one hundred stores and all that room...Southcenter...it's always a beautiful day!". It attempted to lure people in out of the proverbial continual rain in the Seattle area.

Over the years, the anchor stores changed. Nordstrom truncated its name in 1973, and a Mervyn's store was added as a fifth anchor in 1984. Frederick & Nelson went bankrupt and sold its store to Sears in 1992, The Bon Marché was renamed Bon-Macy's in 2003 and eventually Macy's in 2005, and Mervyn's closed at the end of 2006.

The mall was eventually acquired by Jacobs, Visconsi and Jacobs Co. of Cleveland, Ohio in 1985, which later, after being renamed The Richard E. Jacobs Group, sold it to The Westfield Group in early 2002.^[1] At that time it was renamed "Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter". In June 2005, "Shoppingtown" was dropped from the name. Westfield acquired full ownership of the property when it acquired the underlying leasehold in 2006. Westfield acquired the former Mervyn's location in 2007 and has not announced its plans for the vacant site.

[edit] Current renovations

A view of the expansion in April 2008. A banner advertising the new movie theater can be seen on the fence in the foreground.

Westfield Southcenter is undergoing a $240 million expansion^[2] that will add 400,000 square feet and two parking garages. The existing food court closed on January 28, 2007, and has since been demolished. The redevelopment will add 75 specialty stores, a new atrium and food court with views of Mount Rainier, five new sit-down restaurants and an AMC Theatres multiplex on top of the center. The renovation is expected to open on July 25, 2008.^[3]

The five new restaurants have been confirmed as:

Joeys Grill and Lounge
Duke’s Chowder House
Blue C Sushi
Racha Thai & Asian Kitchen
BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse^[4]

Also, the retailers Banana Republic and H&M have been confirmed. Several other new-to-region retailers will be making their debut at the new Westfield Southcenter addition, including PINK, a subsidiary of Victoria's Secret and Gilly Hicks which is an offshoot of retailer Abercrombie and Fitch. ^[5]