The Sears box and the mall at forty-five

SEARS CLOSES 2019 · THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY, MARCH 2024 · THE STATE TODAY

The founding anchor was the last to fall: in late 2019 the Sears store — open since 1 March 1979, forty years before the mall it preceded — closed in one of the chain's national rounds of shutdowns. The Tribune measured the closing against the chain's whole local run: it ended Sears's ninety-one-year history in the South Bend area. The empty box, the mall's largest single space, went to market: the offering figures are printed at their sources, which differ in the last digits — JLL's 2019 marketing gave the box at 187,211 square feet on 16.26 acres, and the offering memorandum gives 187,271 square feet on a site of about 16.32 acres, the building dated 1978. No buyer or re-tenanting stands in the record reached; the box remains vacant in the mall's current listing.

The mall's own course since is one of survival at documented strength. Simon shuttered the center in March 2020 at the pandemic's start and reopened it a month later among fifty Simon malls; the Disney Store never reopened. In August 2023 USA Today cited University Park Mall as an example of a viable American mall, against the national narrative of the form's death. In March 2024 the mall marked its forty-fifth anniversary with a second ribbon-cutting, Mayor Dave Wood of Mishawaka officiating — the city's mayor cutting the ribbon again on ground the city had annexed for the purpose two generations before — and the Tribune reported occupancy above ninety percent with the Sears box still empty. The present state, verified November 2026: Simon's listing counts 137 stores; the standing anchors are Macy's, JCPenney, and the Village's Barnes & Noble; one anchor, the Sears box, stands vacant. Three violent episodes at the mall between 2020 and 2024 stand in the press record; they belong to the city's crime and controversies record and are not carried in this section.

Sources:

1. WSBT, 8 August 2019, and the South Bend Tribune record — the Sears closing of late 2019 and the end of the chain's ninety-one-year South Bend-area history.
2. JLL marketing flyer (2019) and the University Park Mall former-Sears offering memorandum — 187,211 square feet on 16.26 acres; 187,271 square feet on about 16.32 acres; year built 1978; both printed.
3. The University Park Mall record as compiled from dated coverage — the March 2020 shuttering and reopening a month later among fifty Simon malls; the Disney Store's non-return; the forty-fifth anniversary of March 2024, Mayor Dave Wood, and occupancy above ninety percent (Tribune, 1 March 2024); the USA Today citation of 28 August 2023.
4. Simon Property Group, current listing for University Park Mall (checked November 2026) — 137 stores; anchors Macy's, JCPenney, and Barnes & Noble; the Sears box vacant.