Westland Mall (Columbus)

Westland Mall is an 860000sqft shopping center located on the west side of Columbus, Ohio, at the western intersection of U.S. Route 40 and Interstate 270.As of November 2012, Westland Mall was reported as closed to all traffic, pending redevelopment of the property.HistoryWestland Mall opened in February 1969 as an open-air shopping center. The original anchor stores were Lazarus, Sears, and JC Penney, as well as Woolworth which acted as a secondary anchor. The Lazarus store, the chain's first suburban operation, had opened as a free-standing location in 1962. The Sears and JC Penney were built, along with the mall, in 1967-1969, and the Lazarus was also expanded at that time. The mall was enclosed sometime in 1982.The Sears store was constructed as a two-story building, as were the other two anchors, but only the main floor is currently utilized as retail space; the upper level was closed off to customers at some point during the 1980s. At one point the upper level was used as office space for Discover when it was still under Sears ownership.Westland was one of four directionally-named shopping centers in Columbus, along with Northland (the original mall in Columbus, closed in 2002 and demolished in 2004), Eastland (still in operation), and Southland (a smaller discount-style mall, now closed). All but Southland were constructed and originally operated by the Richard E. Jacobs Group, and featured the same mix of anchor stores.