Charleston Town Center - History

History

Charleston Town Center opened in 1983 in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, as the largest downtown-based shopping mall located east of the Mississippi River. At the time, it included four anchor stores: JCPenney, Sears, Kaufmann's and Montgomery Ward. The mall remained largely unchanged until Stone & Thomas opened next to Montgomery Ward, moving from an existing location downtown. This Stone & Thomas store was later renamed Elder-Beerman when the chain was purchased in 1998, but Elder-Beerman closed it in 2000, the same year that Montgomery Ward closed.

In 2002, plans were announced to renovate the mall. Under these plans, Dillard's (which, at the time, had no locations in West Virginia) would have opened in the former Montgomery Ward space. In return, the Dillard's chain asked for a $1-a-year lease as part of an incentive package, in addition to asking for $7.5 million in city loans. However, the plans for a Dillard's at the mall were later canceled, and the former Montgomery Ward remained dark, while the former Elder-Beerman space was converted to a Steve & Barry's clothing store in 2002.

In 2005, the retail bookstore chain Books-A-Million also expressed interest in replacing the former Montgomery Ward, although this store also never came to fruition. Finally, by 2006, it was announced that BrickStreet Insurance would locate its offices in the former Montgomery Ward space. A year later, Kaufmann's was converted to Macy's due to the acquisition of Kaufmann's then-parent company, May Department Stores. The Steve & Barry's, along with all other Steve & Barry's stores in West Virginia, was closed in September 2008 due to bankruptcy. In 2011, television station WOWK sub-leased some unused space in the Brickstreet area to relocate its TV studio.