Westland Mall started life as an open air mall located on West Broad Street at I-270 in Columbus, Ohio. The mall opened in 1968 with Lazarus, Sears, JC Penny as anchor stores and Woolworths as a secondary anchor . Interesting note is that the Lazarus store had occupied this property before the mall was built.
The mall was enclosed around 1982 and was very active throughout the 1980s. In 1997, the mall at Tuttle Crossing opened and dealt a significant blow to the aging Westland Mall. Macy’s (which had been Lazarus) as well as JC Penny moved from Westland to Tuttle. The vacant stores were never occupied by another major anchor again.
Over time, other stores began to either leave the mall for Tuttle or other locations, or go out of business altogether. This left the malls owners renting out the store space to small mom and pop type businesses which made it hard to sustain the mall. The mall closed for good around 2013. The only remaining store in operation at Westland is Sears. It should be noted that Sears owns its store and the property it sits on.
In 2017, the connection between the mall and the Sears store was severed with both sides being covered and secured, This was done to minimize the fire threat to Sears should a fire break out in the mall.One rumor that I am constantly rebuking on her is who owns the mall. Several people are under the impression that New Albany millionaire businessman Les Wexner owns Westland. They cite the fact that the name change of the mall property to Weston Town Center signifies Mr. Wexner owns the property. One person who watches this page also claims he is a “close personal friend” of Mr. Wexner and he was told by him that he owns the property. These are rumors and are not true. The property is in fact owned by Plaza Properties which is owned by the Rubens family.
Photos of Westland Mall
