Richard Nixon was U.S. President when the Northwest Arkansas Mall opened in March 1972. Consumers were paying between 40 to 60 cents per gallon of gasoline, equal to $2.40 with today’s incomes, and Sears & Roebuck was the largest retailer in the country.
Sears was also the origin of the Northwest Arkansas Mall, opening a store in north Fayetteville in 1970. The mall began with phase one in 1972, which was 450,000 square feet, with Dillard’s and JCPenney anchoring the enclosed shopping mall. The mall expanded in 1997 with a new wing and larger food court.
Last summer, Jeff Bishop, senior property manager at the Northwest Arkansas Mall, said the property’s occupancy rate has historically trended above average despite being challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic. In his short speech at the March 17 unveiling of a time capsule buried on site 25 years ago when owners expanded the mall, Bishop said much has changed in consumer shopping patterns and the retail business in that time. He said mall personnel will bury another time capsule to be reopened in 2047.
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