Located in Fairfax, Virginia, Fair Oaks Mall is an enclosed shopping area of 1,400,000 square feet. Developed by the Taubman Company, Fair Oaks Mall opened in the midst of a recession. Only four of its six anchor stores were in operation: Hecht’s, J. C. Penney, Sears, and Woodward & Lothrop. Fifteen specialty shops were open, leaving three-fourths of the storefronts empty. The two remaining anchors Garfinckel’s and Lord & Taylor opened in 1981. Developers expected 60 to be occupied by the Christmas season and 100 by the following year. Upon opening, Fair Oaks Mall was the largest mall in the Washington, D.C., area.
In 1982, the Fair Oaks Mall was one of the first sites used by Sears to offer financial services to customers, including: stocks, bonds, insurance and real estate, from its Dean Witter, Allstate and Coldwell Banker subsidiaries.
In 1988, seeking to reach out to a broader range of patrons, Fair Oaks Mall hosted the Fairfax library system’s 10,000-volume branch. Fair Oaks Mall also contains a Virginia DMV customer service center.
Fairfax Corner, a planned lifestyle center, opened in 2004 to the south of Fair Oaks Mall.
