Towne East Square

Towne East Square now combines three department stores with two very different large-format uses. Dillard’s, Von Maur and JCPenney retain the traditional department-store tier, while SCHEELS opened a 220,000-square-foot store on the former Sears site in July 2023 and Round1 operates a roughly 44,000-square-foot entertainment venue near JCPenney. The defining shift is therefore not the disappearance of department stores, but the addition of sporting goods and entertainment alongside three surviving full-line anchors.

Von Maur is the register’s outlier. The Iowa-founded department store operates a comparatively limited national footprint, giving Wichita a service-led full-line concept alongside Dillard’s and JCPenney. Coach provides an accessible premium layer below the anchors. House of Hoops, JD, Kids Foot Locker, Pro Image Sports, Zumiez and SCHEELS add unusual depth across sneakers, sporting goods and licensed sports merchandise for a market of Wichita’s size.

Towne East opened in 1975 as Wichita’s first large modern multi-level enclosed mall. Simon owns 100 percent of the property and reports 1,157,209 square feet. A multimillion-dollar redevelopment announced in December 2021 updated entrances, signage, landscaping, parking areas and second-level flooring, while the SCHEELS project transformed the former Sears side of the property.

For a brand assessing Kansas, Towne East is a useful example of anchor diversification rather than simple department-store replacement. Three department stores remain, while a 220,000-square-foot sporting-goods destination and a large entertainment venue broaden the reasons to visit the property. The result is a large-format mix that distributes traffic across retail, sport and entertainment without abandoning the department-store co-tenancy on which the mall was built.