The story
Western Development Corporation
The company started in 1967 as the Western Development Corporation, founded by Herbert S. Miller and Richard L. Kramer. In the late '60s to the early '70s, Western developed the Mazza Gallerie in a joint venture with Mrs. Olga Mazza, the real estate subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and anchor store brand Neiman Marcus. They also developed strip malls and office buildings in collaboration with the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based Taubman Company. In 1975, Western partnered with the Donohoe Construction Company for the development of what would be planned as a mixed-use shopping park in Downtown Washington, D.C.. They developed Georgetown Park, which opened on September 27, 1981 and combined retail with residential and office elements.
Western's first mall to use the Landmark Mills template was Potomac Mills in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, which opened its first phase on September 19, 1985. Rather than relying on department stores, the Mills concept would combine off-price stores with factory outlets. Later, in 1986, Western acquired a former Treasury department store in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, which permanently closed in 1981. The company redeveloped the vacant space into Algonquin Mills. In December 1988, Western sold the mall to Aetna Life Insurance Company and The Tucker Companies, and it was renamed Meadows Town Mall.
The company developed Franklin Mills in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which had its grand opening celebration on May 11, 1989, advertised as The Mall To End Them All. Western named and themed the mall after Benjamin Franklin, making it the company's second Landmark Mills mall development. Then, Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise, Florida, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, and Gurnee Mills in Gurnee, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, opened in October 1990 and August 1991, respectively. Sawgrass Mills was a flagship property for Western Development Corporation, and their third Landmark Mills mall development, designed to be themed after and resemble an alligator. Gurnee Mills would follow as the fourth Landmark Mills mall and the final Mills-branded mall developed under Western.
The Mills Corporation
In 1994, Western Development Corporation spun-off its four Mills-branded malls into a public, real estate investment trust development firm, known as The Mills Corporation, which was already formed in 1991 as a private subsidiary. The new firm was named after Herb Miller and the Landmark Mills malls. In November 1996, under new CEO Lawrence C. Siegel, The Mills developed Ontario Mills near Los Angeles, which was the company's first mall designed abstractly and with a full oval "racetrack"-like design which followed into the rest of the company's built malls, including Grapevine Mills in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, which opened to the public on October 30, 1997, right when Halloween was about to start. In collaboration with Taubman Centers, Arizona Mills in suburban Phoenix opened in November of that year.
Originally planned as City Mills, the company debuted The Block at Orange in late November 1998, as their first outdoor mall to not use the "Mills" name. Sawgrass Mills was expanded with the addition of The Oasis at Sawgrass Mills, which opened on April 15, 1999, featuring restaurants and entertainment. In September 1999, The Mills Corporation opened its first mall to use sponsorships, being NASCAR for Concord Mills in North Carolina, designed by the St. Louis-based Kiku Obata & Company. This was followed by Katy Mills in October of that year in suburban Houston, making it their first time to develop another Mills mall in the same state (Texas), as the previous one, Grapevine Mills, was also in Texas.
The Mills Corporation used sponsors again with the development of Arundel Mills in Hanover, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Arundel Mills was designed to serve shoppers from both Baltimore and D.C., and became a tourist attraction, including the Muvico Arundel Mills Egyptian 24 megaplex theater (now Cinemark Egyptian 24). The sponsors for Arundel Mills were The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota, The Baltimore Sun, Comcast, and Discover Card. Additional sponsors included Bank of America and the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center. Designed by the Baltimore-based RTKL Associates and D'Agostino Izzo Quirk of Somerville, Massachusetts, the architects and Mills took inspiration from The Rouse Company for the development of Arundel Mills.
The company wanted to try developing power centers and strip malls adjacent to their main outlet malls to better serve the community, including people who are shopping for daily goods that do not need to go to the main mall. As a result, they opened Sawgrass Square across from Sawgrass Mills in 1996, and Concord Mills Marketplace in October 2001. Mills sold naming rights to its planned Sugarloaf Mills Mall in Metro Atlanta to Discover Card; the mall opened in November 2001 as Discover Mills. This was the first instance of a mall selling its own naming rights.
In September 2002, The Mills acquired six regular retail malls including the failing Forest Fair Mall (which it renamed Cincinnati Mills), and a nine mall portfolio, including former Taubman Centers, like Columbus City Center in order to redevelop and expanded to be more affordable centers. The company also expanded to Europe with the May 2003 opening of Madrid Xanadú in Spain.
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The company opened Arundel Mills Marketplace in 2003, which is across the street from Arundel Mills, and partnered with PBS for the development of the PBS Kids Backyard and its larger version, the PBS Kids Neighborhood. The first mall to use this learn-and-play area was St. Louis Mills, which opened on November 13, 2003. In addition to PBS, Discover Card and Coca-Cola, The Mills Corporation also formed partnerships with Crayola, ESPN, and Gibson Guitar, as well as partnering with other mall developers, such as Stevinson Associates for Colorado Mills, which opened one year prior to St. Louis Mills.
The success of Madrid Xanadú prompted The Mills to embark on the $1 billion+ Meadowlands Xanadu megamall and entertainment complex, which began construction in September 2004, which was first planned as Meadowlands Mills (which was forced to be canceled in 2002 due to environmental concerns), but the project has caused numerous delays and cost the company financially. This resulted in the facility remaining unfinished for several years.
In February 2004, The Mills Corporation relocated its headquarters from Arlington, Virginia to Chevy Chase, Maryland. Cincinnati Mills had its grand reopening in August 2004. The mall was renovated and featured an updated paint job. It was the first Landmark Mills mall to have its neighborhoods named after letters instead of numbers, and the second to have two stories, the first being Algonquin Mills. In September 2004, Gallery Place had its grand opening, developed by the main company, Western Development Corporation in collaboration with Akridge. It was a mixed-use development in D.C.
In November 2004, Vaughan Mills was the first Landmark Mills mall developed in Canada, and continued its international success with the acquisition of the St. Enoch Centre in Scotland and was offered to build a center in Barcelona and Rome, Italy (which was eventually never developed). The Mills Corporation and Ivanhoé Cambridge planned to develop several other Landmark Mills malls in Canada, being in Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver.
Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills had its grand opening in July 2005, developed in a joint venture with Zamias Services, Inc., the latter of which originally planned the project in 1981 as Frazer Heights Galleria. It was the first Landmark Mills mall to feature traditional anchors rather than outlet versions, including Kaufmann's (later Macy's), JCPenney, and a Sears Grand store.
Starting in May 2006, the company was investigated by the Securities & Exchange Commission for its financial problems. As a result, Mills sold all of its Canadian and international properties – including the rights to use the "Mills" name – to Ivanhoé Cambridge for $981 million ($1.1 billion in CAD) on August 15, 2006. This included the plans to develop the Landmark Mills malls in other parts of Canada, leading to the August 2009 opening of CrossIron Mills in Calgary, the October 2016 opening of Tsawwassen Mills in Delta, British Columbia, and the proposed Laval Mills in Laval, Quebec (which was canceled in May 2011 for unknown reasons). The Colonnade Outlets opened at Sawgrass Mills in March 2006.
Meadowlands Xanadu remained stalled for over a decade after Mills sold it to Colony Capital Acquisitions LLC. The mall eventually opened in 2020 as American Dream by Triple Five Group, which is planning to develop another mall in Miami of the same name, which has also been stalled and has yet to break ground as of April 2026.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mills Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4