Omaha Exploration

Brandeis, the iconic, family-owned retail store based in downtown Omaha was responsible for the city’s first regional mall. Located at northwest corner of 72nd and Dodge Streets, The Crossroads Shopping Center opened five years after the much smaller, Center Mall.

Brandeis turned down an offer to open a new store inside The Center preferring instead to open its own indoor shopping center further west. While the area was largely undeveloped at the time, it seemed inevitable that a city that continued to move further and further west would catch up with it.

Work commenced in 1959 after Brandeis Investment Company, the real estate division for the retail store, secured a 96-year lease on the 35 acre site. Among its few neighbors were Cargill to the south, West Lanes to the east and 76 West Dodge Drive-in as well as Peony Park to the west.

Designed by Leo A. Daly, the $10.5M Crossroads Shopping Center featured two, three-story anchor stores one of which was Brandeis and the other Sears and Roebuck. Sitting in between them was a single story row of two dozen smaller retailers. The fully enclosed mall also included a basement that housed the offices for the mall management.

The Crossroads location was Brandeis first new building since it opened its flagship store at 16th and Douglas in 1906. While business was slow at first, the gamble paid off and the location became profitable in its own right and led to even more new locations. The Crossroads included the “Seven Wonders of the Brandeis Shopping World” with its luxuriously-decorated women’s and men’s departments, youth section and a fountain court with sculpture and fountain and dining area.

In addition to the anchor stores, other original tenants included Nebraska Clothing Company, S.S. Kresge Company, Baker Shoe Company, Helzbergs, Cooks Paint and Varnish, Occidental Building and Loan Association, Hallmark, Goldstein-Chapman, Natelson’s, Corbaley’s Shoes, Paris Hats, Musicland, Sol Lewis, Babytown, Dresher’s, Woolworth, Walgreen Drug and its Walgreen Grill counterpart among others. 

Crossroads Mall dominated the retail scene until Westroads Mall opened two and a half miles west in 1968. In the face of increased competition, Crossroads continued to evolve by adding new tenants to the mix and even built a new movie theater that operated from the basement from 1970 until 1986.

Changes were on the horizon however as the mall was sold to new owners in Melvin Simon & Associates. Its founder, Brandeis, made the painstaking decision to close its downtown location leaving Crossroads as its new flagship. Not even that saved the retail store which sold to Younkers in 1987.

Crossroads completed a $35M renovation in 1988 that included the addition of a third anchor store in Dillard’s, two new wings that extended north and south, parking garage and a central food court beneath two white tents. As a result, the mall expanded to more than 70 retailers. The mall underwent a second renovation 10 years later than was more cosmetic nature.

After the turn of the century, however, Crossroads was in decline due to a variety of factors including competition from Westroads, Oak View, Village Pointe and online shopping. Younkers which replaced Brandeis just a few years earlier closed at which point the building was demolished in favor of Target. The second of its three anchors, Dillard’s closed in 2008. By that point, the entire second level was vacant and the food court was mostly empty.

The building was put up for sale in 2009 but instead of selling it, the owner defaulted on its mortgage causing it to go into foreclosure. The mall was subsequently sold and in 2010, Century Development Company, proposed a $390M mixed-use development called Crossroads Village. Its plan would retain the existing Target while relocating holdovers Sears, the last remaining anchor and Barnes & Noble to new buildings. In addition to retail, the plan called for luxury apartments, office space, hotel, fitness center, library and a central park. After those plans failed to materialize, Sears and Barnes & Noble closed in 2019.

With the exception of Target which had sealed off its entrance to the mall years earlier, tenants were given eviction notices and the mall was leveled in 2021 – more than 60 years after it first opened its doors to the public. While progress has been slow since that time, much of the infrastructure work including street grid was completed.

Its redevelopment saw new life in December after Woodbury Corporation took over. This summer they announced that its first tenant, Gamescape, would open in late 2027 or early 2028. Gamescape is a combination movie theater that includes bowling, an arcade, laser tag, ropes course and a full-service restaurant and bar. It will sit on top of two levels of underground parking. Subsequent phases will including retail, multi-family housing, offices and a plaza.

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