Wausau Center


Wausau Center is an enclosed shopping mall which opened in 1983 in downtown Wausau, Wisconsin. HOM Furniture is the only current anchor, as JCPenney closed in 2014, Sears closed in 2016, and Younkers closed in 2018. It is managed by Mid-America Real Estate Group.

History

The downtown area of Wausau was blighted by many vacant buildings in the late 1970s. A referendum was passed in 1979 to allow Richard E. Jacobs' Jacobs Visconsi & Jacobs Group to build the mall. Approximately 67 buildings were demolished to make way for the mall, which opened on August 3, 1983. To commemorate the opening, a five-day-long celebration was held. Its original anchors were J. C. Penney, Sears, and Prange's. Walgreens, an original tenant, moved out in 2003.
In 2006, the mall owners began a renovation which included new seating areas and an improved mall entrance. Two years later, the food court was expanded, using space vacated that same year by a McDonald's.
The mall lost all three anchor stores between 2014 and 2018, with Younkers being the last of the three to close; in June 2019, HOM Furniture opened as the center's sole anchor store, having acquired the previously closed Younkers location.