Lafayette Square Mall - Indianapolis, Indiana - Indiana's First & Oldest Indoor Mall

Located seven miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis, Lafayette Square Mall is Indiana's oldest indoor shopping center. It was developed by Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. in 1968. At that time, it featured four anchor tenants: Sears, Penney's, G. C. Murphy, and Blocks.

In the early 1970s, Lazarus and L. S. Ayres were added to the mall, which enjoyed its heyday for the better part of three decades. It attracted Wards department store when Blocks moved out in 1986, and Waccamaw replaced G. C. Murphy in 1993. A food court was then added in 1997, featuring McDonalds, Luca Pizza, Cinnabon, Wok-Right-In, Nick's Gyros, and Charley's Steakery.

Lafayette Square's decline began when Wards closed in 1997. Statistically high crime rates and low sales plagued the mall in the opening years of the 21st century. Despite renovations, other stores followed suit and shuttered, until not one of the original anchors remained.

Today, Lafayette Square Mall is owned by Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation and managed by Jones Lang LaSalle. Its enclosed shopping area covers 1.2 million square feet of retail space, situated on 113 acres adjacent to Interstate 65. Two department stores, Burlington Coat Factory and Shoppers World, now serve as the primary tenants.

A third anchor is the 75,000-square-foot indoor amusement park and family entertainment center known as Xscape. Its facilities include a buffet style restaurant, several themed dining rooms, and a sports bar for adults. Among other amenities, Xscape offers laser tag, go-karting, bumper cars, mini-bowling, mini-golf and a game arcade, too.

More than a dozen categories of goods are sold at 90 smaller retailers positioned between the anchor stores. These include cards / books / records / stationery, children's fashions / shoes / toys, family entertainment items, specialty retail / gifts / luggage, and home accessories. Also available are men's fashion, cellular services, men's and women's shoes, specialty food, sporting goods / apparel and women's fashion, as well as personal and professional services.

National retailers represented at Lafayette Square Mall include RadioShack, Payless ShoeSource, Victoria's Secret, Kay Jewelers, and Bath & Body Works. There are also branches of The Children's Place, GameStop, Champs, Foot Locker, and The Finish Line, among others. And wireless phone service providers are also here in force, including Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, Crossroads Wireless/AT&T, and the Phone Zone.

In 2007, Wal-Mart opened a new supercenter in the Lafayette Square area as part of the company's Jobs and Opportunity Zone (JOZ) program. It has been joined by another new retailer nearby, Garden Ridge. With a $550 million redevelopment project taking place along Interstate 465 and urban renewal getting underway on West 38th Street, the mall is poised for a renaissance of sorts. Estimates put the number of cars passing by the mall each day at 154,000.

One new program intended to spur customer loyalty at Lafayette Square Mall is The Shopping Club. By simply entering an email address on the mall's web site, shoppers can receive money-saving coupons and receive advance notification of special deals and events.

Lafayette Square Mall is open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 9pm, and on Sundays from noon to 6pm. Holiday hours, anchor store openings and restaurant hours sometimes vary. The address is 3919 Lafayette Road, Indianapolis, Indiana 46254-2531.