Vintage Footage of Boise Towne Square Mall Opening Takes Treasure Valley Down Memory Lane
As one of Boise Towne Square Mall's original anchor stores gets closer to it's final day in business, these vintage videos show just how booming the shopping center was when it opened it's doors in 1988.
Heading into the holiday season, shoppers were hoping to score some mega deals during the liquidation of Boise Towne Square's Sears stores. When the department store filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, Boise was on the list of 142 unprofitable stores that will close. It's bittersweet news for people who grew up in the Treasure Valley, because Sears was one of the two anchor stores to open their doors during the grand opening of the shopping center in October 1988. The other store was called The Bon Marche, which would later be renamed Macy's.
Like many shopping malls across the country, Boise Towne Square Mall has had it's ups and downs. It's construction attracted anchor stores away from their original locations in Downtown Boise and Karcher Mall in Nampa, the Treasure Valley's only true shopping mall at the time. In 2010, Apple chose Boise Towne Square as the location for their very first Apple store in Idaho.
On the flip side, it's lost anchor stores like Sears, Borders and Mervyns over the past decade. They've also faced steep competition from The Village at Meridian since the outdoor shopping mall opened in 2013.
Through it all, the mall has continue to be a cornerstone of holiday shopping for many Treasure Valley residents and this vintage footage that YouTube user Max Wilson dug up is very cool to see. Take a look and see exactly what has changed or stayed the same at the mall over the last 30 years!