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Lynn Welch is a business reporter at The Capital Times. She can be reached at 252-6442 or at [email protected]
Sandy and Dick Baumgarten sat on a sunlit mission-style bench reviewing their purchases this week outside Sears at East Towne Mall.
"These kind of areas are sorely needed and we appreciate them," Dick Baumgarten of Tomah said of the seats, a new addition to the mall.
More like comfy and stylish living room furniture and less like worn cluster seating customary to decades-old malls, the seating is part of the first major renovation at East Towne Mall. Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL & Associates Properties Inc., owners of East Towne and West Towne malls in Madison, is completing its update of the malls on schedule and just in time for the holiday rush.
The facelifts, costing $2.2 million at East Towne and $2.8 million at West Towne, are part of the public Real Estate Investment Trust firm's upgrade of 23 malls it purchased in 2001 from the Richard E. Jacobs Group. In all, CBL is reportedly spending about $220 million renovating these properties.
The improvements mark the first significant changes seen at both malls for some time. West Towne expanded with a fourth anchor store in 1989. Also in 1989, East Towne added a food court. West Towne opened in 1970 and East Towne followed one year later.
The projects - started in February and to be completed Nov. 15 - set out to bring a bit of Madison into the enclosed shopping malls, said CBL regional marketing director...