The Bon Marche

Tacoma Mall

The Bon Marche at Tacoma Mall opened in 1964, the year before the mall itself opened. The mall store replaced the downtown Bon. Both The Bon Marche and Meier & Frank have opened stores at other malls, e.g. Northgate and Clackamas Town Center, while the malls themselves were still under construction.

Allied Stores, at one time owner of the Bon Marche, had a plan to build as many as six malls in the Seattle, Tacoma, Everett area. Three of those malls, Northgate, Southcenter, and Tacoma Mall, were developed by Allied. Alderwood Mall was sold to a different developer before it was built. Evergreen East was never built. The site became the location of the MicroSoft corporate campus in Redmond. The sixth site, southeast of the SR 167/SR 18 interchange in Auburn, was ultimately developed as a discount mall, the SuperMall of the Great Northwest.

When the Tacoma Mall opened in 1965, The Bon was joined by J C Penney and Best's. In the later 1960s Best's was purchased by Nordstrom Shoes and was briefly called-Nordstrom-Best, now simply Nordstrom. The west wing, including a Liberty House department store, was added to Tacma Mall in 1973. Frederick & Nelson purchased the Pacific Northwest Liberty House stores in 1979. The northeast wing of the mall, including Sears, was added in 1981. After the demise of the Frederick & Nelson chain in the early 1990s, the Tacoma Mall Frederick & Nelson store became a Mervyn's. Nordstrom expanded its store and a food court has been added.

This photograph was taken in November 2004 facing south from the north parking lot.