The doors to the Everett Mall's interior are locked, and the food court is closed with them. Out in the parking lot it looks like a normal week. Trader Joe's is still selling groceries, Five Below is keeping daily hours, and Regal Everett is posting showtimes. The building that defined the mall for half a century is shut, and the businesses that face the parking lot are doing fine.
That gap shows where the property is going. Owner Brixton Capital is renaming the center The Hub @ Everett and rebuilding it as an outdoor center. In a September 2026 release, the company estimated that construction would start in November, with grand openings in late 2028. If you shop or see movies at 1402 SE Everett Mall Way, you're living through a two-year stretch between the old mall and the new one. Most of what you'll need over those two years is already on the outside walls.
The West End Went First
The mall did not start turning outward this fall. The Snohomish County Tribune traces it back to 1969, when it was built around a Sears store, and says it grew into a full mall that opened in 1974. Then the department stores left one at a time, and each time the empty space came back as stores that open onto the parking lot.
| When | What happened at the mall |
|---|---|
| 2017 | Brixton Capital bought the Everett Mall. Macy's closed the same year. |
| December 2019 | Sears closed after anchoring the west side since 1969. |
| 2023 | Brixton began renovating the former Sears building. Trader Joe's applied to move into it. |
| September 2026 | Brixton said the interior and food court were closed for renovations. |
| November 2026 | Construction is estimated to start. |
| Late 2028 | Grand openings are expected for The Hub @ Everett. |
The Sears building is the clearest example. In 2023, The Daily Herald reported that Trader Joe's had filed a state liquor license application to move from 811 SE Everett Mall Way, where parking was tight at busy times, to 1302 SE Everett Mall Way, the old Sears address. Ulta and At Home were set to share that building. The same article said a Chick-fil-A was being built at 1124 SE Everett Mall Way and described that west corner as a hotspot of redevelopment.
So by the time the interior closed, a large share of the mall's daily traffic was already going to businesses with their own front doors. The 2026 plan takes the approach that worked on the west end and applies it to the rest of the building.
What Still Works From the Parking Lot
Brixton's September release lists Trader Joe's, Ulta, Five Below, Old Navy "and others" as open and says they will stay on as part of The Hub @ Everett. Several more businesses on the property still have active listings on their companies' own location pages. Here's the current list, with the addresses those pages give:
- Trader Joe's, 1302 SE Everett Mall Way, in the former Sears building
- Ulta Beauty, which shares the former Sears building
- Old Navy, near the corner where Shake Shack is planned
- Five Below, 1402 SE Everett Mall Way, Suite 335, with daily hours on its store page
- Regal Everett, 1402 Everett Mall Way #133, which is posting showtimes
- Burlington, 1402 E Everett Mall Way, Suite 137, listed at 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily
- Chick-fil-A, 1124 SE Everett Mall Way, listed with Monday through Saturday hours
The food court is the main thing missing from this list. Brixton has named it as part of the closed interior. If the mall used to be your rainy-day indoor walk or a cheap lunch between errands, that part of the routine is on hold until the new layout opens.
What the New Layout Does to the Old Building
The redesign mostly comes down to splitting the building. Brixton says the large mall building will be "divided by a small, landscaped road and walking paths that provide more exterior storefront space, better visibility and improved access throughout the property." The Snohomish County Tribune describes the same plan from the other direction. A center path through the old mall gets demolished to make an outdoor walking market, similar to the outdoor section at Alderwood Mall.
That's why the current open list looks the way it does. Stores that already had exterior entrances could keep operating. The spaces that only opened onto the interior corridors are the ones the redesign is meant to fix, by cutting a street through the middle so more storefronts face outside.
Mayor Cassie Franklin introduced the project at her 2024 State of the City address. "We wanted to see the space re-imagined to better meet our community's changing needs," she said, as quoted by The Daily Herald. In the same Herald story, Eric Li, Brixton's managing director of retail leasing, said the company is "honored to be giving new life to a place that has played an important part in the lives of so many nearby residents."
The Tenants Already Signed
Two new leases are in place, and both go into the kind of outward-facing space the redesign creates.
Shake Shack will take 3,475 square feet of corner storefront near Old Navy. Brixton says it will be the first Shake Shack in Everett. The Daily Herald notes that the closest one to Everett right now is in Lynnwood.
Boot Barn will occupy a 20,028-square-foot storefront in part of the former At Home space inside the old Sears building. The Herald says the nearest Boot Barn today is in Marysville.
Topgolf is the biggest piece, and its plans have changed more than once. City staff approved permits in January 2025 for a 68,000-square-foot, three-story Topgolf building with a driving range. In April 2026, Brixton filed a pre-application with a different site plan. That plan put an office building on the site plus another building with parking, a small clubhouse, a pool and open space, and The Daily Herald reported that Brixton described it as one option. In September, Brixton and Topgolf both said the venue is still slated for the southeast corner of the property. "We remain excited and committed to bring our high-energy, technology-enabled golf entertainment experience to The Hub @ Everett," said Topgolf's Matt Smith in the release. The Tribune places it near the movie theater.
Brixton also says it is negotiating with several more national retailers for the rest of the space and hopes to share more details with Topgolf later this year.
Living Next to a Two-Year Build
The timeline is November 2026 for the estimated construction start and late 2028 for grand openings. That's about two years of work on a property that is still open for business. Since the stores staying through the redevelopment are the ones with their own exterior entrances, the work will mostly happen in the middle of the building, between those storefronts.
For a regular weekend in south Everett, very little changes. Trader Joe's is still at the west end, Burlington and Regal still have their listed hours, and Chick-fil-A is still on its pad at 1124 SE Everett Mall Way. The interior walk-through and the food court are gone until the new layout opens. Over the next two years, the center of the building is scheduled to become a landscaped street, an outdoor market path, and storefronts for Shake Shack and Boot Barn.
If you own a home near Everett Mall Way and want to know what The Hub @ Everett could mean for your property over the next two years, The WC Group can walk you through it using local sales and what's happening at the mall site. Start with a free home valuation, and we'll follow the construction with you as it goes.
