Anchor store
In retail, an anchor store, draw tenant, anchor tenant, or key tenant is one of the larger stores in a shopping mall, usually a department store or a major retail chain. Current examples of anchor stores include Younkers, Macy's, Kohl's, Sears, Bergner's, Dillard's, Carson's, and JCPenney. Defunct examples include Montgomery Ward, Mervyns, Eaton's, Lazarus, Galyan's, Foley's, Marshall Field's, Hecht's, Parisian and Sanger-Harris.
When the planned shopping mall format was developed by Victor Gruen in the early to mid-1950s, signing larger department stores was necessary for the financial stability of the projects, and to draw retail traffic that would result in visits to the smaller stores in the mall as well. Anchors generally have their rents heavily discounted, and may even receive cash inducements from the mall to remain open.
The International Council of Shopping Centers makes the presence of anchors one of the main defining characteristics of the two largest categories of malls, the regional center with 400,000 to 800,000 square feet (74,000 m2) in gross leasable area, and the superregional center with more than 800,000 square feet (74,000 m2) of space.
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