Shake Shack among latest tenants coming to Tacoma Mall as it plans its new ‘village’
Plans for Tacoma Mall’s new “village” are taking shape with announcements of future tenants, including a national burger-shake chain.
Initial plans for a Shake Shack at Tacoma Mall were filed Monday with the City of Tacoma, along with a “Coming Soon” announcement posted on the mall’s website.
The restaurant’s menu will feature the brand’s “ShackBurger” with its “signature ShackSauce,” the mall promotion noted, along with seasonal items created through the year.
The mall’s announcement stated the site is expected to open Oct. 1, 2025.
That’s not all that’s coming to the site, now branded as Tacoma Mall’s The Village.
Gong Cha bubble tea and Happy Lamb Hot Pot will open as part of the new center in late 2025, a mall media representative confirmed Monday with The News Tribune.
The mall’s long-anticipated lifestyle village has been in the works starting years before the COVID-19 pandemic, amid the planned departure of Sears, one of the mall’s former anchors.
Tacoma’s Sears closed in 2018, and the store site was demolished the following year.
New retail pads have been constructed for a fresh string of stores, including Nordstrom Rack, Total Wine & More, Ulta Beauty, and a small-format Kohl’s as that brand’s first appearance in Tacoma.
The village buildings would be in the parking lot area to the west of those new shops, and initial plans have called for up to nine tenant/restaurant spaces.
Shake Shack’s application with the city states that the work involves “tenant improvement in a new, one-story commercial suburban inline core shopping center.”
It added, “Scope to include new partitions, finishes, new kitchen equipment and associated electrical, plumbing, mechanical work.”
Shake Shack’s plans list December as an anticipated start date for construction, though those dates routinely change after the initial application.
The construction work is estimated at more than $1 million.
As of February, Shake Shack had more than 500 locations worldwide, including more than 330 in the United States and the District of Columbia, and more than 180 international locations.
The brand has six locations in the state, all north of Tacoma, including two in Seattle, one at Westfield Southcenter in Tukwila and in the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, as well as Bellevue Square and a site in Kirkland.
Shake Shack also has at least three in the Portland metro region, according to its website.
This story was originally published August 5, 2024 at 3:01 PM.
