Towson Town Center

Towson Town Center is a large indoor shopping mall located in Towson, Maryland. It was the largest indoor shopping mall in Maryland prior to the completion of Arundel Mills in late 2000 in Hanover and the 2007 expansion of Annapolis Mall.

The mall is currently owned and managed by GGP, a subsidiary of Brookfield Properties, and major tenants have left Towson Town Center in December 2025. The mall's flagship Crate & Barrel shuttered in early 2022.

Towson Plaza was originally an open-air mall developed by Ralph DeChiaro of DeChiaro Properties on ground originally sold by Goucher College. Towson Plaza had its grand opening on May 13, 1959 and was built next to the Towson location of Hutzler's which has since closed and been redeveloped into Towson Circle (now Circle East). Towson Plaza was one of the earliest multi-level shopping centers. Much of that original structure remains incorporated into the current mall as its two lower levels.

Towson Plaza was enclosed in 1973, renamed Towsontowne Centre, and renovated in 1982 with the opening of Hecht's across the parking lot. Lawrence Rachuba, through DeChiaro-Rachuba Group, were the developers. The renovation also led to the opening of Hutzler's, though it gone out of business in 1990.

Over the years, stores and attractions were added on to increase traffic in the mall and make it more competitive with other malls in the area. One memorable effort was Gadgets restaurant and arcade. It was a Warner Bros. themed restaurant with animatronic characters performing periodic shows on stage, which opened and closed in the early 1980s. Some of the original stores survived this era but later closed, including Hess Shoes, Loewmeyer's, and Friendly's. The Level 1 center court featured The Garden Cafe and a dandelion fountain at its entrance. The glass elevator was installed between the old escalators.^{[citation needed]}

Towson Town Center undergone a massive $150 million renovation in 1991. The third and fourth floors were developed by the San Diego-based The Hahn Company (later TrizecHahn Corporation) in partnership with the Rachuba-DeChiaro Group and the California-based Santa Anita Realty, opening on October 14, 1991. It included the addition of the Arbor Terrace food court on Level 3. New fountains were added to the Nordstrom court and third floor courts along with a glass elevator connecting Levels 3 and 4. The upper floors sit above a parking garage while access to the lower levels form a downhill pattern, as much of the mall property was built on a slope. The 1990s renovation was designed by the Baltimore-based RTKL Associates, which also designed the competing Owings Mills Mall and White Marsh Mall. The 1991 renovation added significant space for 130 stores.

During the 1991 renovation, the main fountain was replaced with a smaller one. In 1999, the popular theme restaurant, Rainforest Cafe opened in the mall and was a tenant for the next ten years, closing in January 2009. Bistro Sensations took the place of Garden Cafe in 2000 and has since gone out of business.

TrizecHahn Corporation sold Towson Town Center to Columbia-based The Rouse Company in 1998 as part of a $1.1 billion deal, alongside other malls to Rouse and Westfield Group as part of TrizecHahn's exit out of the mall industry.