Westfield Wheaton, formerly known as Wheaton Plaza, is a 1.7 million square-foot, two-level indoor shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. It is owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Its anchor stores include Macy’s, Target, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Costco. History On March 23, 1954, real estate developer Simon Sherman announced he had bought 80 acres of land in Wheaton from Charles Heitmuller for $800,000. Heitmuller was a farmer who sold fruit wholesale. At the time Sherman announced the purchase, Sherman would not disclose the plans for the site. Sherman later successfully petitioned to have the zoning for a portion of the land changed from residential to commercial zoning. Simon Sherman announced plans for a shopping mall in Wheaton on February 9, 1955. The planned shopping mall would include 50 stores in eight buildings on 15 acres, and another 40 acres of parking and access roads. The Wheaton Plaza's official groundbreaking was held on January 21, 1956. Giant Foods became the first store to open on the site on September 17, 1956. A Shell service station opened on Veirs Mills Road in August 1957. The developer applied for a zoning exception in order to allow a parking lot to be built on the land that had been zoned for residential use. The surrounding neighborhood advocated against the zoning exception, saying that the proposed five-foot fence surrounding the parking lot would be insufficient. Montgomery County approved the zoning exception on the condition that the developer only constructed entrances and exits on Veirs Mill Road and Kensington-Wheaton Road. Isadore M. Gudelsky and Theodore N. Lerner took over as the developers at the end of 1957. On the day before it opened, the Woodward & Lothrop store was picketed because the tea room in its location in Chevy Chase refused service to African Americans. Wheaton Plaza officially opened on February 5, 1960, as a single-level, open-air mall, with Woodward & Lothrop (now JCPenney) and Montgomery Ward (now Target) as anchors. Thirteen other stores also opened on the same date. Wheaton Plaza's grand opening celebration was held on March 31, 1960. Wheaton Plaza was built in a modified Georgian architectural style with bubbles, globes, and hemispheres as part of the exterior design. It was decorated with Italian marble, exotic woods, and Florentine glass mosaic panels. There was a marble-tiled fountain that was sculpted by Barbara Chase-Riboud, art instructor from Yale University. The center