Developed by the Zamais Services company, McKinley Mall first opened its doors in 1985- making it among the newer malls for the Buffalo area. Anchors at the time included Sears, JCPenney, Sibley's and several local to Buffalo chains which included AM&A's, L.L. Berger, Kleinhans and The Sample.
As with other AM&A's stores, the location at the McKinley Mall would become a Bon-Ton store. Kaufman's would acquire the Sibley's space and the space that LL Berger occupied would become a Kaufman's home store. Eventually both locations were branded as Macy's stores before they would in 2016. I do not know exactly where The Sample and Kleinhans spaces were at the mall. My best guess is that these storefronts were taken over by the junior anchors of Best Buy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and/or Barnes and Noble.
I personally do not have a lot of hope for the future for this mall. It has one lone anchor in JCPenney and a few junior anchors that do help it to survive, but the Macy's spaces have been vacant for almost four years. The Bon-Ton space for almost two and now another giant empty space exists from Sears after it closed earlier this year. The best ideal reuse, in my opinion, for this particular property may just be to de-mall the property, but we shall see what happens.
