A quick guide to shopping in Fort Wayne, courtesy of the experts at Fort Wayne Magazine’s City Guide.
Downtown is where you can find more than two dozen shops plus a great and growing selection of restaurants and bars. These days, the downtown in which we shop stretches down South Calhoun Street (where the locals call the collection of shops and restaurants SoCal) and west to Broadway. Gift shops (downtown is where the museums, galleries and other attractions are) through antiques, cameras and jewelry – plus TinCaps wear for our baseball team’s many fans – are waiting for you to explore. Shop for used books inside the Allen County Public Library, and don’t miss West Wayne Street, either. Plenty of parking is available, both on-street and in several public parking garages. Use our downtown map on page 19 to plan your route to all the museum gift shops. They are well worth visits! Venture west out Main Street across the river to find new and fascinating shops, bars and restaurants vintage, modern and all wonderful. Every Friday afternoon in warm months enjoy the Historic West Main Street Farmer’s Market. If you’re lucky enough to be downtown on a warm Saturday morning, you can visit the Barr Street Farmer’s Market just south of the History Center. It’s a classic. Learn more at downtownfortwayne.com.
Glenbrook Square, 4201 Coldwater Road at Coliseum Boulevard, has major department stores and more than 175 specialty stores providing everything from home furnishings to designer fashions plus restaurants. Its Apple Glen Food
Court offers a variety of meal, sandwich and quick snack choices, plus a charming children’s area with apple tables and chairs. Learn more at glenbrooksquaremall.com. “The Mall,” as it has been known for years, is the beating heart of a huge shopping mecca that stretches east and west along Coliseum Boulevard and north and south along
both Coldwater Road and Lima Road (more or less the western border of Glenbrook and very convenient for visitors and locals spending time at SportONE Parkview Icehouse ice rink and SportONE Parkview Fieldhouse volleyball arena over there or a little to
the north at Spiece Fieldhouse for basketball). You might as well explore it all.
Jefferson Pointe Shopping Center, 4110 W. Jefferson Blvd. at Illinois Road, presents more than 50 big-name specialty and department stores and restaurants in a Mediterranean-style, open-air complex centered on tree-lined courtyards. It is also home to Carmike, an 18-screen stadium-seating movie theater that includes IMAX capability. Learn more at jeffersonshopping.com. Shopping continues along Illinois Road with a Super Target and furniture, home, building, auto, truck, office supply and food shopping galore.
Time Corners is the vintage southwest shopping area made stylish by its top-of-class fashion, food and drink purveyors on West Jefferson Boulevard at Covington Road and thereabouts. The name is from early automobile days when the intersection there (long since redesigned) had five corners and one building with a clock. Hence the name: one time and many corners. Now the name gets confusing because it’s applied to the profusion of shopping opportunities there: upscale Covington Plaza and Village at Time Corners, the classic Time Corners Shopping Center itself and all the rest offering everything from the latest fashions in clothing and food and home furnishings to a relaxing cup of
coffee or an exquisite meal or just the gift you need for any occasion.
Georgetown Square, in the 6400 block of East State Boulevard at Maplecrest Road, is a major shopping area on the city’s northeast side, featuring banks, supermarkets, personal and professional services, specialty stores of all kinds and restaurants and linking up north on Maplecrest Road to other shopping areas at Stellhorn Road and St. Joe Center Road. The big and busy Georgetown branch of the Allen County Public Library is at Georgetown Square. Learn more at fwgeorgetownsquare.com.
Dupont Road is the city’s far-north shopping destination, with restaurants, specialty stores, thrift stores, supermarkets and many personal and professional services in the stretch from I-69 on the east to Lima Road on the west. The action is centered at the intersection of Dupont and Coldwater roads. Don’t miss the Dupont branch of the Allen County Public Library at 536 E. Dupont Road.
Village of Coventry is the city’s far-west shopping destination on West Jefferson Boulevard just west of I-69. Restaurants, supermarkets, services and shops, plus the Aboite branch of the Allen County Public Library, are there to serve residents.
Coliseum Boulevard wraps around the north and northeast side of the city and is lined with big box stores, specialty shops, services and restaurants of all kinds. Pay special attention to the nodes of commercial opportunities at East State Boulevard
and Lake Avenue.
Chapel Ridge Shopping Center at Maysville Road & I-469 is the anchor of a bustling far northeast shopping area that combines big stores like Meijer, Menards and Kohl’s with a Marshall’s store and businesses that serve highway travelers.
Wells Street, just north of the river, is a neighborhood commercial street with interesting shops and restaurants that draw people from all over town. Vintage books are a strength along Wells Street, as is Mexican cuisine.
Southgate Shopping Center at East Pettit Avenue and South Calhoun Street serves the city’s near south side with a supermarket, department and specialty stores, services and restaurants and is the nucleus of its own commercial area. Go north on Calhoun to another commercial center at Rudisill Boulevard.
Southtown Centre on U.S. 27 South at South Anthony Boulevard, has a Menards and Walmart. The area is bustling with other smaller service businesses, including banking and restaurants and is also home to Ivy Tech’s south campus that it shares with the regional public safety training academy.
In addition, shopping areas along Bluffton
Road’s north end at the St. Marys River and in Waynedale, further south on Bluffton Road, serve residents of those southwest neighborhoods with supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants and many specialty shops.
