Champs Sports opens at Fashion Fair Mall, adding foot traffic
Champs Sports opened at Fashion Fair as the mall pushes for more foot traffic, joining a center that still draws a 1.1 million-person trade area.
Fashion Fair Mall added Champs Sports on Thursday, a small but telling signal that Fresno’s biggest shopping center still believes it can win national retailers and draw shoppers back inside. The new store sits next to Journeys and gives the mall another athletic-lifestyle brand at a time when mall traffic remains under pressure in many cities.
Champs Sports will hold a soft opening on May 23, with prizes and special offers for the first 100 people to walk in. The mall’s directory lists the store as CHAMPS SPORTS and describes it as offering athletic footwear, apparel and equipment for performance and fashion-conscious customers. The chain is also leaning into a community feel in Fresno through a Run Club, a move that suggests the company wants more than a standard storefront on East Shaw Avenue.
For Fashion Fair, the opening matters less as a ribbon-cutting than as a retail-health indicator. Macerich, the mall’s owner, says the center has 974,000 total square feet and serves a 1.1 million-person trade area with an average household income of $111,000 in the primary market. Macerich also says Fashion Fair is the only super-regional mall within 90 miles, a reminder that the property still occupies a rare position in Fresno County and across California’s Central Valley.
That position has been built over decades. Fashion Fair opened in 1970, expanded in 1983 and again in 2005, and remains anchored by national names such as Apple, Foot Locker, H&M, JCPenney, Macy’s and Macy’s Backstage in Macerich’s market profile. The new Champs Sports opening adds to that mix and gives the mall another reason to promote itself as a place where national brands still see value in Fresno foot traffic.
The timing also fits Fashion Fair’s next phase. A multi-year renovation is set to begin in late spring 2026 and continue through 2028, with planned improvements to the outdoor village, entrances, landscaping, seating, lighting, flooring and restrooms. At the same time, the Fresno Historic Preservation Commission voted 5-1 to clear the former Forever 21 site for redevelopment rather than historic designation, underscoring how aggressively the mall is working to fill and refresh its space.
Taken together, Champs Sports is more than another tenant on a directory page. It is another test of whether Fashion Fair can keep pulling in national brands, keep shoppers moving through the doors and keep its place as one of Fresno’s central retail destinations.
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