The mall features Round One, Hobby Lobby, Macy's, Kohl's, Marshalls/HomeGoods, Value City Furniture, Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, 2nd & Charles, Dick's Sporting Goods, Marcus Theaters, Top Shelf Ice Arena, Burlington Coat Factory, and Floor & Decor as its anchor tenants.

There are three vacant anchor spaces last occupied by Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby, The RoomPlace, Sears Grand, and Saks Off Fifth.

[2] The land where Gurnee Mills stands today was plotted out as part of Section 16 of Warren Township, and most of it was owned by the prominent Lamb family from 1837 until sold to the mall's developers in 1988.

When the latest generation of the family sold the land to be developed, they had some conditions, primarily that the oldest trees on the property be preserved and the wetlands along the highway be kept intact.

[3] The Western Development Corporation first announced its plans to build a super-regional shopping center in Lake County, Illinois in 1988.

The plan was to annex 324 acres of unincorporated land near the intersection of the Tri-State Tollway and Grand Avenue, on which the mall would be built, into the village of Gurnee.

[6][7] At the ceremony, four anchor retailers were announced: Sears Outlet, Reading China and Glass, Phar-Mor, and the Gurnee Mills Family Entertainment Center, a children's amusement area modeled after the 49th Street Galleria in Salt Lake City.

[6] The Gurnee Mills concourse opened to the public at 8 a.m. on August 8, 1991, allowing 70,000 visitors to see the place before stores opened at 10 a.m.[10] The mall's architecture and design was themed after "the agrarian heartland",[11] a look inspired by its rural setting and taking after a wide variety of sources, from the Googie-style diners of the 1950s to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School architecture.

With about 200 retail spaces and two separate food courts: the Dine-O-Rama and the Lake County Fare Food Court, Gurnee Mills was intended from the beginning as a state-of-the-art mall, with high-tech features like a television studio where mall-specific commercials could be produced and shown on the mall's 55 monitors, and its 15 ft (5 m) "video wall".

[12] One marketing study found Gurnee Mills was so large that many shoppers preferred to drive to the other side of the parking lot rather than walk to the other end of the mall.

[15] Additions to the mall continued in 1993, with a new retail space constructed for Burlington Coat Factory, as well as Foot Locker, Syms, and The Clearinghouse by Saks Fifth Avenue opening that fall.

[4][21] Capitalizing on this growth and the idea of the mall as a regional entertainment destination,[22] major new developments began to be added to Gurnee Mills, beginning with the Rainforest Cafe in 1996.

[23] The Mills Corporation announced its plans to invest $50 million into expanding the mall in 1997,[24] beginning with the July opening of a Planet Hollywood restaurant, the second location in Illinois.

[27] The focus on entertainment and experiences over shopping continued through the late 1990s, as the dot-com boom threatened to cut into the profits of traditional retailers.

[32] Lakehurst was also suffering from the early 2000s recession, which affected Gurnee Mills as well: the mall lost two of its major anchors, with Syms leaving and Waccamaw furniture going out of business in 2001, and Spiegel closing its retail chain entirely in 2002.

The Mills Corporation faced bankruptcy in 2006 after the Securities & Exchange Commission found that management had made $350 million in accounting errors during the previous four years.

"[44] The new stores opened on July 24, 2013, in time for the mall's 22nd anniversary, with the promise of other retailers following Macy's path, and "positioning Gurnee Mills for another 20 years of relevance".

[45] The upgrades mirrored those being done by Simon at the dozens of other Mills malls, as part of a nationwide strategy to remake them into "timeless" shopping centers.