Gretna – The Nebraska Crossing outlet mall had announced plans to reopen this week amid the pandemic, but managers appeared to back away from those plans last Tuesday with a post that said the opening was primarily for employees to get their stores ready for business.

Officials with Nebraska Crossing, an upscale outlet mall near Omaha, said the only venue that would be open for in-person customers was a medical uniform store. The rest of the mall would remain closed to the public, Nebraska Crossing said in its post.

“National and global brands who want to open will begin the process of getting their stores ready on or after” April 24, the mall said. “This process can take 1, 2, 3 weeks or more. A store can’t just turn on the lights & resume business.”

The outlet’s owner, Rod Yates, had previously outlined plans for a “soft opening” on Friday and described it as a case study of best practices for other malls. He later added that it was up to individual stores whether or not they chose to reopen. However, it wasn’t clear how many of those stores would have done so.

A voicemail and message left with the outlet last Tuesday were not immediately returned.

Nebraska is one of a handful of states without an official stay-home order in place, although Gov. Pete Ricketts has banned public gatherings of more than 10 people and ordered restaurants and bars to close their public dining areas until at least April 30.

Ricketts has said he spoke with mall officials after the announcement and simply advised them to follow the rules he had put in place. He said that, because he never ordered stores or malls to close, he wasn’t going to tell them whether they should reopen.

Yates and Nebraska Crossing have donated almost $100,000 to Ricketts since his initial campaign for governor in 2014, according to state campaign finance records.

The outlet sits next to a busy stretch of Interstate 80 in Gretna.

Mall officials have said they purchased 100 thermometers for each store to use to check employees at the start of each day, and they plan to install 200 plastic shields at registers to separate customers and employees. Officials plan to encourage employees and customers to wear masks and gloves and avoid walking around in groups at the outdoor mall.