SPRINGFIELD — Instead of changing the zoning at Eastfield Mall to allow for marijuana cultivation, the Springfield City Council on Monday night changed the existing zoning ordinance to add marijuana cultivation to the list of approved uses at the site.

Cannaworld/Cannamundo Inc. is proposing a retail store on the first floor of the former Macy’s store and a cultivation and manufacturing facility on the second floor.

The growing and packaging operation would not have been allowed under the mall’s retail zoning. Those uses were only allowed in industrial zones.

Cannaworld and the mall’s owners sought to change the zoning to industrial. But the city Planning Department objected, saying that switch would allow other industrial uses on the site, something the city probably wouldn’t want.

Monday night, Philip Dromey, the city’s deputy director of planning, said that because of setback and lot-size requirements, the change in the zoning ordinance approved Monday night probably will only have a practical application at Eastfield Mall.

Cannaworld still needs multiple approvals from the state Cannabis Control Commission before can proceed.

Macy’s closed its Eastfield Mall location in 2016. It was part of a general shrinking of retail throughout the country. Eastfield lost its JCPenney in 2011 and its Sears in in 2018.

Once a suburban store in Springfield’s beloved Steiger’s department store chain, the Macy’s building totals 127,000 square feet on two floors. It was built in 1967 along with the rest of Eastfield as the region’s first enclosed mall.

Mountain Development Corp., owner of the Eastfield Mall, has announced plans to redevelop the campus as Eastfield Commons, a $200 million, open-air, mixed use complex with retail, housing and other uses. The property totals 87 acres on the city’s busy Boston Road commuter corridor.

On Monday night, attorney Mary Hurley, a former Springfield mayor, told the City Council that Mountain Development is in negotiations to build housing on the site, but she said she could give no further details.

Councilors praised Eastfield Mall for having a plan to reinvigorate the property, citing the ongoing decay and vacancy at troubled malls like the largely abandoned Berkshire Mall in Lanesborough.

Ward 1 Councilor Adam Gomez said marijuana cultivation operations, with their workforce and material investment, are what Springfield needs from legalized marijuana. He doesn’t want to have only retail operations, which have fewer employees. Cannaworld has promised 200 jobs at its Eastfield Mall growing operation.