Columbia Mall is an enclosed regional

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

in Grand Forks, North Dakota located at the intersection of 32nd Avenue South and Columbia Road. The mall opened in 1978, and was developed by the Dayton Hudson Corporation (now

Target Corporation Target Corporation ( doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a com ...

) at a cost of roughly $20 million. It is the largest mall within . Located from the Canada–US border and from

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

, the mall draws a significant number of customers from Canada. Today, Columbia Mall houses two department stores (

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

and Scheels), a 430-seat food court, and more than 70 specialty merchant spaces. GK Development, Inc. of Barrington, Illinois, is the current owner of the mall.

History

Initial concepts

Dayton Hudson experienced fierce competition for a new mall in the city of Grand Forks in 1975. While their proposal was to build a mall at the intersection of 32nd Avenue South and Columbia Road, Inland Construction of

Edina, Minnesota Edina ( ) is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States and a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. The population was 53,494 at the 2020 census, making it the 18th most populous city in Minnesota. Edina began as a small farming and mil ...

wanted to build a mall at 32nd Avenue South and Washington Street (one mile east of the Dayton Hudson site), which was quickly dismissed, while a group of local investors and Farber-Kelley Ltd. of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

advanced a proposal for a mall at DeMers Avenue and 42nd Street to be called "Marketplace West." While Marketplace West was initially preferred by the city planning department, a referendum was called to annex Dayton Hudson's proposed Columbia Mall site to the city. When it passed, the city council interpreted it as a public endorsement of the Columbia Mall project. The Marketplace West site later became the home of the

Alerus Center The Alerus Center is an indoor arena and convention center in the north central United States, located in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The facility is owned and operated by the city of Grand Forks and opened on February 10, 2001. The arena's maj ...

arena and convention center.

Early tenants

Columbia Mall opened on August 2, 1978, with of retail space. The three initial anchors included both Dayton Hudson-owned

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, f ...

and

Dayton's Dayton's was an American department store chain founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1902 by George Draper Dayton. It operated several local high end department stores throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest for almost 100 years. Although it ...

stores as well as a

store. The mall's early marketing efforts included a jingle, "Meet me at Columbia Mall," that was also produced as a television commercial and recast in a holiday version. In 2000, a

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

department store relocated from the

Grand Cities Mall The Grand Cities Mall is an enclosed shopping mall located on South Washington Street in Grand Forks, North Dakota. With its construction in 1964, it was the first enclosed shopping mall built in North Dakota. The mall covers . Notable junior ancho ...

to the Columbia Mall, bringing the total number of anchor tenants in the mall to four. By 2001, Target relocated to a larger space on 32nd Avenue South, becoming a

SuperTarget Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...

. The Dayton's location was also changed to a

Marshall Field's Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...

that year following a national merger. Marshall Field's was later purchased by May Department Stores in 2004 and merged with Federated Department Stores in 2005 and subsequently converted to

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

Current operations

By 2005, GK Development added a new food court named Dakota Cafe. The American Red Cross established a temporary disaster relief operations headquarters at the shopping center in response to the August 26, 2007, tornado that struck nearby Northwood, ND.

Scheels All Sports Scheels () is an American privately held, employee-owned and operated sporting goods and entertainment chain store headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota. Scheels operates thirty-three store locations in fifteen U.S. states. Its slogan is "Gear. P ...

relocated into the former Target space in 2014. In 2017, Macy's shuttered its Columbia Mall location. With the closing of Sears in 2018, two anchor tenants are currently unoccupied. The future use of both spaces is uncertain.

Notes

External links