The Grand Cities Mall is an enclosed
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 ...
located on South Washington Street in
Grand Forks, North Dakota
Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the state of North Dakota (after Fargo and Bismarck) and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2020 census, the city's population was 59,166. Grand Forks, along with its twin city o ...
. With its construction in 1964, it was the first enclosed shopping mall built in North Dakota. The mall covers . Notable junior anchor tenants include
Family Dollar
Family Dollar Stores, Inc. is an American variety store chain. With over 8,000 locations in all states except Alaska and Hawaii, it was the second largest retailer of its type in the United States until it was acquired by Dollar Tree in 2015 and i ...
,
Ace Hardware
Ace Hardware Corporation is an American hardware retailers' cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States. It is the world's largest hardware retail cooperative, and the largest non-grocery American retail cooperative.
Founded in 1924 ...
, Poppler's Music, Hope Evangelical Covenant Church, and Thrive Community Church. The mall also houses numerous small and local businesses.
History
The project was initiated by the South Forks Land Corporation in 1963. The architect was
DeRemer, Harrie & Kennedy of Grand Forks, successor to the office of
Joseph Bell DeRemer
Joseph Bell DeRemer (1871–1944), who lived and worked in Grand Forks, North Dakota, was one of the finest architects in North Dakota. Some of the important works produced by him or his firm, which included his son Samuel Teel DeRemer, include ...
.
The Grand Cities Mall, originally called South Forks Plaza, was built in several stages. One of the original anchors,
Kmart
Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States.
The company was inc ...
, first opened February 26, 1964, before the rest of the mall, which continued to be built over the summer.
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 ...
opened its location in the mall on October 8, 1964.
The mall was the first enclosed mall in the city of Grand Forks. However, until 1973, the mall's two wings were not accessible to each other from inside. Sears and many of the stores occupied one wing, with Kmart and the remainder of the stores in the other. In November 1973 a connecting portion of the mall was completed, allowing access between the wings. A further addition was added on the west side in 1977.
The property was acquired by
J. Herzog & Sons, Inc. in 1998. The old "South Forks Plaza" name was subsequently dropped and some renovations took place. That same year, J. Herzog and Sons sold a portion of the Mall, The Pavilion, to Hope Evangelical Covenant Church.
In 2000, Sears left the mall and moved to
Columbia Mall. The empty Sears space was divided up into several smaller stores including a Zimmerman's furniture store and a Family Dollar. In 2005, Burggraf's Ace Hardware opened a store on the east side of the mall.
On April 1, 2015, the entire mall was purchased by Hope Evangelical Covenant Church. A separate company, Land of Hope, LLC, was created to run the mall's daily operations.
On December 28, 2018,
Sears Holdings
Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20th-l ...
announced that Kmart would be closing as part of a plan to close 80 stores nationwide. The store closed in March 2019.
See also
*
Columbia Mall
References
External links
*
J. Herzog & Sons website
{{Shopping malls in North Dakota
Shopping malls in North Dakota
Shopping malls established in 1964
Buildings and structures in Grand Forks, North Dakota