Category: North Dakota

Bismarck is a city of 55,000 people and also the state capital of North Dakota.  Located almost 200 miles from the state’s largest city, Fargo, and over 400 miles from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Bismarck is rather isolated from other cities and is therefore an important regional hub for commerce.  As such, a plethora of retail options exist in the city, including two enclosed malls, the large, super-regional Kirkwood Mall and the smaller, semi-troubled Gateway Mall.

Eight years after Bismarck’s largest mall, Kirkwood Mall, opened, developers decided the city could use another, smaller mall and built Gateway Mall on Bismarck’s north side.  Opened in September 1979, Gateway Mall debuted a year before Kirkwood Mall’s 1980 expansion, and anchors the State Street/U.S. 83 North retail corridor in the city.  It was developed by the local Kavaney family for the low, low price of $8 million.  Listed at 334,000 square feet, Gateway Mall is one level and opened with three anchors: Sears, Bismarck-based A.W. Lucas department store, and Jamestown, N.D.-based White Mart, a discounter.  In addition to these anchors, Gateway Mall also had the Midco Theater, a three-screen multiplex which was later expanded to eight screens.

Only half the size of Kirkwood Mall across town, Gateway Mall has been plagued with periods of vacancy, beginning almost right away with the closure of anchor A.W. Lucas not long after the mall opened.  Minnesota-based Herberger’s department store, which already operated a small store at Kirkwood Mall, decided to take the former Lucas lease and have two stores in Bismarck.  This strategy worked until 1994, when the Herberger’s at Kirkwood Mall expanded to 92,000 square feet, reducing the need for two stores in the market.  As a result, Herberger’s closed their Gateway Mall store, and the space sat either underused or vacant for the next ten years.  For a period until 1997 it was operated as deep-discounter Jacobs Trading Company and World’s Greatest Deals, but from 1997-2004 was totally vacant before Billings, Montana-based Conlin’s Furniture moved in.  Unfortunately, though, the space vacated again in 2009, as Conlin’s moved to a new, freestanding location; however, in 2010 deep-discounter Famous Labels moved in.

Tenancy problems have also plagued the food court and another Gateway Mall anchor.  White Mart, which opened with the mall in 1979, was closed in 1986 after parent company Thrifty White chose to focus on its drug store locations rather than discount department stores.  It was replaced by Menards, which has since relocated after building a new, freestanding store north of the mall in 1999.  Shortly after the departure of Menards, the space was subdivided into a “Medical Mall” for PrimeCare and a Hancock Fabrics.  Curiously, competitor Jo-Ann Fabrics also operates in the mall.  That’s a lot of fabric.

Gateway Mall’s food court, which at one time featured Orange Julius, Papa D’s Pizza, and Taco Tina’s, is now down to only a Subway featuring limited hours, probably to feed the lunch crowd at the Medical Mall.  Other dining options within the mall include longtime tenant Rock’n 50’s Cafe, Mocha Momma’s coffee shop, and Chinatown Buffet.

From 2003 to 2006, Gateway Mall was sold three times, and current owner Raymond Arjmand promised to infuse life into the center.  Under his direction, the mall was renamed Gateway Fashion Mall and a new coat of bright, multicolored paint was slapped onto some of the mall’s facades.  More retailers such as current off-price discounter Famous Labels could help in establishing Gateway ‘Fashion’ Mall as a destination for discount shopping, like the Foothills Mall in Tucson, for example.

Other recent problems with Gateway Mall include the departure of inline stores CVS (formerly Osco Drug until 2006), Hansen’s Menswear and Joy’s Hallmark, all in 2009.  Joy’s is a contentious departure, as the owner filed a suit against Gateway Mall’s current owner, Raymond Arjmand, alleging insurance fraud, racketeering and bilking tenants inappropriately.  Arjmand is also under suit for malls he owns in Woodland and Lancaster, California, under the exact same allegations.

Currently, Sears, an original anchor at Gateway Mall since 1979, and a handful of stores exist within the mall.  Vacancy is currently at one of the highest levels since the mall opened, though the arrival of Famous Labels in 2010 helped somewhat to ameliorate the problem.  Even so, the stores which have left recently represent long-time tenants, and their allegations of fraud on the part of the mall’s current owner definitely casts a pall upon the mall.  Hopefully, the situation will work out for the best, and Gateway Mall will continue to provide an climate-controlled shopping environment as an ancillary alternative to the larger Kirkwood Mall.

Elsewhere on the ‘net: Mall-Hall-of-Fame’s write-up of Gateway Mall, a local Bismarck resident’s history of the mall, and his Flickr page of additional photos.

We visited Gateway Mall in July 2009 and took the pictures featured here.  Familiar with Gateway Mall or the retail scene in North Dakota?  Feel free to leave some comments.

Bismarck is a city of 55,000 people and also the state capital of North Dakota.  Located almost 200 miles from the state’s largest city, Fargo, and over 400 miles from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Bismarck is rather isolated from other cities and is therefore an important regional hub for commerce.  As such, a plethora of retail options exist in the city, including two enclosed malls, Kirkwood Mall and Gateway Mall.

The largest mall in Bismarck, Kirkwood Mall, opened in 1971.  Original anchors were Montgomery Ward, Minnesota-based Herberger’s, and a massive 130,000 square-foot Woolworth’s.  Some have stated this location was Woolco, but a photo provided by the blog Mall Hall of Fame, from the State Historical Society of North Dakota Archives, illustrates that it was Woolworth.  Did it become Woolco at some point before the Woolco chain died?  What is the source of the confusion?

In 1980, Kirkwood Mall expanded, adding a large section south of the original mall and removing a section of Arbor Avenue in the process.  Herberger’s expanded their store for the second time, and a three screen cinema was added.  In addition, JCPenney and Target stores were added as anchors to the new expansion, along with several new stores of in-line space.  The new addition gave the mall over 800,000 square feet of retail space, making it the second largest mall in the state after Fargo’s West Acres.

In 1983, Woolworth closed, and sat vacant for two years before Minneapolis-based Dayton’s took over the space in 1985.  Perhaps this is the source of the Woolco v. Woolworth confusion, because Woolworth died about the same time Woolco disbanded.  Was this a coincidence and the store was actually Woolworth, or was it really a Woolco by this point?  Someone has to know for sure.  I was a zygote in Wisconsin at this point, so I sure as heck don’t know.

Numerous other anchor changes and swaps took place after this.  In 1984, Scheels All Sports opened a 29,000 square-foot store at Kirkwood Mall, in between Target and JCPenney in the newer wing of the mall.  Herberger’s then expanded their store a third time in 1994, which brought them to 92,000 square-feet.   In 2001, Montgomery Ward went broke and closed all their stores, and their location at Kirkwood Mall sat vacant for about 2 years before becoming Minot-based I. Keating Furniture World.  That same year, Dayton’s was rebranded as Chicago-based Marshall Fields in a marketing decision by their owner, Target Corporation, in order to unify their department store brands under one banner.

Marshall Field’s lasted about four years in Bismarck, before closing in 2005 due to the sale of Marshall Field’s by Target to May Company, and ultimately to Federated/Macy’s in 2005.  Federated converted most of the Field’s locations to Macy’s the next year, but apparently didn’t want a presence in Bismarck and shuttered the store here in 2005.  Ironically, Target, who owned Marshall Field’s until 2004, saw the closure as an opportunity to replace its 26-year-old location at Kirkwood Mall, so they moved into the former Field’s store and opened in Fall 2006.  The older Target at the other end of the mall was taken by Scheel’s for a larger location of their store in 2007, and the older Scheel’s is currently vacant as of mid-2010.

The decor of Kirkwood Mall is mostly seamless between the two sections of the mall.  However, the decor is also appreciably unique, as the main mall corridor has a unique shape at the northern end.  It curves to create a triangular-shaped court of open space with high ceilings, flanked by wooden-facaded support beams that erupt into a honeycomb pattern on the ceiling.  Natural light comes into the side of this huge court through slotted windows.  In addition, the entire mall is also carpeted with an extremely ugly dark blue color and pattern, which I think is a horrible mistake, making the mall appear smaller than it is.

There’s also no food court at Kirkwood Mall, which is unique for a mall of its size and dominance, though several fast food restaurants exist, like Arby’s and Auntie Anne’s, and sit down restaurant Grizzly’s Grill ‘n Saloon.

Elsewhere on the net: Check out Mall-Hall-of-Fame’s write-up of the mall, and a Flickr set by a local Bismarck resident.

We visited Kirkwood Mall in July 2009 and took the following pictures.  Familiar with Kirkwood Mall or the retail scene in North Dakota?  Feel free to leave some comments.

 

Built in 1964, South Forks Plaza was Grand Forks, North Dakota’s first enclosed mall on a main commercial strip close to the center of town.  In 1978, the Dayton Hudson Corporation opened a new mall, Columbia Mall, on the edge of town near the recently completed Interstate 29, linking Grand Forks north to Winnipeg, Canada and south to the rest of the United States.  Quickly, Columbia Mall replaced South Forks Plaza as the destination for serious shoppers and the place for regional and national chain “mall stores”.  

Since Columbia Mall took over, Grand Forks Plaza has been relegated to featuring mostly local stores and service establishments, drawing from a very local crowd.  Its days of a regional or super-regional center have been over for a long time.  Then, in 2001, another blow to the mall’s presence hit as Grand Forks Marketplace, a big box anchored strip mall, opened.  It is anchored by SuperTarget, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Old Navy, Michaels, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gordman’s; Kohl’s and Menard’s are across the street. 

In the early 2000s, South Forks Plaza’s owner, J Herzog and Sons of Denver, renamed the mall to Grand Cities Mall after the Grand Cities region of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks, MN, and other surrounding communities making up the immediate area.  They hoped this rebranding would help the mall reposition itself as a retail destination for the micropolitan area despite the assault of Columbia Mall and Grand Forks Marketplace.  Grand Cities Mall/South Forks Plaza has been anchored by K-Mart for years and it is the largest anchor at almost 100,000 square feet.  The other anchor, Big Lots, flanks the other end of the mall, and a mix of mostly local but some national chain stores make up the mix of stores in Grand Cities Mall.  It is worth noting that much of the space in the mall is taken by services such as a Karate studio, Century 21 Real Estate, a travel agent, a shoe shop, and even a ballet studio. 

So why can’t the mall make it?  Simply put, the demographics of Grand Forks and the immediate area cannot support two malls and a giant big box center.  Grand Forks has a population of 50,000; however, J Herzog indicates the immediate area has 100,000 residents and the Grand Cities Mall has a potential to draw from a trade area of 300,000.  Frankly, I’m not entirely sure where they get that number, as the population density in this largely agricultural area is very low.  The nearest other cities of any significance are Fargo, which is 1 hour south, and Winnipeg, which is just over 2 hours north in Canuckistan.  Grand Forks is the commercial center for the entire area in between Fargo and the Canadian border, but they’re clearly shopping at Columbia Mall and Grand Forks Marketplace, and not Grand Cities Mall.

I stepped into a time machine and entered South Forks Plaza in July 2001 and took these pictures.  I was mostly fascinated and very truly amazed at how dated this mall was.  It had clearly not been renovated in much capacity since opening in the mid 1960s.  Many of the (dead) storefronts sported this western-themed, wooden facade which was complemented with bricks, and must have been popular then.  Some of the light fixtures, flooring, and existing signage were also clearly original to the mall, which was amazing.  Other parts of the indoor portion of the mall appeared to be under construction, and the developer’s website indicate a “renovation” of sorts took place in 2001.  So, I’m not actually sure what the mall looks like today; however, it appears to still be open for business.  Hopefully someone with some more knowledge of the area can enlighten us on the mall’s history and what it’s like today, 5 years after these pictures were taken.