HURON MALL: HURON, SD
David Kruger's Commentary
Posted April 29, 2006 (user submitted)
The Huron Mall opened on the southwest end of Huron, SD in 1978, with anchors
Kmart on the east end, Spurgeons in the center, and JCPenney on the west end. The opening of this mall had been a HUGE event for the region and this farming
town of, at the time, about 15,000 people (not to mention the fact that Huron's
hometown hottie Cheryl Ladd was concurrently becoming a celebrity as one of
Charlie's Angels). The mall also featured a small but lively food court in the
center and was consistently busy, almost overcrowded during the South Dakota
State Fair also held in Huron every summer.
Huron Mall was the first of several "sister malls" by the same developer that
opened regionally around the same time, including malls in Brookings and
Pierre, SD, Jamestown, ND, and Glenwood Springs, CO. All of these "bricks and
mortar" malls featured a small prototype JCPenney store (33,000 sf) on one end
and a Kmart store (29,000 - 40,000 sf) on the opposite end. Nearly every
prominent mall chain shop (Hal's, Musicland, Waldenbooks, Vanity, Maurices,
Radio Shack) lined the 25 or so spaces between the anchors. Huron Mall had
ample parking on both sides, though its later sister malls typically only had
parking on the front side of the mall.
Huron Mall did extremely well through the 1970's and throughout the 1980's. Despite the opening of regional indoor malls in Watertown, Brookings, Pierre,
and eventually Aberdeen, the Huron Mall had decent occupancy well into the
early 1990's. However, the trade area of Huron had always been heavily
dependent on agriculture, and the city began to suffer a slow but painful
decline both in economic viability and in population. In the later half of the
1990's, Huron Mall began to die not because of competition, but largely because
of a shrinking economic base. Over the course of the Mall's life, the city of
Huron has lost nearly 25% of its population. Although Kmart was able to
remodel and expand its store, specialty shops began to pull out of Huron Mall
in the mid 1990's. Spurgeons left with minor impact, but the exodus of
JCPenney in 1998 was a crushing blow, both for the Mall and for the city. A
bank awkwardly replaced JCPenney's location, but their occupancy was
short-lived and now the store is completely vacant. The 2005 closing of Huron
University has added to the city's economic woes, leaving Huron Mall with Kmart
as its only anchor and about 8 other shops inside, half of them local. Mall
traffic is so dead that Kmart even created an external entrance. Although it
has not changed structurally as an indoor mall, Huron Mall essentially
functions as little more than a strip center with a roof and internal access
for its specialty shops.
Wal*Mart completely avoided Huron when it ventured into South Dakota in 1990,
but they have now decided to build a SuperCenter south of Huron on Dakota
Avenue, the main north-south boulevard through Huron, opening in the summer of
2006. Huron Mall is almost 2 miles off this route, and the Wal*Mart
Supercenter will certainly overpower what is an outdated and kitschy Kmart - it
is very likely Kmart will not survive the impact of the new Supercenter. If
Kmart folds, there will be absolutely no reason for the Huron Mall to exist
after 2006, as a shopping center or even as a physical structure.