Marquette Mall : Marquette, Michigan on DeadMalls.com

MARQUETTE MALL : MARQUETTE, MI

Blake Hutchison's Commentary

Posted November 14, 2008 (user submitted)

Okay, I was driving through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, when I found this dead mall in Marquette.

It is a relatively small mall, isn't really anchored by anything major unless you count Dunham's Discount Sports as an anchor (Then again, if you're a "Yooper", you probably would want this to be one of the anchors. It looks like there were also two other anchors at one time. One of these anchor spaces is currently occupied by a car dealership. The other is completely abandoned. It looks like it might have been a K-Mart, Ames, or possibly a Hills, though. It also looks like it might have been a movie theater at some point in its life However, I could not distinguish what it was from the labelscar. Being that I'm from Ohio and the day I was at this mall also happened to be my first time in the U.P., I don't really know anything about what was there. And there was really nobody to ask.

Other than Dunhams, which has exterior access, there are only about three stores inside the mall. One is some kind of airbrush nail salon - which for some reason looked like a tattoo parlor at first. Of course, being from Ohio, I have seen those in old malls too sometimes. There are also county offices for Marquette County, and a music shop.

Many of the abandoned stores are completely accessible - they don't have the screens down - and you could just walk right in if you wanted to. I decided not to, since I don't know how nit-picky the Marquette police are about things like that.

My best guess is that this mall was built around 1970, going by the exterior facade, and from the high ceilings and wide interiors that were common of malls built around this time in the Great Lakes region.

I suspect that four factors have caused the Marquette Mall to die a slow death:

1. Competition. There are three huge shopping centers less than half a mile away the Marquette Mall on M-28/US 41 - occupied by Kohls, Target (which is a surprisingly huge store considering Marquette is no bigger than it is), and of course, a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

2. Economy. Ever since the copper mining industry went bust in the Upper Peninsula, there just aren't as many good-paying jobs in the area. The Indian Casinos, while a boost to the economy and providing good jobs for many, really don't employ enough people to make up for the copper mining jobs lost.

3. Geography. The Upper Peninsula is a third of Michigan's land mass, but only 3% of the state's population. Marquette, sizable, does not really have enough of a population to support a mall, and since Marquette is pretty isolated in terms of population density in the surrounding area, there really isn't a strong regional base for a mall.

4. Local attitude. When you get right down to it, Yoopers aren't exactly the mall-going type anyway.

Brad W's Commentary

Posted March 26, 2009 (user submitted)

The Marquette Mall used to be anchored by Woolworths, not a K-Mart, Ames, or Hills. The Woolworths space was most recently used by Big Lots. The other side of the mall had a Big Boy restaurant near where the car dealership is now. It did also have a movie theater which survived for a few years after the mall lost most of its stores. I believe the theater closed in the late 90s after going through several different incarnations. There was also a Jo-Ann Fabrics which just closed several years ago.

The Marquette Mall was quite popular during the 80s but was declining by the 1990s when a new mall (the Westwood Mall) was being built/expanded in Marquette. The Marquette Mall was simply outdated and poorly maintained. Competition from the new mall was a major factor and not, as suggested, the influx of shopping centers such as Wal-Mart, Kohls and Target... all of those big box stores came years after the Marquette Mall had died.

It was also suggested that the economy was to blame for the mall's failure- this probably had some influence but not quite as much as hypothesized on your site. Like I mentioned, the new mall was seeing a lot of business- it was new and had more modern stores/brands. So people were shopping, just at different places. Marquette has actually seen growth despite the economic challenges of the region. It has the U.P.'s largest hospital as well as Northern Michigan University and numerous smaller industries. There is and has never been copper mining in Marquette County. The writer of the Mqt Mall article has mistaken that for iron mining which is centered in the Ishpeming/Negaunee areas- with mines being about 20 miles from Marquette. Those mines are still in operation but not to the scale that they used to be. Finally, Marquette does have a population large enough to support the Westwood Mall which is very small- about 30 stores. But now the big box stores are competition for smaller stores. Marquette has WalMart, Kohls, Target, Lowes, Mendards, etc. As for mall shopping, a major trend over the last 15 years or so was/is to drive 3 hours to Green Bay and Appleton Wisconsin where the larger population supports larger malls. This has no doubt affected the Marquette malls.

Andrea Clark’s Commentary:

User submitted in 2019

Jim’s Music has moved into the village (3rd St.), the Secretary of State office has moved over by Econo Foods, Dunham Sports closed several years ago, so I think the only things left are the car dealership at the one end and a large dollar-type store toward the other end.

Paul Sinn's Commentary:

User submitted June 2014

I called on stores in most all the malls in WI, MN, Upper MI, and parts of IA for 25 years, about 1975 to 2000. With a little effort I could throw out a bit more information.

One of the biggest killers for the Marquette Mall and the whole area was the KI Sawyer Air Force Base closing in 1995(?). About 6500 people, military and families were gone,plus civilian jobs. The closing ruined business in Marquette.

Another one gone is the downtown Stevens Point, WI mall. It was part of the normal....lets save our downtown deal. Lots of money gone, floundered for years, and I believe is just now being turned into a tech school.

Eau Claire, WI also had London Square Mall close in 2000. It was an early mall, pretty decent, knocked out by the newer larger Oakwood Mall.

Rod Wallberg's Commentary:

User submitted March 2014

Marquette County's first mall, the Marquette Mall opened in 1974 and had at least 25 stores ranging from a tobacco shop to a single screen movie theatre that served beer and pizza. The main corridor had a fountain and along the single story main aisle there was at least one branch lane of five stores. There was one jewelry store, incense shop, Sears, JoAnn Fabrics, Hallmark Gifts, a large Big Boy that eventually became a Wells Fargo bank. A Radio Shack opened there to become a Secretary of State for auto tags and driver's licenses and is still there. The tobacco shop left only a few years ago. Jim's Music store has been the last and longest remaining store, opening in the 1980s. Riverside Auto built a showroom in the 1990s. A car wash was constructed in 1986, thereabouts and is still popular.

I worked at this mall in the late 1970s till 1982 as an auto mechanic for the Woolworth store. This auto center had three bays and was operated by AMRON automotive as a partner of Woolworth. Woolworth closed the auto center in 1984 and closed it's doors in 1988 to be replaced by a cheap dollar store, it lasted only a short time and now is home to a Dollar Tree and next door is a Big Lots, both are popular. In the out lots are two businesses, a Pizza Hut and a Wendy's, studios for Sunny 102 FM radio station was there for about 10 years but moved two years ago, 2011. I would say it is far from being a dead mall but had gone through some tough times!

Francie C's Commentary:

User submitted Aug 2012

I grew up in the U.P. and the Marquette Mall was the highlight of a trip "uptown". My grandparents would make the trip weekly to get their groceries from the Angelli's Super Market, which was the anchor store opposite of the Woolworth. My favorite stores in the mall were the Natural Habitat with their marvelous collection of Dankin stuffed animals, and also Winslow's Gifts. The Westwood Mall was new with their high brow Prangie's (maybe it was Prangy's) Department Store, but the Mqt. Mall had the movie theatre!

Tim Raich’s Commentary:

User submitted in 2021

Al but the dollar store and former Big Lots location were torn down during 2019. The Westwood Mall just up the highway is dying also.

Amy Dettmer’s Commentary:

User submitted in 2020

It's going to be torn down. I fondly remember grocery shopping there with my grandmother when I was a kid. They would put your groceries in a trolley that rolled outside to be picked up curbside in your car.

Melissa Jasper’s Commentary:

The other mall is the Westwood Mall, not far away either.

Bill Buckellew’s Commentary:

The closing of the Air Force base nearby probably didn't help.

The Craw's Commentary:

User submitted March 2024

The Marquette Mall has been torn down. No one misses it. However, we have a new dead mall, the Westwood. It has a Kohl's anchor store but not much else.

CR Snow's Commentary:

User submitted April 2013

I was always told this mall died out because the owners charged very high rent and also took a percentage of sales.