The Valley Fair Sign |
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| Location | Appleton, Wisconsin, USA |
|---|---|
| Opening date | March 10th, 1955 |
| Developer | Hoffman Shopping Centers, Incorporated[1] |
| Owner | VF Partners[2] |
| No. of stores and services | 55 (At mall's peak)[1] |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 (At mall's peak)[1] |
| Total retail floor area | 265,400 sq ft (24,660 m2) (At mall's peak)[1] |
| No. of floors | 1 |
The Valley Fair Shopping Center was a shopping mall in Appleton, Wisconsin which opened on March 10, 1955. The mall billed itself as the first enclosed mall in the United States,[1][3] though the Westminster Arcade predates it by 126 years. Demolition of parts of the shopping center began on August 8, 2007.[3]
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Construction on Valley Fair began on July 1, 1953,[4] and originally was located in the town of Menasha, Wisconsin until this portion of land was annexed to Appleton. The mall's grand opening was done on March 10, 1955,[4] and opened fully on August 11, 1955.[1] It originally had six stores: Krambo Supermarkets (renamed Kroger), House of Camera & Cards, Badger Paint & Hardware, Donald's, Hamilton Bakery and Eddie's Self-Service Liquor.[5] The mall was built by Hamilton Construction Company under the name Hoffman Shopping Centers, Inc and was designed by George Narovec. The mall was one of the first in Wisconsin to be enclosed.[1]
The next two years would see further expansion in phases, fronted on the eastmost end by a W.T. Grant discount store. With this, the mall was fully completed by 1956.[1] It would remain relatively unchanged at least up through 1976, when the Grant's anchor would cease with the rest of the entire chain.[6]
In 1978-1979, the mall would re-tenant and emphasize less on local businesses and bring in more nationally known tenants with a huge expansion and renovation project.[1][7] This project included.
Through the 1980s and early 1990s, the mall changed ownership several times.[5] Foot traffic started to decrease when Northland Mall in the north side of Appleton completed a major expansion, adding its own Kohl's Department Store anchor (built out of another former W.T. Grant store), joining a freestanding Shopko with a new enclosed mall of 25-30 stores built between the two anchors in 1983. Another 15 stores in a prexisting 1960s-era strip was also connected to Kohl's, creating a rare instance of a hybrid strip / enclosed mall.[1][5] Dartmouth Clothing & Lady Dartmouth (based in Ashwaubenon WI) opened a store in the Valley Fair Mall during the early 1980s, it eventually closed and re-opened with a new name, American Clothiers (closer to the Kohl's anchor store).[5][10] Another attraction was the addition of Pedro's (Mexican food), one of the first and only place to get authentic Mexican food in Northeast Wisconsin (at the time). Pedro's was eventually purchased by George Wall and the name changed to Sergio's Mexican Bar & Grill.[4][5]
This was followed up a year later by Fox River Mall opening in 1984 in Grand Chute (suburb of Appleton). Tenants started to relocate to both malls immediately as leases came up, though others would stick it out up through the late 1990s.[1][5]
YouthFutures was a non-profit organization created in 2002. Buying out the mall, they started to re-tenant a 3rd time, booting out all the national chains that were left, and refocusing solely on local tenants that were more family-oriented in nature. The former Kohl's building was split between an indoor skateboarding park, and a gathering place for teens, where local bands would often play on weekends.[11] This venture would have created the nation's first functioning "youth mall" had it taken off. The venture was bogged down due to high maintenance costs to heat and cool the nearly 50-year-old structure, and remodeling was far beyond their reach in costs.[1][4][5]
Youth Futures finally gave up in October, 2005, and the mall was sold in March 2006 to "VF Partners", a partnership between Commercial Horizons, Rollie Winter and Associates, and Bomier, for $2.3 million. "VF Partners" has been redeveloping the 26 acre, Valley Fair site since 2006, so far they have demolished most of the property.[2][11] The former Kohl's building, the Chase Bank, as well as the Marcus Cinemas, are still new enough and structurally sound, weren't torn down.[2][11] A September 2007 Appleton Post-Crescent article indicated that the former Valley Fair site and surrounding blocks were placed into a tax district by the city council to facilitate improvement of that site and the surrounding area.[12]"Valley Fair Partners" is recreating the Valley Fair site so that individual new buildings, rather than one structure, are located closer to Memorial Drive, WIS - 47, and parking is located behind them. This design basically flips the current layout of parking in front, building in back. The association has been calling the shopping center site Valley Fair Center, instead of Valley Fair Mall.[2] Copps Food Center demolished the Kohl's Department store and built a new Copps Supermarket in its place, which includes a pharmacy.[13][14] The new supermarket was to replace their old location at 1919 East Calumet Street; the new building is about 70,000 sq ft (6,500 m2).[15] However, the Kohl's Foods portion of the former Kohl's building has been redeveloped as a strip mall.[16]