The
Copper Country Mall is a
shopping mall located at
47420
Highway M-26 in
Portage Township
just outside the city of
Houghton, Michigan. It is owned by
Developers Diversified
Realty.
History
Copper Country Mall
opened in
1981 with
JC Penney,
Kmart, Spurgeon's Department
Store, and City Drug as anchors, as well as a two-screen theatre
and about 40 tenants. Many national chains called the mall home,
including
Zales Jewelers,
Musicland (later Sam
Goody),
Payless ShoeSource,
B. Dalton,
Carousel Hot Dogs, and
Hallmark. Over the
years, many of these chains would leave, some being replaced by
local stores.
In the early 1990s,
Dunham's Sports was added. Also in the
early 1990s, Spurgeon's department store declared bankruptcy and
closed all locations. Most of the Spurgeon's space became a
Jo-Ann
Fabrics, while the rest became part of a large
Foot Locker store. The Copper
Country Cinemas would expand to five screens as well, taking up
some inline mall space.
Glik's eventually opened in the former City Drug
space.
Kmart Corporation closed their store at
Copper Country Mall in 2002, when the chain filed for Chapter 11;
their store would remain empty until
Steve & Barry's filled most
of the vacant store in late 2005.
Jo-Ann Fabrics also left in 2005; their
space is still empty.
Since the
2002 closure of the mall's
Kmart[1496],
many stores in the mall have closed. Questions about the future of
the mall
[1497] have continued with the
November
2004 closing of the
Payless ShoeSource store. A few chain
tenants do remain, including
GNC,
B. Dalton,
Foot Locker and
Bath & Body
Works.
Anchors
Dunham's Sports (10,887 sq.
ft.)JCPenney
(34,850 sq. ft.)References
Copper Country Mall,
Houghton, Michigan from Online Highways DDR:
Our Centers - Michigan - Copper County Mall Portage Health to
Inaugurate Mall-Walker Program: Portage Health Resource Center to
Open in Copper Country Mall Small Business
Struggles to Stay (article from Michigan Tech
Lode) The Keweenaw Image: Michigan's
Keweenaw Peninsula Pictures of Houghton including one taken
from the Copper Country Mall Tales
of the 2600 by Chris Pyhtila (from 2600 Connection: a printed
newsletter for fans and collectors of the Atari 2600 Videogame Computer
System)(mentions arcade "The Wooden Nickel", that formerly existed
at the mall) Aerial
view of mall Beth's Story:
Making Our Mark @ MTU "Mall
Lacks" (letter to the editor of The Daily Mining Gazette
by Lindsay Maki)Other links
Copper Country Mall, official
website Developers Diversified Realty's facts on the
mall
Wikis
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