Although Elkhart, Indiana’s Pierre Moran Mall was the first of four to eventually open in Michiana, it was mostly empty during my visits in the early 2000s. It’s mostly empty today too, eighteen years after a $10 million project converted it to an outdoor power center called Woodland Crossing. Last week, news broke that the city of Elkhart is stepping in to try and change things.
The Pierre Moran Mall opened in 1960 as an 80,000-square-foot shopping center anchored by a Kroger supermarket and a W.T. Grant mass merchandizer1. The center’s unusual name came from a Potawatomi Chief who sold Dr. Havilah Beardsley a plot of land that later became downtown Elkhart2.
The area was booming, and the strip mall was enclosed and expanded to 420,000 square feet in 19713. The brand-new Pierre Moran Mall featured Sears, W.T. Grant, G.L. Perry, Wyman’s, and Ziesel’s as its primary tenants, but it suffered from occupancy issues early on. Carson Pirie Scott took over Grant’s 70,000-square-foot space in 1977 but only lasted four years4.
Kroger built a new supermarket to replace its original store in 1984, and Target took over the old Carson Pirie Scott space the following year5. Unfortunately, more closings followed in a trend that came to a head with Target’s departure in 2002.
My family usually went to the Concord Mall. Unfortunately, my dad occasionally needed something from Sears and loved eating at Pierre Moran’s fifties-style diner, Alley Oops. By the time I first entered the mall, it consisted of little more than Sears, Big Lots, the diner, a branch of Key Bank, Rent-A-Center, and Kroger.
The mall was converted to Woodland Crossing in 2005. The concourse area was demolished, Kroger invested $10 million into a 74,000-square-foot supermarket6, and six new storefronts were built to connect it to the existing Sears. Fourteen more were added to the north side of the original strip.
Unfortunately, Woodland Crossing never took off. In 2004, the 400,000 square foot Pierre Moran Mall was home to eighteen stores and five businesses on outparcels. Last year, the 302,000-square-foot property was home to thirteen stores and six outparcel businesses.
Sears closed in 2017, leaving Kroger and Big Lots as Woodland Crossing’s primary draws. Discounting the empty Sears and Pierre Moran’s empty Target, Woodland Crossing has higher vacancies in 2023 than the moribund mall had in 2004!
Fortunately, that’s where the city of Elkhart comes in. Last month, officials announced plans to buy the property for $5 million. They aim to convert it into a “neighborhood hub” to provide expanded health care and job training facilities through a partnership with Heart City Health and Goodwill Industries7.
On September 25, the Elkhart Redevelopment Commission approved $5.1 million to buy lots 1, 3, 5, and 6 at Woodland Crossing, along with $3 million to cover the cost of property surveys and closing the sale8. Lots five and six consist of the original strip mall, lot three contains the storefronts that connect Kroger and the abandoned Sears, and lot 1 is an undeveloped green space northwest of Sears.
The old Sears store is clearly the 500-lb. gorilla in the room since it wasn’t included in the sale. Nevertheless, I’ll be interested to see what transpires from the city’s investment. Aside from the old Eastgate Consumer Mall in Indianapolis that’s home to Lifeline Data Centers and IMPD, successful projects to repurpose flailing malls in Indiana are few and far between. Elkhart officials already have their hands full with Concord, which was dead aside from Hobby Lobby and a dentist’s office last time I was there.
At any rate, the news solved a personal mystery of mine: I wrote about the Pierre Moran Mall about a year ago. Views had long tapered off, but I’d seen an uptick over the past week or so. In researching this post, I found that South Bend’s NBC affiliate linked to my original write-up to provide some background about the place for their story. Thanks, guys!
Sources Cited
1 Request For Sub-Contract Bids (1959, March 10). The William P. Neil Company, LTD. The South Bend Tribune. p. 20.
2 Request For Sub-Contract Bids (1959, March 10). The William P. Neil Company, LTD. The South Bend Tribune. p. 20.
3 Cooke, W. (1970, December 3). New Wyman’s Store In Plan. The South Bend Tribune. p. 17.
4 Cooke, W. (1976, November 10). Carson’s to open in Pierre Moran Mall. The South Bend Tribune. p. 21.
5 Kurowski, J. (1985, October 1). Target to fill Pierre Moran spot. The South Bend Tribune. p. 2.
6 Prescott, H. (2005, July 28). Big plans for Elkhart. The South Bend Tribune. p. C8.
7 Grohowski, J. (2023, October 4). Possible plans to redevelop old Pierre Moran Mall, city says. ABC57 [South Bend]. Web. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
8 Peterson, M. (2023, October 5). Elkhart moves forward with $5M investment in old Pierre Moran Mall. WNDU [South Bend]. Web. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
Even when I was a kid in the 70s/80s, this was a hapless second-rate mall. I was never sure why.
At least when I lived in Elkhart circa 2005-2006, Concord Mall was home to all the stores, and what couldn’t be found there was just southeast in unincorporated Concord Township. I’d imagine Erskine was the place to be in South Bend, at least before UP and Grape Road grew up.
Scottsdale Mall was IT before UP was built.
It is funny to have lived long enough to have seen “the mall” become little more than a slow-moving fad. My office once represented a large mall developer for collection and eviction cases. A deposition of a tenant revealed that in order for a smaller retailer to get into a primo property, that company (which I will not name) required tenants to lease spaces in one or more of their less desirable properties – to see if they were viable businesses. Now, I cannot imagine that any mall has a waiting list of tenants lined up to be there.
That’s a crazy story, but I can certainly see it. Pierre Moran was always like 90s-era Southtown Mall, or Eastgate in any era. A horrible place! Now, the Concord Mall that thrived around 2006 is just as bad.