Dakota Square Mall facts for kids

Dakota Square Mall is a large indoor shopping center located in Minot, North Dakota. It's a popular spot for shopping, eating, and entertainment. The mall has many big stores, called anchor stores, which are usually the main attractions. These include JCPenney, Scheels All Sports, Target, Barnes & Noble, AMC Theatres, T-Mobile, Party City, Carter's, Old Navy, and Ulta Beauty. There is also one large space that used to be a Sears store.

Discovering Dakota Square Mall

Dakota Square Mall is a really big place! It covers about 675,000 square feet. This makes it the largest mall for over 110 miles around. It's also the third biggest mall in all of North Dakota.

You can find around 70 different shops inside. There are also three main anchor stores that draw in lots of shoppers. An anchor store is a large department store or a big-name shop that helps bring people to the mall.

When you get hungry, you can visit the food court for a quick bite. If you want to catch a movie, there's a nine-screen AMC Classic Dakota Square 9 cinema. It even has comfy stadium seating!

The mall is only about 50 miles from the border with Canada. This means many visitors from Canada also come to shop and have fun here.

A Mall with a Hotel and Water Park

One cool thing about Dakota Square Mall is that it has a hotel right next to it. The Sleep Inn & Suites opened in November 2003. It's directly connected to the mall, which is pretty unique!

The hotel also has a huge water park called Splashdown Dakota Super Slides. This water park is about 24,000 square feet and opened in April 2004. Having a hotel and a water park attached to a shopping mall is very rare in the United States. It makes Dakota Square Mall a fun place to visit for more than just shopping!

Mall History and Changes

Dakota Square Mall first opened its doors in 1980. Over the years, it has seen some changes in ownership and stores.

The mall used to be owned by a company called Jones Lang LaSalle. Later, it was owned by The Lightstone Group. In May 2012, a company called CBL & Associates Properties bought the mall. They are the current owners.

Some popular stores have opened or moved around inside the mall. For example, Barnes & Noble opened its bookstore there on March 12, 2008. Also in 2008, Scheels All Sports moved into a bigger space. This new space used to be an Old Navy store. Because of this, Old Navy moved to a different spot within the mall.

Like many malls, Dakota Square has also seen some stores close. In June 2017, it was announced that Sears would be closing its store. It officially closed in September 2017.

Another big store, Herberger's, closed its doors on August 26, 2018. This happened because its parent company, The Bon-Ton Stores, went out of business. The large space where Herberger's used to be has since been divided. Now, it holds several smaller stores like Party City, Ross Dress For Less, T-Mobile, and Ulta Beauty.