Cherryland Center


Cherryland Center is an outdoor shopping mall in Traverse City, Michigan. Opened in 1976 as an enclosed mall, it was renovated as an outdoor property in 1999. The center's anchor store is Big Lots. The center is now considered a dead mall.

History

In April 1976, the first tenants for Cherryland Mall were confirmed: a Kmart discount store, a Kroger supermarket, and a branch of Michigan National Bank. Kmart opened in November 1976, followed by Kroger in December. The same month, H. C. Prange Co. and Sears had been confirmed as the other anchors. The Sears store replaced a catalog merchant located downtown. By late 1977, the rest of the mall was opened. Peripheral development the same year included two smaller strip malls and a Zantigo fast food restaurant.
In 1998, plans were announced to demolish the interior mall portion while leaving all four anchors intact. Under these plans, the Sears and Younkers stores would also be expanded. As part of this renovation, Sears expanded its store into the western third of the mall in 1999. When renovation was complete, the center was converted to an outdoor mall. The mall was foreclosed on by Wells Fargo in 2010; also, Tom's Food Market, which had taken over the supermarket space in 1986, closed. In June 2011, the space became Big Lots.
On June 6, 2017, Sears Holdings announced that Kmart would be closing as part of a plan to close 72 stores nationwide. The store closed in September 2017.
On April 18, 2018, it was announced that Younkers would also be closing as parent company The Bon-Ton is going out of business. The store closed August 2018.
On May 31, 2018, Sears Holdings announced that Sears would be closing as well in September 2018 as part of another plan to close 72 stores nationwide. The closures of both Younkers and Sears leave Big Lots as the only anchor left.
Presently, Only a few business are open in the space anymore. Plans to turn the former Kmart property into a U-Haul center in 2018 were scrapped.