There’s new activity in the usually quiet corridors of the Holiday Village Mall in Great Falls. In recent weeks, Mark Davis and volunteers have been setting up the new location for the Foot of the Cross Christian bookstore.
Though empty storefronts still line the hallways, Davis is bullish on the mall location. They’re next door to longtime local business Little Athens, and an Asian cuisine business is coming in across the way. Davis hopes to hold a soft opening by February 14, the anniversary of when the business first opened in its previous location.
“I’ve always said that this mall would be absolutely golden if it was willing to work a little bit more with people that wanted to move in here,” he said.
Davis is part of a small group of hopefuls who want to see Holiday Village return as a bustling retail center. Though it still has significant vacancies, some new openings and a recent winter craft show have boosted interest in the massive retail space that takes up 12 square blocks along the city’s busiest road.
“I believe that our mall can be viable again,” said Jayson Olthoff, an entrepreneur and IT professional who has also taken up mall boosterism.
He wrote a Facebook post on January 7 suggesting that the mall should be reimagined as a local business hub and entertainment space. With the help of his committed social media presence (he’s an active admin of the popular What’s Happening in Great Falls Facebook page) and with contacts at a regular business event he organizes, Olthoff said he’s working to funnel interested businesses to the building owner’s leasing agent.
“The reason I am looking at it or following along is because I think there’s some value with what we have in the mall,” Olthoff said. “I believe in local.”
Holiday Village first opened in 1960, and was billed then as Montana’s largest shopping center. The current building owner and lessor, Illinois-based GK Development, took over in 2006.
Businesses have come and gone in the time since, but mostly the latter. Recently, two big box stores on the mall’s eastern flank closed up shop.
And GK is locked in a lawsuit with the last box store in the row, Ross Dress For Less, that soured to the point that GK had been returning the monthly rent checks Ross sent.
GK did not return requests for comment.
Nationally, shopping center performance is mixed. Though vacancy rates across the country remain low, new construction is slow and shopping centers in the western United States had fewer rented square feet at the end of 2024 than at the start.
GK reduced its footprint at the mall in recent years. The properties containing Scheels, Harbor Freight, Hobby Lobby, and Petsmart are now under new ownership. The parcel that includes Harbor Freight and two other large tenants is currently listed for sale at nearly $12 million.
While petitioning the city in 2018 to subdivide the mall property to sell the parcels, GK claimed that it could reduce its holdings and free up funds for upgrades to the interior of the building. In GK’s contiguous portion of the mall, there appear to be more storefront vacancies than occupied spaces, and the escalator doesn’t run.
GK retained the main indoor segment of the mall, the eastern leg, and the roadside lot that will soon be home to a Texas Roadhouse restaurant.
In the mall’s administration office, property manager Beth Morrow said people are starting to talk more about the mall. Some of the conversations can be frustrating — she responded to multiple comments about high rents and difficulty leasing in Olthoff’s post. She said that many of those commenters hadn’t contacted her about potential leasing. But on the ground, she said there’s growing interest. Morrow said she leads around 10 site showings each week for prospective tenants.
“Since the craft show, we’ve seen an uptick in traffic,” she said.
The Montana Solstice Arts and Craft Show in December brought some buzz back to Holiday Village. It gave Davis a sense of anticipation to see all the customers as he looked ahead to opening the bookstore.
“They filled not only that entire center hallway but almost every one of the empty spaces that were available,” he said.
Davis wants to see those kinds of events more often to draw potential shoppers. He’s also supportive of Morrow’s work. Having worked in retail for 49 years, he said there’s renewed energy to get tenants in the building. He declined to offer specifics on the lease but said that they were able to negotiate a workable rent with GK. The bookstore is run by a nonprofit organization and is staffed by volunteers.
With some more pop-up events and continued momentum with leasing, Davis feels the mall will be back on track.
“I just hope that Chicago management listens to that and understands that what we’ve got here is just a diamond in the rough,” he said. “It used to be a diamond. Now it’s just in the rough.”
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
