The Empire Mall has more than 120 stores on a single level at 5000 W Empire Mall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As of September 2025, about one square foot in eight of the space it owns was vacant.
Younkers and Herberger's were the mall's two department-store anchors when it opened in 1975. Herberger's lasted five years; Younkers lasted until 2018.
Bon-Ton liquidated that year, so the Younkers building came empty in August. It went more than five years without a permanent tenant.
Dillard's took it over after a rebuild that added about 40,000 square feet, and opened there in March 2024. It was the chain's first store in South Dakota. The old Sears next to it is still being converted.
The Empire Mall opened one anchor short
Before construction began, a petroleum-products line cutting across the site had to be moved.
It fed the West 12th Street terminal from an interstate system carrying refined fuel into South Dakota.
General Growth had announced the project in 1972: a $10 million enclosed mall at 41st Street and Interstate 29, about 645,000 square feet, with two or three department stores and roughly 60 specialty shops.
Work began in 1974.
Sioux Empire Plaza opened on the morning of September 24, 1975 with two anchors and 34 stores trading.
JCPenney was still being built at the east end, so the first shoppers walked between Younkers and Herberger's.
JCPenney opened in April 1976. Its entrance was a quarter mile from Younkers.
Eight large trees stood beneath the clerestory windows of Empire Court.
Between them, Clarence VanDuzer's bronze fountain used three pylons about 22 feet high, each feeding water down a corrugated face into the pool.
Jets and colored lights worked from the basin below.
Herberger's became small stores
Herberger's closed at the start of 1981, five years after it opened the mall alongside Younkers. By then the building had already grown once.
A south wing with Dayton's and about 22 specialty spaces had opened that summer, branching off the middle of the original corridor and turning the plan into a T.
From October 16 to 18, 1981, the former Herberger's reopened under the name Empire Second Edition.
Small storefronts had replaced the department-store floor.
House of Wood and Lady Madonna Maternity Boutique were there, along with Private Lives, Zeezo's Magic Castle, Fashion Company, and Sound World.
After the opening promotion, the Second Edition name disappeared.
The smaller storefronts remained, and the former Herberger's space never returned to department-store use.
The fountain came out in 1983
Mall management announced the change in September 1983: the fountain and eight big trees were coming out. Food followed a little later.
Six counters opened in the old Empire Court between November and March, including Dairy Queen, Cinnamon Bear, the Hamburger Shop, and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Company; plans for the remodeled court also called for 12 smaller trees.
The fountain outlasted the court it had stood in.
The Civic Fine Arts Center acquired it after the mall renovation, and Central Plains Clinic later installed it at its Kiwanis Avenue building.
The clinic moved its main operation to the McKennan campus in 1992. When the old building was remodeled, the fountain was demolished.
Eight years after opening day, the most visible common space in the mall was a place to buy lunch.
Sears cost two stores their space
The Sears expansion displaced Gap and Tiffany's Bake Shop while new mallways tied the southwest corner into the old east-west corridor and the Dayton's wing.
Sears had announced the move on March 18, 1987.
Its new store was planned at about 100,700 square feet, and the addition brought roughly 27 smaller stores.
Sears opened in 1988, and published histories disagree on the day.
By the time the work was done, the mall exceeded 1 million square feet and 100 stores and services.
Its old east-west spine now fed both the south wing and the new branch toward Sears.
The food court moved northwest
By 2000 management had decided to move the food court from the middle of the mall to the northwest corner.
The new Harvest Cafe had room for 12 food counters, twice the number of vendors in the 1983 court.
Its first restaurants began opening in September; the early lineup included China Pantry, Taco John's, Dairy Queen, Villa Pizza, Subway, Auntie Anne's, and Burger King.
Elsewhere in the mall, Osco Drug's run ended on August 5, 2000 after nearly 25 years, when lease talks with management failed.
Its former space became Gap 2000, then the largest Gap in the Upper Midwest.
The food court has stayed on the northwest side ever since. The Harvest Cafe name has not, and the current directory calls it the Food Court.
Two anchors closed four days apart
Younkers closed at 5 p.m. on August 29, 2018 after Bon-Ton liquidated.
Sears closed on Sunday, September 2, and its sign came off the building three days later.
Between those two dates the mall lost about 202,000 square feet of anchor space at once.
The two buildings then went different ways.
More than 100 campers filled the former Sears when Camping World leased the entire box for the first winter.
FEMA used it for storm repair administration the following year. By November 2020, Camping World was back with more than 120 campers.
Younkers never got a comparable temporary tenant. Spirit Halloween used part of it in 2018 and 2019, but most of the department store stayed empty.
Dillard's was announced for the Younkers building on December 3, 2018, with a roughly 40,000-square-foot addition and an opening expected in late 2019.
That didn't happen. The project came back in August 2022 with a new schedule.
Gordmans had closed by then, on September 27, 2020, which left a third large empty building on the campus while the mall was still filling the first one by the season.
The Empire Mall in 2026
The empty buildings came back one at a time.
The former Gordmans reopened on November 30, 2023 as a 60,000-square-foot Crunch Fitness after a $6 million buildout, on a schedule that ran continuously from 5 a.m. Monday to 11 p.m. Friday.
Dillard's opened in March 2024 in a Younkers building enlarged by about 40,000 square feet to 140,000, the chain's first store in South Dakota.
The same thing was happening at a smaller scale inside.
The Verizon store beside the food court sat empty in May 2024, so the city and the state Department of Transportation used it for a public open house on the 41st Street interchange rebuild, three hours with a walkable mat showing drivers how to use the new pattern.
Carhartt took the space the following year.
Then the last empty anchor got a permanent plan.
In August 2025 the former Sears landed Dick's House of Sport, which leased 100,700 square feet, roughly twice the chain's current footprint at the mall.
The project includes an outdoor athletic field, and Dick's plans to leave its 50,300-square-foot store when the new one opens.
The Empire Mall opened in 1975 as Sioux Empire Plaza and is a single-level enclosed mall on West 41st Street in southwest Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with JCPenney, Macy's, and Dillard's still operating as its department-store anchors.
The food court is still on the northwest side where it moved in 2000, with the children's play area beside it.
On September 4, 2025, 12.8 percent of the owned space was vacant.
The directory still lists the House of Sport as coming soon and the old Dick's as open.
The old Dick's space has no announced replacement tenant; S&P has reported preliminary discussions with Ikea about a possible lease.
Independent Publisher Notice
BestAttractions is an independent editorial publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any location, business, property owner, manager, government agency, or organization described in this article.
Comments posted on this page are not forwarded to, reviewed by, or acted upon by any entity mentioned in the article.
For official inquiries, complaints, applications, bookings, or other requests, please contact the relevant entity directly through its official website or other verified channels.