South Town Mall: Ottawa, IL on DeadMalls.com

SOUTH TOWN MALL: OTTAWA, IL

Karen Amador's Commentary:

(user submitted January 18, 2019)

I am unsure of when the South Towne Mall was built, but I was born in the mid-70s and often visited it with my parents throughout the 80s and early 90s from a couple of towns over. It was very small for an enclosed shopping center, having just two anchors. The major one was Kmart, and while my memory is hazy I think I recall a Maurices residing at the other end.

I remember getting to stay out late for the blue light specials at the Kmart, and that they had a little restaurant/eatery sectioned off somewhere in the back. Immediately next to the Kmart was a Waldenbooks and some kind of candy store. Directly past the center entrance was a music store, maybe a Musicland, and there was some funky denim store called The Fly that had a zipper as a part of its logo near the end with Maurices. Across the hall from the Kmart entrance was a little mom and pop eatery that served fried ice cream.

Kmart eventually decided to close the location and build a new store across town, on Columbus street near Route 80. This also placed them closer to their direct competition of a relatively early Walmart (built around 87 or so) and Value City (a discount store somewhat similar to Venture). This was sometime around 1992-93, and needless to say, this killed the little South Towne Mall. I recall Waldenbooks closing down soon after, prompting the former employees to open their own their own book store in downtown Ottawa, called The Book Mouse, which survived until 2016.

I remember my parents saying that many Ottawa residents on the south side of town were so angry about Kmart leaving that they refused to shop at the new store, instead opting to drive all the way to Streator for their Kmart shopping. The empty Kmart was eventually taken over by Reliable, a company that sold business supplies (and is currently owned by Office Depot). It wasn't an actual store to shop in though, I believe it was a distribution center, as my cousin worked there at their call center for a time.

According to Google Maps, South Town Mall still stands, and although the inside walls are all smoothed over, the floor is the same parquet tile that I remember as a kid, and it seems the former Maurices location is currently hosting a Dollar General. For a while there was also some kind of pet shop within the mall near the center entrance after it essentially died, probably around the late 90s. I'm not sure when Reliable left but the location now sits empty. And by the way, of course the new Kmart built across town eventually closed, as did the Value City. The Walmart also abandoned their old location (I worked there in the summer of 1994) and built one of their Super Centers on the other side of Route 80 sometime in the early 2000s.