South Hill Mall was built to be a department-store destination. That was the logic behind the site, the anchors, the T-shaped corridors, the parking fields. By the mid-2020s, only one of its department stores was left.
The mall opened in Puyallup, Washington, in 1988, developed by an Ohio company that Target had recruited to build shopping centers in the Pacific Northwest.
Within three years, it was expanding. Within two decades, it was replacing anchors faster than it was adding them. Mervyn’s closed. Gottschalks closed. Sears closed. Macy’s, which had arrived as The Bon Marche, closed in March 2025…