PROGRESS: Once Upon a Child returns to Sioux City, after a 20-year absence

The opening marked the return of the children's clothing retailer after a roughly 20-year absence in Sioux City.

The franchise, which specializes in secondhand apparel, furnishings and toys for babies, toddlers and children, opened its doors to shoppers in the fall. The Hamilton location is managed and co-owned by Morgan Henshaw, along with co-owner Amy Albers. Albers is also a co-owner of the nearby Plato's Closet secondhand clothing store. 

Once Upon a Child, 3031 Hamilton Blvd., takes up roughly 5,000 of the Shopko building's 103,000 square feet. 

A previous Once Upon a Child location, at 1754 Hamilton Blvd., operated in the 1990s before it closed in about 2000 or 2001.

"My mom told me she used to shop there," Henshaw said. 

Plato's Closet and Once Upon a Child are "sister stores," both subsidiaries of the Minneapolis-based Winmark Corporation. The former is a destination for teens and adults, while the latter is popular with parents of babies and children.

Albers had long thought of opening a Once Upon a Child location, and Winmark was enthusiastic about the idea. Then a perfect location opened up a stone's throw from Plato's Closet. 

"We wanted them next to each other, so the timing worked out perfect with the Shopko leaving," said Albers, who opened her Plato's Closet in 2012. 

Once Upon a Child stores are purportedly quite lucrative. According to Once Upon a Child's website, some locations have reported gross margins of 64.68 percent or better, higher than most retailers, and gross profits of more than $1 million. The franchise in Sioux Falls is said to be a top performer out of hundreds of locations in the U.S. 

"The used stuff is starting to -- everyone's starting to like it more and want it more, so it's beginning to be more popular," Henshaw said.

Henshaw and Albers said the Sioux City market is ripe for a store like Once Upon a Child -- they estimate that 24 percent of the city's population falls in the store's age demographic. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, roughly 7.7 percent of the city's population is under 5 years old, and another 26.3 percent are between 5 and 18 years old.

Typically it takes six weeks for a new Once Upon a Child location to purchase enough merchandise to open, but the products were flowing in even faster than anticipated -- the store was more than halfway full barely two weeks after purchasing began. 

Once Upon a Child will be the second tenant of the former Shopko space, the first being Wilmes Do It Best hardware store, which opened in May. The latter had a somewhat rocky debut due to the coronavirus pandemic. The opening of Once Upon a Child was also slowed somewhat by COVID-19-related issues.

Shopko shut down last June after the Wisconsin-based chain, sagging under enormous debt, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2019 and litigated its holdings a few months later. 

The Shopko building is part of the Marketplace Shopping Center, which has been owned by the Gleeson family since 1962. John Gleeson, president of Klinger Companies, Inc., decided at the time of Shopko's closure to subdivide the mammoth store into several smaller stores -- making the building, in effect, a shopping center. 

Albers said Gleeson has been good to work with, with an eye toward keeping his properties attractive and in good order. Mike Wilmes, of Wilmes Do It Best, said the same this spring. 

"He's probably the nicest landlord I've ever known," Albers said.