WEST LEBANON — After a one-year hiatus, Spirit Halloween, which has more than 1,500 pop-up locations in strip centers and malls across North America, is returning to a Route 12A shopping plaza in time for the season of ghosts and goblins.
Spirit Halloween, which bills itself as the largest Halloween retailer in the U.S., is currently working on setting up shop in the Target plaza.
The New Jersey-based company has taken over a space that formerly housed a Joann Fabric and Craft store that went out of business earlier this year, after its parent company filed for bankruptcy.
Last Friday, a large sign in the store’s front window indicated that Spirit Halloween will be “Opening Soon” and is in a hiring mode. Inside, workers were putting together shelving.
Spirit Halloween hasn’t indicated when it plans to open in West Lebanon, but the company typically waits until late summer or early fall. Company representatives recently declined to give an opening date to the Valley News.
In previous years, starting in 2019, Spirit Halloween’s shop was located in 12A’s Upper Valley Plaza. A Barnes & Noble bookstore now occupies a space that Spirit Halloween used for several years.
Spirit Halloween offers a wide range of costumes, decor, props, and holiday accessories, in addition to operating a year-round online business.
From a local business standpoint, a large pop-up chain like Spirit Halloween can present challenges.
In a 2024 interview, Tracy Hutchins, president of the Upper Valley Business Alliance, told the Valley News that many area business owners don’t want to see Spirit Halloween enter its territory because the chain is not locally owned and can undercut the prices of local stores.
Last year, Spirit Halloween’s absence in the Upper Valley left a void in local costume retail, driving a surge of demand — and sales — at the nonprofit Listen Center’s annual Halloween Sale. Last year’s sale started in September.
Listen, which operates thrift stores in Lebanon, Canaan and White River Junction, doesn’t expect the national chain’s return to West Lebanon will put much of a dent in its pre-Halloween business.
“It’s consistently one of our biggest sales of the year,” said Jen Murdock, who is currently the manager of Listen’s store in White River Junction. “Even when there was a store down the street, people in the Upper Valley knew where to go.”