AUBURN – The women got Kohl’s. The guys, Best Buy.

Now it’s time for a little retail excitement for the kids.

Joker’s, that frenetic arena of kids’ activities, playhouses and pizza, is opening its second Maine location in the Auburn Mall.

Famed for its giant jungle gym and blowout birthday parties, the Portland-based franchise expects to be open by Thanksgiving.

“We’d been looking at Auburn since 2001, and just haven’t been able to find the right location,” said Jim Grattelo, co-owner and president of the company. “But when George Schott took over the mall, he made a lot of positive changes. He made us an offer that makes sense for us, as well as makes sense for him.”

Joker’s Family Fun & Games will occupy three vacant mall spaces: the former Gap store, photo processing store and arcade. At 11,500-square-feet, the activity center will be about half the size of the Portland location.

“We should have about 80 percent of the offerings available in Portland available at the Auburn Mall,” said Grattelo. “We’re not compromising the mix at all.”

He said the smaller size is a concession to the demographics of the area. Joker’s targets kids ages 12 and under, and a smaller facility is perfect for this area.

“We expect to draw from a 50-mile radius,” he said. “We’re hoping to pull in people from areas that we’re not getting in Portland, like Farmington and Turner.

“If you can locate within a half-hour or 45-minute drive, people will come three, four, five times a year,” he said. “But a longer trip to Portland, they’ll only go once a year.”

Grattelo said he and Schott will make about $250,000 worth of renovations to the mall space to ready it for Joker’s. The three-story jungle gym alone takes up 3,000 square feet (about the size of two modest Cape-style homes), plus there will be a full-service restaurant, indoor train, bounce house, inflatable slide and $200,000 worth of video and arcade games.

When all is said and done, Grattelo said his investment in the Auburn location will be close to a half-million dollars.

“What enticed us was George’s commitment to filling the mall and his investments so far,” said Grattelo, who predicts the retail complex will be full within a year. “What we’re bringing is traffic. Joker’s is a destination.”

Schott said he was excited about the deal, which was finalized Wednesday.

“This is just the first of more and better things to come,” he said, noting that he is in negotiations with other prospective tenants for the mall, including occupants for Porteous. He expects to have other announcements before Christmas.

Work will begin as soon as possible to renovate the space for Joker’s, which should have a capacity to entertain 500 kids simultaneously. Grattelo said the day after Thanksgiving is the third-busiest day of the year for Joker’s and he wants to be up and running before then. (The other high-count days are any school vacation day, and Veterans Day, he said.)

At least they won’t have to move the equipment for the new Joker’s too far. The original Joker’s opened in Portsmouth, N.H., 14 years ago, but then closed when Wal-Mart wanted space for an expansion. For two years now, the contents of that Joker’s family fun center have been stored in six tractor-trailers on a local contractor’s lot.

“We’ve got an entire Joker’s ready to go,” said Grattelo, with a laugh. “I told you we knew we wanted to be in Auburn.”