September, 2006 - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Paramus Park Mall; Paramus, New Jersey

Paramus, New Jersey is one of the nation’s biggest retail towns, boasting over six million square feet of retail space racking up some of the largest sales of any town in America. The area around routes 4 and 17 has been home (at one point or another) to no less than six enclosed shopping malls, including the legendary (and previously-blogged-about) Bergen Mall.

Paramus Park Mall is one of the newer of the area’s enclosed malls, opening in 1974. Strangely, this large, twisty, mostly one-level mall with two anchors (Sears and Macy’s) seems largely redundant given the large malls nearby, in particular the Garden State Shopping Center, since it has an almost total tenant overlap with that mall. While in most markets, Paramus Park would probably be long dead, Paramus isn’t like most markets. Perhaps the size of the the GS Shopping Center makes it a pain for residents to deal with for every mall trip, so they have Paramus Park as an alternative.

Either way, Paramus Park is really an unexpectedly cool mall, due to its sloping glass ceilings (which best nearly every other skylight-based ceiling configuration that I’ve seen) and great court areas, especially in front of the anchor stores. The Macy’s court especially made me want to sit down and spend the entire day (though it was much cooler when it had a fountain, as opposed to that massage table)… but that’s just me, and I’ve established that I’m weird. A 2001 renovation sapped Paramus Park of a little bit of its character, but the basic idea is preserved. What’s cool is that we have two photo sets for this mall, one taken by Prangeway in 2001 and another by me in 2006, and the older set was taken while the renovations were still underway. You’ll also notice that the exterior of the mall was made over sometime after the interior, and the 2001 set has some intact shots of that rather ugly old exterior. Note the difference, in (I think) the same place:

Sorry there, innocent bystander. You’ve been Labelscarred. (Oh, he knows, he knows. We think.)

2001:

2006:

Solomon Pond Mall; Marlborough, Massachusetts

The Solomon Pond Mall opened in 1996, making it the newest (as of 2006) enclosed shopping mall in Massachusetts. It was one of a slew of malls to sprout along the I-495 corridor from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, but Solomon Pond was given perhaps the best location of all. When it was constructed in 1996, the mall’s location seemed remote–in fact, it was directly across the street from the then-current home of Spooky World, a Halloween attraction whose appeal traded on their creepy remoteness (unsurprisingly, they’ve since moved), and it was located far from other retail. But with its location near the junction of I-290 and I-495 in the city of Marlborough, about 40 miles northwest of Boston, the mall was able to strategically target both the affluent and booming western crescent of suburbs of Boston while simultaneously serving as the largest mall for the Worcester area, about 12 miles to the southwest. As already noted, it was one of the forces that basically killed off what was left of the Worcester Common Outlets, and it’s larger than both the Greendale Mall and Auburn Mall combined.

For the most part, Solomon Pond is pretty much what you’d expect of a mall of its vintage and size: lots of natural light filtered through skylights, lots of fussy upper-crusty decorative trim (note how all the railings are wooden), and other relatively standard stuff in newer malls. Compared to some of the other 495 ring malls–most of which tended to be more mid-range, like the Silver City Galleria–the 900,000 square foot Solomon Pond did at least attempt to shoot for the upscale, by counting some higher end tenants (HMV instead of FYE, though they’re long since gone, replaced by a rare mall outpost of local indie record chain Newbury Comics). The anchor tenant roster is relatively average: JCPenney, Sears, Macy’s (which was a former Filene’s), and Regal Theatres.

This is pretty boring, I know, but Solomon Pond completes the Worcester story. Prangeway had cake here to celebrate the mall’s fifth birthday in 2001, and I once arrived in the movie theatre parking lot in 1998 to find it blanketed with thousands of tiny plastic flies, but that’s the true extent of Solomon Pond drama.

Rock Hill Mall; Rock Hill, South Carolina

This post is a first for us here at Labelscar. The mall featured here is one which neither I nor my blogging partner Caldor have ever visited. Instead, this mall was alerted to us by a reader named Shane from Rock Hill. We have to give him more credit than that, though, because he ended up going to the mall and taking pictures for us. What’s more, the mall has been unsuccessful for 15 years so he had to walk inside through some shattered doors and rubble to get some photos for our site. We think that’s pretty cool.

First, a bit about the city of Rock Hill, then more about the mall itself. Rock Hill, South Carolina is located just south of Charlotte, North Carolina and is part of its metropolitan area. Rock Hill has a population of approximately 60,000, is mostly middle class, and home to a top ten regional public university in the south called Winthrop University which currently enrolls about 6,000 students.

During the 1960s, Cherry Road became the prime commercial retail corridor in Rock Hill. Rock Hill Mall became the centerpiece of this corridor, also opening during the 1960s with anchor stores Belk, Sears, and JCPenney. Rock Hill Mall enjoyed a long period of success into the 1990s, when a new mall came to Rock Hill and stole its thunder. Rock Hill Galleria opened in 1991 just east of I-77 along Dave Lyle Blvd/SC 122, and it took all three of Rock Hill Mall’s anchors with it. Whoops.

The opening of Rock Hill Galleria effectively killed Rock Hill Mall according to a November 1996 article in the Charlotte Business Journal. The mall was almost completely vacant by 1992, and by 1996 the only business operating was a flea market occupying the old Sears space. The article also mentioned a possible redevelopment of Rock Hill Mall by Charlotte-based Faison Associates, which also named Hannaford grocery store, Home Depot, Target, and other smaller stores as possible tenants for a big box conversion of the mall in 1995 or 1996.

That redevelopment never happened. In 1997, the mall was purchased by the Red Lake Catawba Native American tribe which began operating a high-stakes bingo inside the former Sears store. In 2002, South Carolina began a state lottery and business at the bingo dwindled. As of early 2006 it was only open once a week.

Despite the Rock Hill Mall’s abrupt end as a retail center and failed talks to redevelop it as such, other possibilities presented themselves for the mall’s use. In 2002, the Catawba Tribe leased a considerable amount of mall space to RMC Ministries, which operated a teen center in the former mall. However, in Spring 2006 the Catawba Tribe told RMC Ministries they had to vacate the mall, and there was speculation the mall had been sold.

Today, the Rock Hill Mall is an unsalvagable ruin, except for a Carmike Cinema 7 which still operates in the outlot. The roof is leaking, doors are smashed open, and there has been rampant vandalism and graffiti throughout the former center. It is also apparently about to be demolished. Take a look at the pictures taken by our contributor Shane. Also, mouseover each picture for comments explaining each picture in Shane’s own words, and feel free to make comments yourself.

Greendale Mall; Worcester, Massachusetts

In addition to the Worcester Common Outlets, the city of Worcester is home to another, smaller enclosed shopping mall: the Greendale Mall, on the city’s north side, near the junction of Gold Star Blvd (MA-12) and I-190, not far north of the junction of I-290.

Anchored by Best Buy, Marshalls, and TJMaxx N More, nearly everything about the Greendale Mall identifies it as an ancillary mall, from the TJX anchor tenants to its diminutive size (311,436 square feet). However Greendale has always felt a bit more significant. For one, it’s home to a few things rarely found in smaller malls, such as junior anchors like Old Navy and DSW Shoe Warehouse, and a food court that’s situated on its own mall level, sunken and off to the side of the main level. In addition, the Greendale Mall sports some really neat architecture, especially inside: like the Arsenal Mall in Watertown, Massachusetts (a favorite of mine which will be posted about soon), the mall was carved out of an old brick industrial building, and as such it sports a character-laden mixture of historic architecture and more modern mall decor, and appropriately mirrors its surroundings in the industrial revolution-era metropolis of Worcester. The uses of exposed brick and a slightly odd floorplan with much of the parking tucked under the mall and accessible via a small basement level only reinforce this.

Despite being a relatively local mall of mine, I know quite little about the Greendale Mall’s history. Judging by some of the elements of the mall’s decor, I would imagine it was part of the mall-building spree by Steven Karp’s Malls of New England Development in the early 1990s or late 1980s, likely with Lechmere and Marshall’s as its original anchors, and I am certain that the TJMaxx N More anchor (which is located down a side hallway) was added sometime in the late 1990s. Lechmere closed at the mall in 1997 when their troubled parent, Montgomery Ward, savagely dumped the entire chain. Lechmere was replaced by Best Buy in 2000 or 2001, though I can’t pinpoint the precise year of that change. Greendale Mall has been owned by Simon since 1999, when it was sold to them as part of a package of malls divested by The Malls of New England Development. While Greendale’s size and location prevent it from ever being a truly dominant regional mall, it is relatively successful, hosting a variety of mid-level tenants that cater to the immediate area. With the 1996 opening of the Solomon Pond Mall approximately 10 miles to the east–the mall that truly became the large, dominant Worcester-area mall–Greendale settled into a niche as the convenience-oriented mall for Worcester residents, since the “big mall” was so far-flung from the city proper. And hey, it has certainly outlasted its bigger cousin downtown.

We have two sets of photos of the Greendale Mall, taken five years apart, though not much really changed inbetween. Prangeway took a small set on a trip in 2001, and I took the rest last month (That’s August 2006 to y’all from the future).

2001:

2006:

Mall 205; Portland, Oregon

Trudging along for over 30 years, Mall 205 left an indelible mark on shoppers located on the east side of Portland, Oregon. The mall opened in 1970 anchored by Montgomery Ward and White Front department stores, with enclosed in-line space between them. White Front went out of business in the late 1970s, but the mall didn’t suffer. Instead, it converted White Front’s space into more space for stores and added an Emporium location which would also close.

Demand was high in this mall, which filled (and continues to fill) a shopping void between several larger malls in the Portland area, all within a 10 minute drive via expressways: Lloyd Center to the west near central Portland, Westfield Vancouver Mall to the north, and the large Clackamas Town Center to the south. The mall chugged along into the 80s and through the 90s and was going just fine until a devastating closure in 2001 when Montgomery Ward departed as that chain went out of business nationwide.

Following the devastating departure of Montgomery Ward, vacant space inside Mall 205 shot up fast. Almost immediately, local mall owner Center Oak Properties decided a radical revamp of the mall was in order. In 2002, Mall 205 got a radical facelift – the first and only major renovation the center received. Home Depot, Target and 24 Hour Fitness stepped in where Montgomery Ward left the reigns and the mall’s interior received brand new fixtures, flooring, ceiling, and the whole kitchen sink. Part of the overhaul was also a complete change in the mall’s blank, walled exterior, giving it a downtown look complete with glass storefronts, colorful awnings and tree-lined sidewalks. Inside, the mall has a new food court, ceiling and floor. The parking lot was also extensively renovated with all-new light fixtures, a system of rectangular grids with 20-foot-wide sidewalks and 900 new trees. A ditch for catching parking lot runoff looks more like a park, complete with plantings and bird feeders.

Mall 205 remains successful today as it ever was, existing mostly as an ancillary mall to the larger centers it supports. Some of its tenants include Famous Footwear, a bakery, car stereo place, pizza parlor, and other shops and services. A final notable thing about the mall is that it’s one of two enclosed malls I can think of named after an interstate. The other was called Mall 189 in Burlington, Vermont, and has since been disenclosed. Thankfully, this is one of the few mall renovations that allowed for enclosure. I took the pictures in November 2005.

Auburn Mall; Auburn, Massachusetts

A few days back, I posted about the now-dead Worcester Common Outlets in downtown Worcester. I feel that it’s more interesting to post about malls in metropolitan area groups, which brings us to discuss the other (less dramatic) malls serving the Worcester metropolitan area.

Except for one big “but.” The Worcester Common wasn’t exactly done in by any of its suburban cousins, because by and large the other malls are just not all that big. Depending on how you define the Worcester metropolitan area, Worcester Common was arguably even the largest mall in the Worcester area, and if not, it was close behind. Case in point: The Auburn Mall.

The Auburn Mall is a mid-sized (600,000 sqft. or so), dumbell-style mall located in central Massachusetts. Strategically located about 5 miles southwest of Worcester at the junction of interstates 290, 395, and 90 as well as MA-12, the mall (which is nuzzled in a valley between I-290 and I-90, with prime visibility from both) serves are a large swath of rural central Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut. It is the only enclosed mall for almost 50 miles in several directions, although there are many others going east, north, or southeast.

I’m not sure of the exact year that the Auburn Mall was built, but I would wager it was constructed sometime in the mid-late 1970s. Initially, the mall’s anchors were Sears, a two-level, aged Caldor (which retained the orange, 1980s vintage logo until its death), and a junior anchor in Cherry & Webb. A rather extensive renovation in the early 1990s (Around 1994 or 1995, I believe, likely as a response to the revitalization of Worcester Common) added Filene’s as an anchor off center court. Several years after the death of Caldor, Filene’s also took their space at the Auburn Mall’s eastern end, splitting the Filene’s store into two. The mall’s anchors today are therefore Macy’s (with two spaces) and Sears. The Cherry & Webb space is today an Express.

Design-wise, Auburn won’t win much praise; it’s a functional, mid-level mall that always does great business but isn’t a destination for anyone but people who live in its immediate trade area. Its most notable features are the strangely sloped ceilings and the larger court areas, which distinctly peg the mall to a somewhat earlier era.

Recently, the Shoppes at Blackstone Valley, a large lifestyle center located one exit away on I-90, has stolen some of the Auburn Mall’s thunder, and is now the largest shopping center on the south side of Worcester. The two centers share little overlap, however, and Auburn seems to chug along just fine. The Auburn Mall is today owned by Simon, and these photos were all taken August 2006.

Worcester Common Outlets; Worcester, Massachusetts

Worcester Common is New England’s largest and most notorious dead mall. It has died twice, in separate decades. At various points, it has stood as a crown jewel of achievement or as a mark of embarassment. It was once saved by television star Judith Light. The mall itself was built in an attempt at saving a large, dying city whose economy was built on a long-lost manufacturing industry. It is a classic example of an urban renewal project gone wrong, built on an inhuman scale and unkind to its surroundings. Current plans call for developer Berkley Investments to attempt to make it right.

The Worcester Common Fashion Outlets originally opened as the Worcester Center Galleria on July 29, 1971. Intended as a way to export the fashions of Boston to the suburbs while revitalizing the ailing downtown of Worcester, Massachusetts’ second largest city, the mall was to be state of the art for its time. Built by demolishing a large swath of the eastern edge of Worcester’s downtown in what was then de rigeur urban renewal, the mall boasted 1,000,000 square feet of floor space snuggled between a pair of skyscrapers, with big city fashion stores like Filene’s, Jordan Marsh, and Kennedy’s. The Worcester Galleria’s centerpiece was its long, two story glass atrium, modeled after the ancient Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy, which allowed copious natural light to filter into the mall. Unusual for its time, the mall drew residents of not only Worcester but of many nearby suburbs looking for the finest in big city fashions all under one roof. To help bring them in, the mall was ringed by a 4,300-car parking structure, at its time the largest parking garage in the world.
Unfortunately, as early as 1973 the mall faced concerns that it was not viable, and it floundered for much of its life, in part due to its location. Many suburbanites were afraid of shopping there, as the mall attracted a certain city element that scared them off (this being the era of suburbanization, after all). Similarly, many residents of Worcester immediately resented the way the mall replaced so much of the city’s historic downtown and created an impenetrable wall between downtown and the east side. This excellent Worcester Magazine ~~photo essay and oral history~~ of the mall–which includes many vintage photos–details what it was like at the original Worcester Center Galleria from 1971 to 1993. (Worcester Magazine has taken this piece down, but if you know where to locate it somewhere on the web–or would like to provide us with some of the content, please leave a comment. This was a great piece and I’m sad it has gone away.)

By the mid-1990s, the Worcester Center Galleria had lost most of its customer base due to stronger suburban malls (most of which will be detailed in subsequent posts in the coming weeks). Steven Karp’s Malls of New England Development, the company responsible for building many of the newer successful malls throughout the region (all of which were sold to Simon in 1999), purchased the mall and dramatically repositioned it as the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets. Much of the interior of the mall was renovated, with carpeting added throughout the interiors and an unusual roster of tenants (leaning on outlet stores, and approximately mirroring the typical Mills mall) brought in to help. With the original anchors gone, the mall now boasted Sports Authority, Bed Bath and Beyond (both sharing the former Jordan Marsh space), Saks Off Fifth Avenue Outlet, VF Factory Outlets, Media Play, and Filene’s Basement as anchors.

Judith Light, Worcester Common Fashion Outlets Spokeswoman But that wouldn’t be enough. The mall needed Judith Light.

Judith Light became Worcester Common Fashion Outlets’ spokeswoman in 1994, appearing in a large and widespread publicity campaign, complete with advertisements in nearly all forms of media. Light was available to sign autographs and meet shoppers at the mall for a somewhat extended period of time when the mall first opened (a week or so, I believe?) and the thrust of the campaign was that Light shopped there, so you should too. This campaign made absolutely no mention of the old Worcester Center Galleria. It worked, bringing shoppers back to Worcester Common in droves. The mall was a success. Two years later, in 1996, its name was shortened simply to Worcester Common Outlets.

Sadly, this resurgence would be even more short lived.

In 1997, the massive Wrentham Village Premium Outlets opened in the southwestern portion of interstate 495, in a location that was both convenient and suburban, lending at least the impression of greater safety. Similarly, Wrentham Village was one of the first of the modern outlet centers built in New England–instead of London Fog and Van Heusen, the center leaned heavily on fashion favorites like The Gap or gizmo shacks like the Sony Store. It was also bigger, with over 200 tenants. Suddenly there was little reason to return to the Worcester Common Outlets.

Beginning that year, Worcester Common died an agonizingly slow death, losing customers and stores slowly with each passing year. Like many downtown malls, it retained its busy food court, but stores progressively emptied out, leaving large swaths of the still-immaculate mall empty. In 1999, the mall suffered a minor bout of bad publicity after the famous Worcester warehouse fire, wherein six firefighters lost their lives trying to save two homeless people living inside of an abandoned cold storage building. Said homeless residents, who had been inadvertently responsible for setting the fire, fled the building and were listening to music at the mall’s Media Play store while firefighters thought they were attempting to save them from the burning building.

The long side-wing to access Sports Authority and Bed Bath and Beyond emptied first, as both anchors threw in the towel, and was converted for a time to the Quinsigamond Community College. The rest of the mall slowly followed until the 2004 announcement that Berkley Investments of Boston planned to purchase the ailing mall and demolish it. Their plan was to re-knit the street pattern of downtown Worcester with a project dubbed CitySquare, recreating much of the neighborhood that was lost in the original urban renewal project and eliminating the inward-facing mall, which had at this point died twice. Tenants leases were not renewed, and the mall was closed in phases, with the last of the mall shutting for good in April 2006.

My own final visit to the interior of the mall was in May of 2004, and the Worcester Common Outlets were clean and sparkling as always… but almost completely devoid of customers or activity. Most stores had left, and the only ones that had arrived in recent times were service businesses or a wig shop. Like in most downtown malls, the food court continued to hum but little else did. The Media Play had the distinctive stink of a dying beast, with a rather spare collection of merchandise spread bizarrely through their large store to make it look more “full.” Nothing was merchandised on the slatwall on all sides of the store, and at least one of the CD displays had fully collapsed but no one seemed to care.

As of today, nothing has been done with the property beyond the relocation of a CVS Pharmacy from inside the mall to an exterior-facing space in the former Media Play, though here are two diagrams from the developer showing the current and future configurations of the property:

In retrospect, the Worcester Center Galleria and Worcester Common Fashion Outlets bridged what was perhaps the most troubled era in Worcester’s history. After having lost its job base and facing the outmigration of the post-war era, Worcester suffered and the mall was an attempt at creating a band-aid to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, a large swath of downtown was sacrificed in the process. Now, with urbanization a strong, established trend and Worcester’s increasing popularity with people priced out of Boston who crave an urban lifestyle, the CitySquare development is poised to at least help and recreate the Worcester that was. Not many tears will be shed for the mall, but it was an important part of the city’s history nonetheless.

There is an excellent thread on the topic, complete with many photos, at UrbanPlanet for those who are interested in reading further.

The photos on this page arrive from a variety of sources. The diagrams of the new development are taken from Berkeley Investments CitySquare Website, and the aerial photo at top is from a fifteen-year-old Metro Worcester atlas produced by the now-defunct Arrow map company. The 2001 shots, including all of the interiors of the mall, were taken by Prangeway. The 2006 shots, of the exteriors today, were all taken by me.

2001:

2006:

Hello, Macy’s!

Goodbye, Marshall Field’s. Goodbye, Famous-Barr. Goodbye, The Jones Store. Goodbye, Robinsons-May. Goodbye, Meier & Frank. Goodbye, Foley’s. Goodbye, Strawbridges. Goodbye, Kaufmann’s. Goodbye, L.S. Ayres. Goodbye, Filene’s. Last but certainly not least, goodbye, Hecht’s. You all no longer exist and are all now Macy’s.

Foley's On Saturday of this past weekend, September 9, 2006, all of those brands officially became Macy’s, along with countless others which have been swallowed up and converted to the Macy’s nameplate over the years in order to form this national brand.

While many are in uproar and upset about *their* local store disappearing and while no single store to my knowledge has ever converted this many brands at once, this is not a new phenomenon.

I just read the story of Macy’s and, like the history of many chains, it’s an interesting read full of ups and downs, brutal takeover attempts, a devastating shipwreck in icy waters on the high seas of the North Atlantic, and many different department store chains along the way. Since Macy’s currently operates in 45 states (you in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska are going to start feeling left out), odds are you have a Macy’s near you. And, since Macy’s just added 330 stores this last weekend to make 850 stores in total, chances are that although you might have heard of Macy’s, you may have never actually been to one. (Who am I kidding, the people who read this are probably well aware…) anyway, here we go.

Macy’s was founded by Rowland Hussey Macy in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Quickly, Macy moved his company to various locations in New York, lasting almost 40 years on the corner of 18th and Broadway.

In 1896, Macy’s was acquired by Isidor Straus (who later died aboard the RMS Titanic) and his brother Nathan. They moved Macy’s into its current digs on the corner of 34th and Broadway. The store got bigger and bigger and eventually enveloped nearly the entire block. However, one Brownstone house right on the corner of 34th and Broadway held out and reportedly charges Macy’s exorbitant rent to this day. You’re all familiar with the house, you just don’t know it. It’s covered by a giant red bag which reads “The world’s largest store” – and it is the world’s largest store at over 2 million square feet of selling space. That’s larger than over 90% of the shopping centers in the country.

Throughout the next few decades, Macy’s was in the business of expansion. They opened satellite locations in Kansas City, San Francisco, Toledo, Atlanta, and other cities. They acquired many smaller chains such as New Jersey based Bamberger’s in 1929. But, in the 1980s, Macy’s bit off more than it could chew and was in dire financial straits. In 1985, it divested itself of its midwest locations in Kansas City and Toledo, exiting the region for nearly 2 decades save for a lone store at the Mall of America in Minnesota which opened in 1992. In 1986, Macy’s ended the long-term operation of a name it owned in New Jersey and the mid-Atlantic states by flipping the Bamberger’s nameplate to Macy’s.

Also in 1986, a takeover battle of epic proportions ensued, as Macy’s CEO Edward Finkelstein became engaged in a vicious takeover battle with a Canadian company over the much coveted Federated Department Store chain. This is where the story gets interesting again (and maybe a little confusing) but we’ll iron out all the details. Finkelstein lost the hostile takeover bid in 1986; however, as a result, he got some of Federated’s booty, California’s Bullocks and I. Magnin chains.

In the early 1990s, there was trouble in paradise as the Canadian company which acquired Federated declared bankruptcy. 1992 also saw trouble for Macy’s which declared bankruptcy of its own right. In 1994, it seems as though these two bankrupt entities would be a match made in heaven and Federated acquired Macy’s. Finally Macy’s and Federated were one. Immediately following the merger, Federated chose to shutter the entire upscale I. Magnin chain in California, converting many to the Macy’s or Bullock’s nameplate. Federated also chose to fold the Abraham and Straus nameplate in the New York area and the Jordan Marsh nameplate in the Boston area into Macy’s in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Feeling hungry, Federated marched on, attempting and eventually failing an acquisition of the bankrupt Wanamaker/Woodward & Lothrop chains in the mid-Atlantic region. Instead, it acquired the Broadway/Emporium/Weinstock chain of California and folded those chains as well as the Bullock’s locations they already had into the Macy’s nameplate.

Fast forward to 2001. Federated dissolved its Stern’s nameplate and many of the stores became Macy’s. Also in 2001 the Liberty House chain of Hawaii and Guam were acquired by Federated and flipped to the Macy’s nameplate.

2003 saw one of the biggest leaps forward for Federated-Macy’s, as they chose to rebrand its stores in the Pacific Northwest (Bon-Marche), Memphis area (Goldsmith’s), Florida (Burdines), and the Ohio Valley region of IN/OH/PA/KY/WV (Lazarus) to Macy’s. The branding was gradual, with each store given a hyphenated “-Macy’s” suffix for 2 years from 2003, culminating with just Macy’s in March of 2005, effectively eliminating those brands forever.

Now we’re almost up to date to the biggest merger in Federated-Macy’s history, with May Company in 2005. This merger happened in February 2005, effectively creating the second largest department store chain behind Sears with over $30 billion in annual sales. (For those still paying attention, May Company was the parent at the time of all the stores which just converted to Macy’s last weekend.) In July 2005 the death knell was raised against the stores of the May Company chain as Federated announced that based on the previous successes they had converting regional nameplates to the Macy’s name (see previous paragraph), all May chains would be converted to Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s. Federated announced they wanted to create a national department store brand in Macy’s and they finally had the stores to do so, so they began store conversions on the 10 May brands during the Summer of 2006. First, Macy’s gift cards started appearing, then some of their banners and advertisements and finally, the signs came down and big red stars went up everywhere. Last Saturday, September 9, was to be the official full conversion.

As I alluded to earlier in the post, many are upset at this drastic change in retailing. In fact, over 50,000 people have signed a petition to keep Marshall Field’s, and there are also T-Shirts for the cause. But as you can see, department stores are a changing animal, getting swallowed up or vice versa and it’s really all in flux. My two cents? I feel that Macy’s has its work cut out for it. A tough road ahead, but majorly unprecedented successes if they can pull it off properly. I personally value variety in the marketplace and feel that it’s not only cool to go to a distant city and see different stores, but it probably bears upon the quality of service, variety, and prices. On one hand, people are loyal to stores which have heritage in their area. It’s purely topophilic, but what better marketing campaign does a store need to have than being tied to a particular place? On the other hand, the logistics of having a unified national brand is certainly more cost-effective and easier to manage.

There have already been problems with the merger. In Chicago’s flagship Macy’s on State Street, a group of backlit signs improperly labelled the streets and avenues which bound the block where the store sits. Locals, who are still reeling from the loss of their Marshall Fields, were quick to point out the snafu and how they feel Macy’s is spread too thin to care about them as customers. I went to Woodfield Mall in Chicago and saw several people wearing T-shirts they purchased on ebay which indignantly stated “Chicago shops at Marshall Fields NOT Macy’s” – What’s in the future for these stores? Time will tell, I suppose.

The Mall at the World Trade Center; New York, New York

Exactly five years ago today, almost 3,000 people died in the worst terrorist attack in America’s history. People around the world today will remember where they were and how profoundly affected they were when they heard the news that the U.S. had been attacked by such a magnitude. The ramifications of 9/11 have without a doubt changed the way the the United States and the world thinks and interacts.

We also understand the importance of 9/11, but that’s not our focus here. The events of 9/11 not only dramatically changed politics and policies, but it forever changed the landscape of lower Manhattan. Specific for our purpose here, the attack destroyed The Mall at the World Trade Center, a 427,000 square foot underground enclosed mall which was lower Manhattan’s largest retail center.

Built in 1970 and 1972, respectively, the majestic twin towers of the World Trade Center were iconic of America’s might and force. Over 50,000 people worked in the buildings, and over 200,000 passed through the Center each day. The complex even had its own zip code, 10048. Therefore, it isn’t surprising this mecca of human interaction would also contain a large portion of retail.

The Mall at the World Trade Center existed mostly underneath the eastern half of the block the WTC occupied, under WTC buildings 4 and 5, and also underneath the open-air World Trade Center Plaza. The WTC Plaza, also known as the Austin Tobin Plaza, which featured the now-infamous sculpture “Sphere” by artist Fritz Koenig. The damaged sculpture now sits in Battery Park and will be integrated into the site design of the new World Trade Center. WTC 4 and 5 were both low-level 9-story office buildings which housed clients such as Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and the New York Board of Trade. Standing immediately adjacent to the east of WTC 1 and 2, WTC 4 and 5 sustained major damage on mostly upper floors and were subsequently removed as part of the WTC removal project.

The Mall was also the point of access or transfer to the Chambers Street (served by A and C trains) and World Trade Center (served by E trains) Metropolitan Transportation Authority Subway lines and at the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson Railroad) rapid transit line to New Jersey. Both stations reopened with temporary yet fully operational facilities in November 2003.

The design of The Mall at the World Trade Center was essentially an underground figure eight, spanning most of the subterranean level beneath WTC buildings 4, 5, and the WTC Plaza. At the edges of the ‘figure 8’, different spokes radiated out: into the WTC complex to the west, onto the streets, or into the PATH and Subway stations directly connected to the mall. Decor was modern yet decidedly dated. This mall didn’t need to sell shoppers with fanciness – they were going to shop there regardless.

With an impressive roster of about 80 stores, The Mall was made up of many popular typical mall retailers, including Sam Goody, The Limited, Express, Structure, Warner Bros. Studio Store, J Crew, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor Loft, and the list went on. The Mall also had service-oriented and convenience retailers such as Duane Reade drug store, and several fast food establishments. Popular sit-down or fast-casual restaurants were in the works when the mall was destroyed.

Also just prior to its destruction, The Mall at the World Trade center was leased by its owner, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, for 99 years (with the surrounding office space of the entire World Trade Center included) in a joint agreement between Westfield America and Silverstein Properties. Under the agreement, Westfield would manage the retail space and Silverstein would manage the office space. Based in Los Angeles, Westfield currently owns an impressive roster of enclosed, regional malls across the country, and was excited in the Summer of 2001 to have nabbed this one. And that’s not surprising, since retail sales in the mall were expected to be over $900 per square foot by the end of 2001. In addition to more restaurants, Westfield also planned to increase the center’s retail capacity by over 50% and add a new impressive entryway. The cost of the lease was valued at $3.2 billion. Westfield was also planning on re-branding the mall as Westfield Shoppingtown World Trade Center, like many of its other malls across the country.

I visited the World Trade Center and its Mall on August 21, 2001, three weeks to the day before it was destroyed, and took the pictures associated with this post except for the mall map which was done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology after the collapse. I had only been to the site briefly in 1998 and in the aftermath of the disaster I was really glad I got to fully experience the World Trade Center before its demise. Finally, it should be noted that all of the employees of the mall were able to make it to safety. Take a look at the pictures and let them be a part of your remembrance of 9/11 and the World Trade Center.

Update 9/22/06: I was recently contacted by reader Marc, who offered up some photos and information concerning the World Trade Center’s mall and concourse from the early 1980s, and also a scanned mall map from 1999 or 2000. The mall was decidedly downmarket then as compared to when it was destroyed in 2001, and anchored by Alexander’s and Lamston’s (kind of like Woolworth’s).

The rest of his very interesting photo set featuring photos taken all over Manhattan (including more of the World Trade Center) from the 1980s can be seen here. Thanks a lot for the submissions!

Fox Run Mall; Newington (Portsmouth), New Hampshire

The Fox Run Mall is the lone enclosed shopping center serving the seacoast region of New Hampshire. Since there’s no signage alerting you of the fact, many mistakenly assume the mall is located in the affluent and picturesque coastal city of Portsmouth, but is actually in the tiny suburb of Newington, just to the city’s north and west.

Opening in 1983 adjacent to the existing, four-anchor Newington Mall in a large and prosperous retail district, the Fox Run Mall featured Sears, JCPenney, Filene’s, and Jordan Marsh as anchor stores. The long, winding mall (here’s a leasing plan, in PDF) features approximately 600,000 square feet of retail space, with room for nearly 100 tenants. New Hampshire has no sales tax, so many malls in New Hampshire were built near state lines to take advantage of interstate traffic, and the Fox Run Mall is no exception: it is only a mile or two from the Maine border and only about 15 miles from Massachusetts, and near the junction of the Spaulding Turnpike and I-95. The only substantial anchor shifts through the center’s life involved acquisitions: Jordan Marsh was purchased by Macy’s in the mid-1990s, and then recently the Filene’s store was converted to a second Macy’s space in the mall as a result of the Federated/May merger. Unlike most malls that featured both a Federated and May store, both here remained open due to their relatively small size. The center sported a rather dark and heavily brown decor until a renovation in either 2000 or 2001 made it look the way it does today.

The Fox Run Mall did ultimately kill its neighbor, the smaller and older Newington Mall, in the mid-1990s. The Fox Run Mall (which is today owned by Simon) purchased the Newington Mall in 1995 or 1996 and evited all of the remaining in-line tenants, connected the two properties by road, and turned the old mall into a large annex, “The Crossings at Fox Run,” that consists almost entirely of big box stores and shares a logo with the Fox Run Mall. I’ll write some more about this in a separate post at some point.

While not the most entertaining of malls, the Fox Run Mall sports a few minor points of cool design. Two of the mall’s anchors are located off large courts, set apart from the mall itself, that give them dramatic frontage. In addition, the old Filene’s anchor is one of the edgiest and most interesting of their store designs, with triangular, glass entrances pushed to the corners of the building and a rock face on both the exterior and interior. Sadly, this store even sported the long-disused, 1970s vintage art-deco-styled Filene’s logo up until being re-bannered as Macy’s. The mall’s narrow and windy nature also makes it feel larger than it is, since you’re constantly twisting and turning through its hallways.

Perhaps the best bit, though, is their distinctive logo, which for some reason is widely known to many New Englanders who haven’t even visited the mall. For some reason, people just love that fox.