Also, can someone answer my previous comment about the old food court vendors?

Restaurants and stores at The Shoppes continue to close faster than they’re being replaced. Blue Turtle closed after less than a year, the comedy club draws little traffic, and the opening of Blue Back Square combined with expansion of Evergreen Walk seem to have doomed the mall’s chances of attracting high-end retailers. Meanwhile, the recession is drawing mall customers to the newer big boxes and discount malls nearby.

The mall’s list of promised new tenants is not very impressive, compared to what has been lost. Here are the new ones:

# Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant-Coming Soon
# 90’s Nails & Spa
# Charley’s Steakery
# Coach
# Delia’s
# Forever 21
# Funny Bone Comedy Club & Restaurant
# Sunsights by Solstice (sunglass boutique)
# Wet Seal
# Panera Bread

In its favor, the mall — with its spacious corridors and food court — still draws a crowd (especially in winter) that more likely to hang out for several hours. Evergreen Walk is a sterile outdoor location that is very unwelcoming as a gathering place in any season — people shop, eat and leave. Blue Back Square, which is an artificial downtown of retail/office midrise buildings with few indoor connections among stores, is no better for gatherings in wintertime.

But The Shoppes must find a way to convince locals that it is a worthy destination, one with impressive on-site stores, food and entertainment. It should have lured the Hartford area’s first P.F. Chang, but Westfarms is getting it instead. It should have lured Crate & Barrel and The Cheesecake Factory, but Blue Back Square got them. Chico’s and L.L. Bean and Ted’s Montana Grill? Evergreen Walk got them.

Without the lure of destination stores, The Shoppes has become too non-descript compared to its numerous neighbors which are more conveniently located. I go there for its Newbury Comics and Dick’s, but not much else.

Also, what do you mean by older food court vendors?

– The restaurants are closing — most recently, Hops, Vinny T’s and J.B. Mack closed with no replacements in sight. The area is ringed by numerous stand-alone restaurants, perhaps too many for the number of shoppers.
– Overall vacancies at Buckland Hills remain higher than I’m used to seeing at healthy malls.
– Anchors B&N and Dick’s are always crowded — as is Newbury Comics, where I go with increasing frequency. Apparel. furnishing and accessory stores don’t seem as crowded.

B.H. suffers from its isolation, high atop a bluff with only one major road going in and out; the complex is not as convenient to I-84 as it might seem on a map. This single road is shared with other big-box complexes that are more conveniently located on the periphery of the bluff — Wal-Mart, Best Buy, the ailing Circuit City, Lowes, Target, Borders, and Home Depot. The road is also shared with an apartment/condo subdivision across the street.

I think all that traffic on one road discourages shoppers from committing to an extra 5-minute drive into and out of the bluff, especially when the lifestyle center and the Pavilions strip-mall are more accessible.

The lifestyle center by itself is not a threat — everything there is very high-end, pricey, and fru-fru; it appeals to a thin slice of shoppers. But certainly it must be making it difficult for B.H. to attract upscale shoppers.

Overall, I think the overdevelopment of retail in the surrounding area has resulted in a shortage of nearby residential and recreational/parkland options, resulting in far too many stores that are increasingly difficult to reach, while downtown Manchester withers. I’m surprised that South Windsor and Manchester haven’t done more to zone the development to protect existing retail, conserve land for future use, curtail congestion and promote livable community.