The Kids Are Alright

2001 shot of the Mall at Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts

My love for all things retail goes back as far as I can remember, to when I was a kid. Much of my love of vintage mall accoutrements extends to fond memories of being a kid, going to those big, exciting malls packed with great stuff. Just being out in the world, in what were then the biggest and most exciting places around, seemed great.

Those of us who felt this way (and from what I’ve experienced, amongst retail history geeks, it’s common) are not part of a dying breed. Check out what was posted today on Universal Hub:

The other day, Greta and I had just ended an expedition to one of Dedham’s many fine Big Box Retail Outlets when she tripped and scraped her knee. Ow, ow, ow! I helped her hobble over to the car, and as we drove home, of course she cried and yelled about how much it hurt, poor thing. But she’s one of these kids that, once she gets on a roll, she just can’t stop, so soon she was complaining about everything else that was bothering her:

I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! Why’d they have to close Filene’s, anyway? Why does Macy’s buy all the good stores and close them down?

Um, what? She’s upset about Filene’s closing? What?

That’s right, even the children of the 2000s are caught up in retail nostalgia. But it gets even better–if you read the comments, others weigh in by reminiscing on such long-forgotten mall wonders as penny fountains and conversation pits, and people pine over long-departed chains like Almacs and Ann & Hope.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, they’re talking about Newton’s Mall at Chestnut Hill, which we’ve covered ’round here before.

Holyoke Mall at Ingleside; Holyoke, Massachusetts

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For all intents and purposes, the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside is–at least for the moment–the largest mall in New England. It will soon be eclipsed by the Natick Mall, which is nearly doubling in size, and technically, the Northshore Mall in Peabody, Massachusetts is the largest shopping center in sheer square footage. However, Northshore’s floorspace is tucked into its five massive anchor stores, two of which are currently dark, while Holyoke Mall is a true giant.

It’s also pretty cool.

Developed by the Pyramid Companies of Syracuse and opened in 1979, the Holyoke Mall was designed as a dominant mall to serve not only the metropolitan Springfield region of Massachusetts, but also to serve as a major regional draw bringing customers from all of Central and Western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and many parts of New Hampshire and Vermont. The 1.6 million-square-foot, 200-store, three-level mall is strategically located near the junction of interstate 90 and interstate 91, just northwest of Springfield.

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Despite that the mall received a minor renovation in 1995, it mostly stands as a monument to 1979, in all the best ways. The grand, three level center court, complete with wood paneling and concrete stairwells, is a charmingly gauche relic of another era. Also, the mall sports some unusual anchor stores, including Christmas Tree Shops, Target, AC Moore, Best Buy, Babies ‘R Us, and DSW Shoe Warehouse along with more typical mall anchor tenants such as Macy’s, Sears, JCPenney, and H&M. The Holyoke Mall has one major anchor vacancy in the form of a vacant Lord & Taylor which closed in 2004, and some past anchor tenants include Lechmere, Nobody Beats the Wiz (a rarity for Massachusetts), G. Fox, Filene’s, Steiger’s, Service Merchandise, Filene’s Basement, and Kids R Us.

Metropolitan Springfield is home to approximately 600,000 residents, though the Holyoke Mall pulls from many rural areas for hours around. Still, it’s inevitable that a mall this large would wreak serious havoc in a mid-sized metropolitan area, and it did: The Fairfield Mall in nearby Chicopee shut in 2001 after years of decline; the Baystate West/Tower Square Mall in downtown Springfield has been reduced to little more than a food court; the Hampshire Mall in Hadley (which serves the Amherst/Northampton area) succeeds mainly on the strenth of its anchors, but its interior is lagging; and the Eastfield Mall in Springfield has had major ups and downs over the years, even if it’s on relatively solid ground at the moment. The Enfield Square Mall, just over the border in Connecticut, also suffers from a relatively uninspired tenant roster despite anchoring one of the most successful retail districts in the Springfield area.

All photos taken in 2001 by Prangeway. Find a more recent set at The Caldor Rainbow!
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The Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall); Leominster, Massachusetts

Mall at Whitney Field sign in Leominster, MA

The Mall at Whitney Field is the only major enclosed shopping center in North-Central Massachusetts, serving the twin cities of Leominster and Fitchburg just off Massachusetts route 2 about 45 miles northwest of Boston. One of the oldest malls in Massachusetts, The Mall at Whitney Field opened in 1967 as the “Searstown Mall,” but it was extensively renovated and renamed in 2004. Like many malls of its vintage, it has had many changes over the years.

Initially, the Searstown Mall was a smaller center anchored by Sears (obviously!), a rare Massachusetts outpost of Hartford-based Sage-Allen Department Store, and Bradlees, but in a very different configuration than today. In the late 1980s, the Searstown Mall was expanded substantially at its southeastern end, adding a long bright wing leading to a brand new JCPenney store. In 1992, Sage-Allen closed their store at the end of the “T” side wing and were replaced by a Service Merchandise store. At about the same time, Toys R Us built a store that was attached to the mall, but was located on the outside of the Bradlees store and only had an exterior entrance.

Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MAAnother big wave of changes began in 1999. Service Merchandise closed their store, and the long side wing leading to their old store emptied out. Instead of replacing the stores, the wing was big-boxed in 2000, replacing Service Merchandise with Circuit City and turning much of the side wing into an Old Navy store. Bafflingly, both of these stores (not just the Circuit City!) have exterior entrances only.

Changes accellerated with the 2001 loss of Bradlees, leaving a very large vacancy at Searstown. Bizarrely, the store was demolished in 2002, although the Toys R Us store attached to the Bradlees was left standing, leaving it as an “orphan” standalone building no longer attached to the main mall building. The former Bradlees mall entrance was then converted to an outdoor mall entrance, and Filene’s built a large new two-level store one entrance down–at a door that used to lead directly outside (isn’t that strange?) Obviously it’s a Macy’s now. By looking at the older Google satellite photo of the mall and comparing to the modern-day directory, you can see how it’s changed in the past few years. In 2004, the remainder of the tired-looking yet successful mall received a much-needed make-over, dressing it up in soft hues and retiring the quaint Searstown Mall moniker in favor of the more affected “Mall at Whitney Field” name, likely in an attempt to help endear the mall to shoppers who live in affluent northwestern I-495 belt suburbs rather than just the immediate, more blue-collar population of Leominster and Fitchburg.

Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

This ramshackle mid-sized mall isn’t terribly exciting, but I’ve always been somewhat fond of it. It may be that even despite renovations, its age is showing, and it may be that ancient Sears store at the northwestern end of the mall.

Sears at Mall at Whitney Field in Leominster, MA

Sears at Mall at Whitney Field in Leominster, MA Sears at Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Macy's at the Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

The Mall at Whitney Field in Leominster, MA Macy's at the Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

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Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

Mall at Whitney Field (Searstown Mall) in Leominster, MA

Solomon Pond Mall; Marlborough, Massachusetts

Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough, MA
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.

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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.
Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough, MA

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.

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Greendale Mall; Worcester, Massachusetts

Greendale Mall sign in Worcester, MA

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.

Greendale Mall main entrance in Worcester, MADespite 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:

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2006:

Best Buy (former Lechmere) at Greendale Mall in Worcester, MA Best Buy (former Lechmere) at Greendale Mall in Worcester, MA Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts
Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts Food court (as seen from the main level) at the Greendale Mall in Worcester, MA

Marshalls at Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts Lower level (leading to food court) at Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts View of main level from food court/basement at Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts

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Auburn Mall; Auburn, Massachusetts

Auburn Mall in 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.

Auburn Mall in Auburn, Massachusetts

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.

Auburn Mall in Auburn, Massachusetts

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.

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Worcester Common Outlets; Worcester, Massachusetts

Vintage aerial shot of original Worcester Center Galleria Mall
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.

Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006The 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.)

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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 SpokeswomanBut 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.

worcester-common-06.jpgBeginning 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:

Current Worcester Common Fashion Outlets configuration

Future CitySquare configuration

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:

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2006:

Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 North entrance to Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006

Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Media Play building at Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Media Play at Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006

Food court area at Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Main entrance to Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006

Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006 Worcester Common Fashion Outlet mall property in 2006

Fairfield Mall; Chicopee, Massachusetts

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While perusing some archived folders on my hard drive this morning, I found a real treat: a full set of photos from the Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, Massachusetts, which was demolished a full five years ago. I honestly have no idea where these pictures came from–I didn’t take them!–they’re not terribly clear, and they make the mall look even more bleak than it was (and this is quite a feat), but they’re still a huge find!

The Fairfield Mall was a 400,000 square foot, simple dumbell mall located just off the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Springfield suburb of Chicopee. The PREIT-owned mall, which opened in 1974, closed in 2001, and was demolished in parts through 2003 or 2004, was anchored by Caldor and Bradlees, which gives all of the necessary details to discern why it died. It was also an extremely dated mall inside and out, apart from the airy and bright center court and food court, which was almost certainly added at a later point. Still, much of the mall was functioning as a relatively standard small-to-mid-sized mall as late as 2000. I can recall one of my visits to the Fairfield Mall in March 2000–barely a year before it died–when I felt it actually seemed to be doing better than it had on my previous visit.

Fairfield Mall Aerial Photo

The Springfield metropolitan area is not overmalled, but it is dominated by the large Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, and has suffered through a sluggish local economy since the 1980s. Chicopee is a relatively large suburb with a population of 56,000, plenty enough to support its own enclosed mall. The design of Fairfield Mall was only suitable to be a convenient, off-price, neighborhood alternative, however. As such it was unable to weather the loss of both its anchors in 1999 and 2001, respectively, especially given its relatively forlorn appearance. The relative revitalization of Springfield’s nearby Eastfield Mall in 2000 also likely didn’t help matters.

After being demolished in parts beginning in 2002 and continuing through 2003 or 2004, the site today is home to a big box center anchored by Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Staples, Marshall’s, iParty, and others.

Dead Malls also has a string of articles and anecdotes on the Fairfield Mall, along with some exterior photos taken sometime in 2001 after the mall was shuttered. In the photo below, look very closely and note that there’s an intact, 1970s vintage “brown rainbow” Caldor logo still on their building:

Fairfield Mall with 70s vintage Caldor logo in the distance

Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, Massachusetts Fairfield Mall with Bradlees in the distance in Chicopee, MA Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, MA

Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, MA Fairfield Mall center court in Chicopee, MA

Prangeway: The above photos were polaroids taken by Joe Collins of Chicopee and scanned in by me, in the fall of 2000.  Also in late August 2001 I attempted to visit Fairfield Mall but I think I was a tiny bit too late.  The outside sign read a bank (on an outlot to the mall itself), Ocean State Job Lot (also on an outlot), Subway, and Luca’s Pizza were open at that time.  So, I went around to the entrance where Subway was and I could see it in there just beyond locked doors.  They still had the menu up and there were bags of chips hanging there, and it looked very much like it was still in operation.  However, the doors to the mall were locked, it was very, very dark inside, and it was a Saturday afternoon.  So, who knows?  At any rate, it’s all gone now, so enjoy the extra pictures of the outside of the mall from August 26, 2001. 

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fairfield-mall-2001-03.jpg Former Caldor at Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, Massachusetts fairfield-mall-2001-02.jpg

 

Silver City Galleria; Taunton, Massachusetts

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

A few days back, I posted about the small, forgotten Taunton Mall, stomped into the dust nearly a decade and a half ago by the opening of a new retail mecca on the edge of town. Here it is.

The 1.2 million square-foot Silver City Galleria opened to much fanfare in 1992. Built by the Pyramid Cos. of New York at approximately the same time as two other similar Massachusetts Malls–Independence Mall in Kingston and Berkshire Mall in Lanesboro–all of the malls were aimed at bringing shopping to areas that were experiencing population growth in the state. While the Berkshires grew mainly only due to tourism, Southeastern Massachusetts was growing in leaps and bounds, and Silver City Galleria’s strategic location at the junction of routes 140 and 24 allowed it to pull traffic from as far north as the Boston suburbs as well as the entire “South Coast” region (including Fall River and New Bedford) simultaneously. The original anchors at the two-level mall were Sears, JCPenney, Filene’s, Filene’s Basement, TJMaxx, Bradlees, Lechmere, and Hoyt’s Cinemas. The mall is today owned by General Growth Properties.

Silver City Galleria sign in Taunton, MA

Silver City Galleria quickly became the area’s dominant mall, causing a great deal of problems for other malls in this part of Massachusetts, in particular the Westgate Mall in Brockton, the Swansea Mall in Swansea, and the (then-North) Dartmouth Mall in Dartmouth. Notably, it pulled both Sears and Bradlees away from the small Taunton Mall immediately, ending that center’s chapter as a viable retail center instantly. In its early days, the Silver City Galleria was so popular that it created backups onto route 24 and necessitated the construction of a new exit ramp.

The mall sported the kind of clean, bright Californian design scheme that was so popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, complete with many large palm trees. While at its root the mall simply follows one long, straight path, the architectural focal point of the Galleria is its monstrous, triangular center court. The mall concourse takes a substantial jog through this area, and the sheer volume of open air in this part of the mall is perhaps its most interesting feature. While Silver City Galleria is a modern mall, the sheer size of its center court is a throwback to the era when malls were built to be grand showplaces.

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA
Silver City still wasn’t without its problems. Silver City Galleria was constructed on a relatively remote parcel located on something of a country road on the edge of the city of Taunton, in an area that did not previously have any chain retail whatsoever. As a result, the mall opened in a location that to many felt like the “middle of nowhere,” and it was impossible to shop anywhere else but the mall. Due to the lack of nearby box retail, many would continue to plan their shopping trips to other retail districts instead and it prevented this mall from being as dominant in the area as Attleboro’s Emerald Square Mall, which was also marginally more upscale. Some chain retail did begin to sprout along route 140 west of route 24 beginning in 2000, and now there is a relatively healthy strip nearby, though it isn’t immediately obvious as to where it is from the mall itself.

Most of Silver City Galleria’s problems through the years came through acquisitions and bankruptcies of its anchor tenants. It lost Lechmere when the chain folded in 1997, and the space would not be filled for nearly eight years until Steve & Barry’s took the space. Bradlees, which anchored the space directly above Lechmere, closed in 2001 and was similarly vacant for four years. Filene’s Basement vacated the mall during a massive round of closings several years ago, and as this store was one of their distinctive and gimmicky “basement” stores, thrown in a basement directly under the mall and accessible by an escalator in the center of the mall concourse, it was difficult to fill. Today it’s a Tuesday Morning–the store that brags about how they’re hard-to-find–which seems somewhat apropos. While these old Filene’s Basement stores are commonplace to us New Englanders, folks from elsewhere may find this weird. There’s a shot of it directly below; look closely and you can see a large sign for Tuesday Morning hanging over the escalators to the basement. While the mall recently lost its TJMaxx store (which was unusual in that it was in-line), it also gained an Old Navy store and an H&M store in the early 2000s.

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Another major point of interest is the mall’s Lechmere anchor. Because the store was built on the first level of a “stack” of anchors, with Bradlees on top and facing the opposite direction, this Lechmere store was given an abnormally prominent facade. This one makes me a bit sad, because Lechmere was one of my favorite New England retailers and they offered something of a unique spin on the superstore format. A disastrous acquisition by Montgomery Ward did them in; their parent company’s financial troubles caused the entire chain to fold in 1997. Steve & Barry’s has left the exterior of their store virtually unchanged from the way it looked when Lechmere occupied it:

Former Lechmere/current Steve & Barry's at Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Silver City Galleria does have some chronic vacancies, mainly in the Filene’s end of the mall, and this has been the case for almost as long as the mall has existed. It seems that given the size of the immediate market (Taunton has a population of about 45,000) and the proximity to many other malls in every direction, Silver City may have been built just a *bit* too large. Since 1992, both Westgate Mall and Dartmouth Mall have undergone renovations and repositionings that have stopped their blood loss to Silver City, and as a result Silver City wasn’t able to steal all of their traffic.

Silver City Galleria Sears in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria JCPenney in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA Silver City Galleria in Taunton, MA

Taunton Mall (Mill River Place); Taunton, Massachusetts

Taunton Mall sign in Taunton, MA

To make things a bit more interesting, I’m going to try and create more posts in micro “metropolitan area” bundles, to better illustrate situations where one mall killed another, or where one mall works as an ancillary of another. While we ultimately would like to fill in much of the country, that’s going to take a long time, and I think this might be an interesting way to try and present some of these malls to people who are unfamiliar with them.

The former Taunton Mall (more recently known as Mill River Place) is a 180,000 square foot, enclosed shopping mall located near downtown Taunton, Massachusetts. Taunton, like many outlying New England cities, was an industrial revolution powerhouse known for its manufacturing industries (in this case, silver). By the latter half of the 20th century, these industries had declined and many cities like Taunton were desperate for renewal efforts, and this small mall is a textbook example of one of their attempts. Built as part of a mid-1970s (1976-78) urban renewal project, the Taunton Mall displaced several blocks of the city’s High Street neighborhood that were demolished due to blight and crime.

I never visited the Taunton Mall when it was “thriving,” but its death came swiftly and suddenly in 1992. The 1.2 million square foot Silver City Galleria opened about 3 miles to the southeast and offered far better freeway access. The tucked-away Taunton Mall stood no chance, and lost both of its anchors–Bradlees and Sears–to the new mall instantaneously. A junior anchor, House of Fabrics, also relocated to an awkward, outdoor space in the new mall where it would last only a few years.

The Taunton Mall was converted to Mill River Place not long after. Mill River Place still hosted a few of the mall’s original tenants (in particular a Chinese restaurant), but it was converted mainly to office users, with a medical center taking at least one of the former anchor stores. When I first visited the interior of this mall in 2000, the corridors were open and it was bright, clean, and fully stocked with office user tenants. However, on a revisit this past Sunday, I found a different scene: the mall appears to be shuttered, though I can’t confirm that it isn’t just closed on weekends (I’ll try and return on a weekday sometime soon, if I can). It seems most of the tenants are now exterior-facing, and I was able to discover a plan (which I’ve seemingly now lost) to turn to the center into an outdoor office park. I can’t tell if this conversion has already been completed, but I sure hope not: the poor place looks like hell about now, and several homeless people had set up camp in the parking lot.

The Taunton Mall was perhaps too small and bland to be loved or even remembered, and its location far off highways meant it really only ever catered to the population of Taunton proper, with a population of about 45,000. If you have any memories of when the Taunton Mall was thriving as a retail establishment, please share them.Next time I’ll tell you about the behemoth that swiftly did the Taunton Mall in with a single blow.

I’m just guessing, but I think this was the former Bradlees:

Taunton Mall in Taunton, MA
And I think this was the former Sears:

Taunton Mall sign in Taunton, MA

Taunton Mall in Taunton, Massachusetts Taunton Mall in Taunton, Massachusetts Taunton Mall in Taunton, Massachusetts