Burlington Town Center; Burlington, Vermont

Burlington Town Center mall entrance from Church Street, Burlington, VTAs mentioned in my last post, I’m going to write about Burlington’s two enclosed malls in a row to sort of illustrate the entire retail “scene” in this picturesque northern city. Yesterday, I blogged about University Mall, Vermont’s largest mall and a relatively standard suburban-style center. Today I’ll be talking about both the Burlington Town Center, which is located right in the middle of downtown, and the Church Street Mall, which is a large outdoor pedestrian mall that forms the center of downtown Burlington.

Burlington Town Center is a long, skinny, two level enclosed mall constructed during the mall-building boom of the ’70s and early ’80s, though I don’t know the exact year. While Burlington is a small city, it’s very cosmopolitan for its size, with a large and young population living right downtown, in part because of the proximity of the University of Vermont. It’s also the biggest city and center of commerce for Vermont, which is a state that never stopped loving its downtowns. As such, it’s really always made sense for one of Burlington’s malls to be located right downtown, and Burlington Town Center has a lot of synergy with the neighborhood. It hinges off of the pedestrian mall, forming a kind of “T” and stretching from Church Street for several blocks towards the shorefront of Lake Champlain.

Unfortunately, like many malls of its size and vintage, it fell on hard times a few years ago, and when I last visited in March of 2000 it was nearly empty. Even then, though, there were some signs of life: a brand new Filene’s had just opened at the end of the mall furthest from the street.
Old Navy at Burlington Town Center, entrance from Church Street, Burlington, VT
Fast forward six years, and a lot has changed. The center has gotten an extensive facelift inside and out, and the mall’s other anchor (which was an old Woolworths–and later Foot Locker–located on the Church Street Mall and which the mall was originally built off of) has been filled by Old Navy. Except for the long-struggling food court, the mall is now mostly filled with upmarket national tenants. Interestingly, this Filene’s store was still bannered as such on Memorial Day, 2006, when these pictures were taken. I got these just in time because it will be converted to Macy’s soon, if it hasn’t already. As these pictures show, the Church Street mall and the Burlington Town Center mall fit together harmoniously in the downtown retail district, with each both the mall and the downtown hosting different stores and fitting together to form what is by far the largest and best shopping district in all of Vermont.

The problem? It does seem that downtown Burlington has experienced a major burst of prosperity in the past six years, not that it was ever lacking. But something seems a bit wrong this time, and I think it’s the fact that downtown is doing so well that it’s become overrun by national chain stores. This was not the case previously: Burlington Town Center held most of the chains while Church Street was home to hundreds of funky local retailers. It’s true that Chruch Street does still have lots of local character, and is an amazingly pleasant (and distinctly Vermont) place to hang out, but I worry that some of the businesses that lent it character may have been pushed out.

We champion planned (suburban, usually) shopping center developments on this blog, but the truth is that we’re plenty conflicted about what these centers truly mean for our communities. My stance has always been that, with enclosed shopping malls, we’re documenting and discussing a phenomenon that simply exists, and is itself in decline and need of the kind of saving (or at the very least, documentation) that was owed the downtowns initially harmed by malls. The truth is that there’s far more to celebrate about more unique places, but I have always felt that malls themselves provided far more of a place for being than the big box behemoths that are replacing them. Basicaly, I can see reasons why we’d want to try and save our downtowns and our malls.

Pictures of the Burlington Town Center Mall:

Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, Vermont Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, Vermont Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT

Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Filene's at Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT

Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, Vermont Old Navy entrance at Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, Vermont Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT

Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT Burlington Town Center mall, Burlington, VT

Pictures of the Church Street Mall:

Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT

Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT Church Street mall in downtown Burlington, VT

University Mall; South Burlington, Vermont

Mall Entrance to University Mall in South Burlington, VT

A few weeks ago I started talking about my day trip up to Vermont, and then I uhh, stopped. Sorry about that. Let’s pick back up at University Mall in South Burlington, which is the largest enclosed mall in Vermont.

Of course, this being Vermont and not Los Angeles, the claim of being the state’s largest mall doesn’t mean it’s terribly large. With about 607,000 square feet and around 70 stores, the University Mall is only moderately-sized by most standards. Located on Dorset Street just off I-89, I’m guessing the University Mall was built sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s but renovated within the last five or six years. I visited only once before, in 2000, and I remember it being quite a bit different. Since then it’s been given a new, bright color scheme, and some of the tenants have changed.

University Mall is a decidedly suburban, middle-income suburban mall, with Sears, The Bon-Ton, JCPenney, and Kohl’s as anchor stores. The Bon-Ton store was one of New England’s few Steinbach locations until the chain folded in the 1990s, and the Kohl’s store was an Ames until that chain folded in 2002. The mall is organized in a long “L” shape, with high ceilings and wide corridors. For the most part, the decor is very pleasant and attractive, with a bit of a modern Starbucks/Pottery Barn scheme (complete with cushy couches in faux living room arrangements) that a lot of malls seem to be employing nowadays. My favorite architectural features are the high, sloping rooflines that housed long windows and the brightly-colored honeycomb ceilings in the mall’s largest court, near Sears.

Burlington is a small city, with a population of around 38,000, though it is larger than it sounds because its surrounded by a large handful of sizeable suburbs. That said, it actually has two malls–both this one, and Burlington Town Center in downtown Burlington. University Mall seems to have some of the more suburban tenants while many of the higher-end fashion retailers seem to have migrated towards the city’s center.

Incidentally, there used to be a third mall in the Burlington area: the curiously named Mall 189, located in South Burlington at the junction of US-7 and I-189. Anchored by a TJMaxx and housing under 200,000 square feet of floor space, it died sometime in the late 1990s. If you have information or pictures from when it was alive, I’d love to hear from you.

University Mall entrance in South Burlington, VT The Bon-Ton at University Mall in South Burlington, VT University Mall in South Burlington, VT

Center court at University Mall in South Burlington, VT University Mall in South Burlington, VT Kohl's wing at University Mall in South Burlington, VT University Mall in South Burlington, VT

Food court at University Mall in South Burlington, VT University Mall in South Burlington, VT Center court at University Mall in South Burlington, VT University Mall in South Burlington, VT

Berlin Mall; Berlin, Vermont

Berlin Mall pylon in Berlin, VT
Thanks to the long weekend, I was able to take a day trip up to Vermont to visit a few of those crazy upnorth malls. Now, going to Vermont to see malls is a bit like going to Florida to see penguins, but, hey–even Florida has Sea World!

Vermont is possibly the most rural state in the country, and it’s one of the few places left that barely has any Wal-Marts or Home Depots or things of that sort. Similarly, the state has done a fantastic job of maintaining its quaint, well-preserved downtowns packed with local character. Because of all this, it feels strange that we at Labelscar are cheerleading their malls–I actually think they’ve done an admirable job of keeping them out, thankyouverymuch. Still, I can appreciate all kinds of shopping centers and even downtown shopping districts (as we’ll be discussing in a future post about downtown Burlington), so to us, all retail districts, especially pedestrian-friendly ones, are created equal.

There are but five enclosed malls in the state of Vermont (at least that I know of) and there used to be two others that have been razed.

Exterior view of Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT
Berlin Mall is one of my favorite tiny northwoods malls. I love malls that have character, and am famously unimpressed by what I derisively classify as “skylight malls”–the generic, mid-80s-present vintage centers that are nearly identical. And Berlin Mall is most certainly not a “skylight mall,” and it does have character in spades. This is the only mall serving the twin cities of Montpelier and Barre, each of which sport a population of around 10,000 people, which still makes them among the larger cities in the state. Unlike many of these smaller malls, however, Berlin Mall does quite well. It’s well-tenanted, attractive, and both convenient and manageable, and some of the decor (those cool wooden beams!) even retains a bit of the local Vermont character. This small yet bright and optimistic mall is anchored by a Wal-Mart and JCPenney and has about 30 stores total. I do know that the Wal-Mart (one of the few in the state of Vermont) moved into the Berlin Mall in 2000; I’m not sure what was in the space previously. If you know, leave a comment!

I actually think Berlin Mall is a nice model for what small town malls and smaller suburban malls should be like: hassle free, convenient, and attractive. I don’t know why malls of this size can’t succeed in dense suburbia, where it takes a lot of time to drive two or three towns over to visit a super-regional center. It seems centers of this size would be effective community malls, offering stores that sell necessities close to home and without the hassles associated with larger malls.

Outdoor view of JCPenney entrance at Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT Exterior view Wal-Mart at Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT Exterior view of Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT

Berlin Mall JCPenney Entrance in Berlin, VT Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT Berlin Mall near Montpelier and Barre, VT

Wal-Mart entrance at Berlin Mall in Berlin, VT Berlin Mall in Montpelier/Barre, VT Berlin Mall in Montpelier/Barre, VT Center Court at Berlin Mall in Montpelier/Barre, VT