Comments on: Silver City Galleria; Taunton, Massachusetts

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:24:26 +0000

Oh, the Galleria… I have so many memories of the mall’s haydays shopping with my grandmother. She would do at least 3 laps around the behemoth on both floors. The Galleria was the place to see and be seen. The huge center court attracted a variety of venues and events. The food court is expansive and features an impressive vaulted ceiling and lighting scheme. Compared to other mall food courts, you knew this was a food court and you didn’t want to just dine and go. It was a place to socialize. You could pick from Ruby Tuesday, The Ground Round, or Bertucci’s too.

I remember the stairs too. Anyone else remember them? God, they were useful, but apparenty too many people were falling down them, so they were removed. I still say center court should have had a glass elevator. It would have completed the 90s cheese scheme and added to the grandeur of the Galleria. Now you’ve gotta treck to the offset stairs and elevator to go navigate your way to the upper level in center court…

Anchor-wise, this mall was a typical MA suburan mall. It had the essentials: Sears, JC Penney, Filene’s, Filene’s Basement, Lechmere, and Bradlees. That’s a long list of anchors! A little something for all demographics. No Lord & Taylor. No Macy*s. No Jordan Marsh. You’d have to venture up to SSP in Braintree to find those. It made sense too, SSP’s demographic region has a marginally higher household income.

As far as the mall’s demise, it has been a slippery slope for the Silver City Galleria. The mall is proving to be too much to handle for its size now. There is a particular chronic vacancy next to Filenes/Macy*s on the first floor. A random country furniture store that also happened to sell random TVs (?) and a “Shoe Dept.” store were once there, but not for long.

I’ve been proposing that they add a darn Abercrombie & Fitch there for years. The space is large enough and fits their key store shape exactly. Honestly, I think it would bring business back to the mall. The “financially-sound” Lakeville people would eat it up! Being from Freetown, I HATE having to drive all the way to SSP on 24 and then the dreaded 93 or to Emerald Square via 24/495/95/295 to go to Abercrombie & Fitch. These are 40+ minute trips with terrible traffic. The southcoast needs an Abercrombie & Fitch and Silver City is the perfect place to put it, as opposed to Dartmouth (which has actually been succesfully revived).

It seems like GGP has given up on this mall. It’s heartbreaking. A mall that once reigned supreme is dying. I’ve been away at college in Boston this past year and I went to Silver City after I came back home for the summer. What I found was an empty mall with half of its lights off after sundown! I guess they’re trying to save energy because they can’t afford it. Many stores are vacant now too. Sales are dwindling. I used to work at Hollister there and our sales were steadily declining and our shrink rising. The store might even be closing due to poor sales. The mall is being lost to the gangs and teenie-boppers that rule it now. In fact, GGP even implemented a “can’t be alone if 17 and under” policy to try to curb the violence and disruptions a few years ago. It has since been lifted, but the Galleria still is always a high-school reunion on a Friday night.

Que sera, sera…

A two word suggestion to GGP: Abercrombie & Fitch.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:03:41 +0000

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a lot of mom and pop stores, just as long as they have a manageable amount of national retailers that people want (Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, H&M, etc) then having plenty of small businesses can complement the national chains and offer even more variety.

One thing the mall may need to improve however is the way things are managed. Instead of increasing rents to make profit, maybe they should host more mall events in the central area and in turn, bring in more money and shoppers.

By: gary

gary — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:12:58 +0000

befor the mall shuts down and we loose a great mall and The one and only mall in taunton the mall management should get rid of HOLLY. OR WARN HER FOR THE KIND OF JOB SHES DOING,…TILL NOW SHE IS SUCESSFUL IN SHUTING ALMOST 3/4 STORES AND GOD KNOWS WHAT IS SHE UPTO SHUTTING DOWN THE MALL FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOME OTHER MALLS..THIS MALL IS THE ONLY WONDERFUL ATTRACTION IN TAUNTON N I BELIEVE ALL PEOPLE LIVING IN TAUNTON N EVEN CLOSE BY WILL BE SAD ON THE CONDITION THE MALL IS GOING THRU….THE MALL MANAGEMENT SHUD SEE IN THIS MATTER N WORK TOWARDS KEEPING THE MALL GOING AND ATTRACTING CUSTOMERS N STORES RATHER THAN SHUTTING DOWN N GETTING JOBLESS..

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:51:20 +0000

I have worked in the mall for years and Since the new crew came in with the new manger the mall has been on a downfall. now the mall is half empty, last to last christmas there were kiosk everywhere this year you could count them on your finger( it’s like the EX- President who came in ruined the country and is not even put into the picture the thing with them is they are still ruining it) and the rumour has it– HOLLY —- who is a sales rep –a sales rep is driving people out of the mall… A CONVIENCE store left the mall as the SALES REP raised the rent on them…. AS they refeused and left she didnt even go back and stop them… I MEAN WHERE IS MALL MANGER SHOULDNT HE BE DOING ALL THIS STUFF NOT THE SALES REP.. even the people i know in the mall are very unhappy with her… they basically hate her and have asked GGP to fire but there was no answer.. SHE WAS ACTUALLY FIRED FROM CHICAGO DUE TO SIMILAR HABBITS –SHE WAS MANGER THERE, BUT HAS TRANSFERING HER HERE IN TO A SALES REP HELPED —- nope she still thinks she has every authority to harrass the people in the mall.. HER JOB IS TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS AND ATTRACT TENANTS TO THE MALL– THAT WHAT A SALES REP IS NOT GOING AROUND AND TELLING PEOPLE YOUR RENT IS GOING BE RAISED NEXT MONTH—

I HOPE THIS COMMENT IS READ BY AN AUTHORITY AND THEY TAKE ACTION AGAINST HER IF THEY DON’T WANT THE MALL TO BE SHUT DOWN..

By: Robert Stevens

Robert Stevens — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:23:53 +0000

I also remember that killing that took place on 9/11/04 between 7Fox and at the time TJMaxx (now Best Buy), although the perps are jailed, still there are a lot of issues with kids and gangs on Friday and Saturday Nights mainly, and yes, the vacancy is another issue, the administration will have to do something to reattract new tenants to improve clientele or the mall will have to dissapate. Also, in terms of designation, the Silver City Galleria was also designed like the Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland Montgomery County, it is very similar in appearance, I think Pyramid also ran Lakeforest in Gaithersburg Maryland before CPI (Corporate Property Investors) took it over in the mid-90s

By: pheonix

pheonix — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:21:20 +0000

The Silver City Galleria has been going downhill for a while now. I have been a retail manager since the 90’s and at the Galleria for the past 10 years and have seen the changes that have occured here. The new management is atrocious. The members of the management staff that did care about the mall have left. The marketing manager and the old operations manager have left the mall and it has been even worse since then. If you leave a message with the mall office now you can expect that you will never get a call back. The current members of the management team are non existent and this mall is on its last breath. Let’s not forget about the homicide that happened there a few years ago either. This mall needs life support and fast…

By: sherry

sherry — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:21:39 +0000

this mall staff needs to go…n some beter staff should takeover…i rent a store n i m fed up requesting the staff to change mall hr’s…as it sooooo sooo dead i just pay employes bcoz of the stupid odd hr’s…all other mall already did change the timing accept this is the onli mall in whole boston having so long hr’s…when staff turn deaf ears towards you so they dont deserve the position…since the time they changed the manegement its geting worst day by day…new manegementis worthless..mall is going bankrupsy due to staff not running it…anwering the call or returning ur call is somting they never are taught..they need to do their homework…go back to school…i m sick n tired of this replaced staff…..plz GGP do somting….plz

By: bush

bush — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:32:42 +0000

i was a frequent visitor at this mall,but now i have stopped coming;;…..
instead, i m driving to boston n visit malls ter.SILVERCITY have nothing
to attract ppl’s interst..no more stores to let ppl in…even the stores that exits there,…are fedup with the staff…office staff just keep poking their nose in ppl’s stores, Renter’s are waiting/hoping for a new and beter staff for the improvement of the mall….as the time changes renters are too waiting for good,decent,flexible,relaxed staff….

By: mckenzie

mckenzie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:14:09 +0000

As a former teenage mall rat, this mall has gone through some drastic changes over the past few years. It has a lot of mom and pop stores. Example a store dedicated to selling tupperware. Steve and barrys is gone. And when filenes switched to macys a lot of people lost intrest in shopping here. There are a handful of stores that used to be here that were great that have left. Sam goodys, gadzooks, filenes basement, wet seal, to name a few. Now there’s a lot of vacancies. If this mall is ever gonna survive it needs to start adding stores to attract customers again.

By: david

david — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:20:08 +0000

i am a frequent visitor of this mall n i love this mall.this mall has everything a perfect mall should ever want,and to add somthing more this mall is doing great other than all the malls in chicago and i think even in tauton,only thing i want to say is the mall security should take good interest in their jobs and c that alls well,the mall people should become more strict to maintain this situation and i m sure they will make a success.wishhing all the luck.its a complete american mall.HAIL AMERICA.