Comments on: Mall of New Hampshire; Manchester, New Hampshire

By: Amy G-P

Amy G-P — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:58:02 +0000

When I worked in the Mall of NH – a long time ago, when it was still shaped vaguely T-ish and Lechmere, Filenes and Sears were the anchors – it was for a small shop that was part of a regional chain. We had no back door to the big wide world. Most of our deliveries came from the wholesale side of our chain, and we had UPS pick-up stuff we were sending to customers and now and again they brought us a couple of parcels. Deliveries happened during mall hours, but very early before most people can be bothered to be walking around a mall.
Our trash went out via the mall too.
I also worked in the food court before that and at least that side of the food court had a shared hallway that lead by all the other back doors and to the dumpsters. The hallway was dark, creepy and thanks to one of the restaurants (now long gone), very, very disgusting. Man I hated dumpster duty!
Oh yeah, and I worked for another store, briefly, and they had their own back door. It lead in oxygen which was marvelous.
All that working at the mall….no wonder I moved far away and no longer work retail!

By: gordon

gordon — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:46:17 +0000

I never go to this mall because I live north of concord and any midrange item I want, I can get in concord and anything else I might want would be best purchased in Salem. One of my favorite moments in this mall was when there was a $1200 chair placed near the entry to Macy*s. Everyone walked by it looked at the price and dropped an F-bomb. Viva Manchvegas!

By: SP

SP — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:07:30 +0000

Just got back from another trip to the mall. It was packed with people(with the anticipated snowstorm coming people are going crazy),the only real change i can comment on is The Walking Company had “this store is closing” signs in the windows but not really the big “12 days left!everything must go!” signs like most stores usually go when they are going out.

Also,in my above post i noted that last time i was there DQ/Orange Julius was empty..well it now looks like they are just renovating as a construction wall is up and saying DQ/Orange Julius was coming soon.

By: SP

SP — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:30:50 +0000

Just got back from the Mall of New Hampshire and it is definitely holiday season with all the temporary stores. I talked to the worker at “sports stop” for a few minutes and he was telling me about how their lease works. They currently are in the 7,000squre foot space once occupied by Finish Line. He said they used to be in the 2,000 square foot space that was once Gadzooks but the mall asked them to move into the bigger store. He said the wall works out a deal with them on the rent. No way sports stop needs that big of a store but I guess MGMT wanted them to occupy it.

There were only two vacancies in the mall-the citizens bank closed their branch behind verizon and DQ/Orange Julius is gone from the foodcourt.

Hard to tell what many of the temporary stores used to be. The Christmas store used to be discovery channel store and a sanrio used to be a jewelry store.

My guess is come Jan/Feb this mall will return to having 8 or 9 vacancies with the Plaster store,”Itz a puzzle”,ect. closing up.The Plaster place looked to be in an old clothing store(G&G or Rave maybe) and Itz a puzzle was in a store that was obviously a clothing store but i have no idea what store it was–located next to the old prints plus..

Glad to see Best Buy Mobile and Zummiez open in the mall but they are going to need a few more stores to open up that won’t only stay for a few months.

Not sure if this helps anyone who is a fan of the mall just thought since i have viewed this site for awhile I would finally post something on it.

By: jj

jj — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:52:31 +0000

Living in a small town north of Concord, when the Mall of NH opened in 1977, it was like NH finally joined the 20th century shopping trends we only read about. The mall had a HUGE record store (Musicsmith?) that I loved to waste time in, but only cautiously made purchases there. Their prices were UNGODLY at the time, essentially at list price! They did have great cut-outs (budget) stuff however. Sears had a Ticketron outlet at their customer service – I can remember buying tickets for shows there. The last time I went there, it was an INCREDIBLE hassle just to get into the parking lot – all the traffic lights are just a PITA. They ABSOLUTELY need to prevent Wal-mart opening a store and further contributing to the traffic problems in the area.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:35:15 +0000

Yes, this mall is fairly claustrophobic in person. It’s also fairly dead, even before the economic meltdown. For me, the big plus is the preschooler playplace in the food court. When it’s -10 outside and my girls are driving me insane, I know I can force them to walk the mall to look at things I wish I could afford (it’s not an expensive place, but…), and they’ll behave, because if they don’t they don’t get to play. Of course, many of the malls in the area are building or already have these play spots, so if I need something at a store MoNH doesn’t have (a common occurrence), I have other options.

I do have a question, though. I’ve worked in mall retail before, so I sort of know how things work. Even the small store I worked for sometimes had “shipment” of 30-50 boxes of merchandise in a day. I know the inner “ring” of this mall is all smaller stores, but I cannot figure out how these stores get their boxes! Yes, UPS and FedEx are often carting stuff around inside, but never more than a “normal mall amount”, and I’ve driven the perimeter many times without seeing any sort of truck tunnel (maybe out back between JCP and BBY?). One of the malls I worked at had some wierd underground backrooms (Northshore in Peabody, MA), and there was a gigantic and obvious truck tunnel- our store’s shipment’s came through there. Any insight on this? Anyone? Come on! Some bigger stores are on the inner ring here, including Limited and abercrombie. They must get more than a couple boxes at once!

By: JF

JF — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:50:42 +0000

The Mall of New Hampshire is a WONDERFUL place to fall asleep. There are many empty spaces, and the very few retailers that have been added is certainly not worth a special trip. The entire South Willow Street shopping area in Manchester was so poorly planned from the start; every single retail strip mall in Manchester seemed to move out there, with car dealers, gas stations, strip malls, and industrial parks all jammed together amongst a maze of traffic lights. But with all the lights you have to sit through, and all the time it takes to get from Elm Street Downtown (another sleepy place) to the mall, there’s nothing on South Willow Street that’s worth the wait. It’s tired, old, and UGLY. Now, Wal Mart wants to build a Supercenter not far from the mall, on Gold Street, a street that opens up into a residential area, that already has way too much traffic passing by private homes. The thought of putting even more traffic there is a disgrace. But from what I’ve seen and experienced there, I don’t see much in the way of city planning in Manchester. I think that when this mall was first built, it attracted more shoppers from Massachusetts, who helped support it, but with the much nicer Rockingham Park Mall closer to the border, much of the population base has shifted, and Manchester’s metro area is too small to bring in the higher-end stores that are moving (albeit slowly) into Rockingham Park and the Maine Mall in South Portland. I visit the mall fairly often to walk, and I have close friends in Manchester who NEVER go, but the walking part is good, because fewer and fewer people are there. The mall, and the whole South Willow Street nightmare, needs to be razed and built again; this time with people who understand urban landscaping and planning. For me, Mall of New Hampshire is not worth a visit.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:14:49 +0000

I think this mall lost business at one point from the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua – which was just over the border of New Hampshire – NH is a sales tax free state and when I lived in Mass in the 1980’s I would buy anything I could that was expensive up there.

By: Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D)

Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:34:38 +0000

Based on the aerial photo (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Mall+of+New+Hampshire&sll=42.956481,-71.4317&sspn=0.002191,0.004678&ie=UTF8&radius=0.12&rq=1&ll=42.955484,-71.431502&spn=0.002191,0.004678&t=h&z=18) it looks like the old Filene’s was totally razed.

By: Ken Reid

Ken Reid — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:48:44 +0000

The Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, MA, the Square One Mall in Saugus, MA (I’d like to see articles on those) both have Best Buy stores that open into the Malls.