Rotterdam Square; Rotterdam (Schenectady), New York
The western flank of the Capital Region of New York is home to two enclosed malls, and originally there was three. Of these, one is the tiny–and not really functional–Amsterdam Mall in Amsterdam, in an area that resides somewhat outside of the metropolitan area. There were two other malls serving the Schenectady area: the Mohawk Mall, an atrociously frightening grey structure that served the city’s east side and which was demolished in 2000 or 2001, and Rotterdam Square, which sits just to the west of downtown, near the city’s massive GE Plant.
Rotterdam Square is a relatively typical mid-sized, mid-tier shopping mall, although I’ve always felt it was pretty neat. Like most of the malls around Albany, it has a massive (nearly Olympic-sized!) swimming pool, it has retained lots of in-mall planters, and it has a Sears with a red logo–a true rarity.
The 900,000 sqft Rotterdam Square is owned by the Macerich Company, the same management firm responsible for Wilton Mall, and sports Sears, TJMaxx, Sony-Loew’s Cinemas, Macy’s, and Kmart as anchors. From what I’ve been able to glean, this roster has been mostly static since the mall’s opening (at a date I can’t quite pin down, but I would estimate at the early to mid 1980s), with one notable exception. The current Macy’s space had been a Filene’s until the May-Federated merger, and prior to 1995 was a Hess’s department store.
Like Wilton Mall, Rotterdam Square seems to mostly get by due to its relative isolation from the region’s two powerhouse malls: Crossgates Mall and Colonie Center.
Max
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 am
Was this mall originally owned by Wilmorite? I ask that because its interior sort of looks like the Danbury Fair Mall and the Freehold Raceway mall.
It seems somewhat rare for a Kmart to actually have an entrance that opens up into the mall.
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Mickey
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 am
Yes, this was originally a Wilmorite property, as was the mentioned Wilton Mall.
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XISMZERO
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:57 am
Enormous center court fountain? Brown-tile lined planters? You know it had to be a Wilmorite now Macerich! Which probably means all of the above will soon be scrapped for a radical renovation plan.
This is interesting to bring up that this was in fact a Wilmorite. Appearently, it had a unique foodcourt carousel, like many other Wilmorite-builts but like it’s current ownership, all of their past is being turned upsidedown and it was removed just recently.
K-Mart seems a little outer realm here at this mall… well being it’s upstate, kind of says it by itself. The ceilings look like they saw the face of a harsh sterilization of the 2000s.
Nice shot of the Macy’s court area too. It’s also kind of a treat you happened to hit this mall at dark; perfect time to see the red Sears logo. Those are rare, but there’s another known red logo’d Sears; over at the Great Northern Mall in Clay.
Do we know when the mall was built? I’d say early-to-mid 1980’s, for the conception and likeness of other of their malls built around this time.
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Bobby
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Found the opening date: 1980.
http://sec.edgar-online.com/2006/03/09/0001047469-06-003117/Section13.asp
Scroll down until you see “Rotterdam Square”.
By the way, was there ever something else where TJ Maxx is? It looks like it gobbled up a bunch of smaller stores.
Also, note that the mall has a cemetery. Check Wikipedia’s entry.
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XISMZERO
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Early 1980s? That explains the chunky transition red logo for Sears. They finally phased their red thin all-caps logo by ‘84 so this could’ve been a rare conceptual one segwaying into the widely known blue version presented in the 80s.
I just realized this mall most likely benefitted greatly when the Sears-K merger occurred.
Speaking of Sears, if any of you live in/near Connecticut, get down to West Haven to see a vintage thin red Sears logo on the Appliance/Service Center down on the Milford line (near the mall). When I saw it, I nearly drove off the highway… through the barrier… You can see the logo right off I-95…
Would’ve secured a picture but I couldn’t find it and I was cramped for time then…
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Matt from WI
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
By ‘thin-lettered’ logo, I’ll take you mean the old ‘Times Roman’ (not the same font, but it’s close enough) logo we always used to see prior to 1984. From what I remember, Sears debuted the new logo on their 1984 Wish Book. That was the first time I seen it.
Thing is, older stores never really updated their sign package until starting in 1995-1996. Before then, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, you could clearly tell which stores were outdated and which ones were built from 1985 onwards.
For my neck of the woods, these signs were not red…must have been a rare color. They were blue…at least for the mall interior entrances to the stores.
The pic of that fountain just reminds me how much I miss seeing them in malls.
A K-mart anchoring a mall in the New England region is rare.
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Jack Thomas
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Actually, Wilmorite opened up Rotterdam Square in 1988, same year as Great Northern, so that would explain both Sears stores having the red logo like that.
It’s a shame the carousel was removed. Also, the TJMaxx store indeed took up smaller stores, as well as a mall hallway/entrance.
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XISMZERO
March 25th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Yes, I was reffering to the classic thin red logo used widely in the 70s and early 80s. I also remember last seeing it on the Sears at Corbins Corner in West Hartford, CT which they finally took down sometime in the mid-90’s replacing it for 1984-debuted one. That logo still dons itself on an appliance center in West Haven, CT.
The chunky all-caps logo which debuted in 1984 appears to be one of Sears longest used logos and was recently phased for a lowercased version today as we all know. I don’t see most stores getting the lowercased version anytime soon, so those, albeit their newest logo, is rare as well as far as channel signage goes. I’ll surmise the thicker red version was a short-lived prototype as is the equally rare dominate white logo which appears to have been used in the early 1990’s.
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Steven Swain
March 25th, 2007 at 6:25 am
The ‘84 Sears logo came in all sorts of colors at first, usually to match the mall’s color scheme, and occasionally to match the architecture of the store. Sears didn’t standardize the colors until they did the “softer side” and even then there are some interesting relics that weren’t changed.
I was just at a Sears in Christiansburg, Virginia, opened in 1988, that never had its brown exterior signs changed or even a re-tiling at the entrance, much less changing out the old white mall sign for a new blue one.
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Mark
May 25th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Sears logo looks actually looks good in red!
I’m getting tired of the blue already,red for Sears!
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Jonah N.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I emailed the mall. Here’s my original message:
Hi, I have a few questions about Rotterdam Square Mall. I recently
read http://www.labelscar.com/new-york/rotterdam-square and from what
I read, the place looks and sounds pretty neat. However, I have a
question. The author of the blog entry wrote that the mall has a
“massive (nearly Olympic-sized!) swimming pool”. Is this true? Do you
have any pictures? Another thing is that the pictures proved the Kmart
is a Big Kmart, however the website reads that it is a regular Kmart.
Thanks
——
…and got back:
——
It’s a large pool-type fountain, but is only about 3 and a half feet at
its deepest. With sitting areas around the outside. The K-Mart is about
87K sf and it’s titled as a regular K-Mart.
——-
So, did the Super Kmart become a regular Kmart somehow?
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Derek
October 11th, 2007 at 10:20 am
This mall wasn’t built until 1987 or 1988.
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Mike
February 18th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
The mall was planned by Wilmorite since the late 1970s, but there was ferocious opposition in Schenectady County because:
1. the mall would be built on or near an aquifer that supplies much of the region’s drinking water. It was feared that the mall would damage or pollute the aquifer.
2. millions of federal and state dollars were being spent (successfully, for a time) to lure merchants to Canal Square in downtown Schenectady, which had suffered severely since Mohawk Mall was opened in 1970. It was feared that a second mall, in Rotterdam near downtown Schenectady, would doom downtown Schenectady as a viable retail destination.
Wilmorite fought legal battles for years, well into the 1980s and long past the planned opening date, before construction finally began.
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