Burlington Town Center; Burlington, Vermont
As 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.
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:
Pictures of the Church Street Mall:
Max
May 6th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
It’s amazing that Burlington can have a thriving downtown retail district when so many larger cities continue to have struggling downtowns. Perhaps the reason for this–as you said–is that Vermont still cherishes its downtowns. Also, like the other malls in Vermont, the Burlington Town Center has a nice “rustic” theme to it.
Caldor, in your post about the Berlin Mall, you mentioned that you were aware of just five malls in Vermont currently still open. Three of these malls–Berlin Mall, Burlington Town Center, and University Mall–have been discussed on this blog. Wikipedia mentions a fourth mall–the Diamond Run Mall in Rutland–that is anchored by JCPenney, Kmart, and Sears. Just out of curiosity, what (and where) is the fifth mall?
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Bobby
May 6th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
That would be Green Mountain Mall in St. Johnsbury. http://www.greenmtmall.com/
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Bobby
May 6th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
By the way, Old Navy closed.
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Jonah N.
June 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Old Navy closed? After so much work? What next, a Burlington Coat Factory? (bad joke!)
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Jen
June 30th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Old Navy is not closed. At least it wasn’t the weekend of June 2-3, 2007.
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Goosie
July 11th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Old Navy is not closed. I walk past it everyday.. trust me, it’s not going anywhere.
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Kev
August 12th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Old Navy was very much open during my most recent visit in June of this year (2008). The Town Center has plenty of space for future growth (that’s the optimist’s way of saying that there are more than a few empty parcels), but I could see how businesses that wanted to locate downtown might prefer to be in the Church Street Marketplace itself rather than the indoor mall. (The mall does include a good-sized parking garage, and, with parking near Church Street at a premium, its foot traffic is increased by people walking through the mall to get from their cars to the street.)
I think the reason that Burlington works is because of the Marketplace. Closing off four blocks of Church Street to all but pedestrian traffic in the early ’80s was a stroke of genius. It allows the local restaurants and cafes to have extensive sidewalk seating during the busy summer tourism season, as well as providing space for street performers, musical concerts (during the popular Burlington Discover Jazz Festival and other similar events) and a great place for people to just hang out. (Can you tell I’m a fan of this place?)
The interesting thing is how many cities have to build New Urbanist “lifestyle center” projects to even come close to approximate Church Street. In Burlington, there’s no need for New Urbanism, because Old Urbanism is working so well.
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AceJay
August 12th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Hm, does anyone have any info on the old Mount Washington Mall in North Conway, NH? All I know is that it used to be Kmart, the Hannaford with no mall entrance, JCP, and the theatres…Since then it’s been mostly demalled and they put a Lowe’s Home Improvement there, and kept the Theatres inside the tiny remnant of the mall, and JCP built a new store from scratch that resembles a KOHL’s format.
Anyone got old photos from there?
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Eric
August 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
The mall in north Conway was a real gem. I grew up in Berlin nh during the 90s and can remember well our trips there. I wish someone could dig up some old shots of the place during its downward spiral because at times it was so quiet and empty it sorta felt haunted.
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nlpnt
November 9th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
IIRC the only empty space left in the mall is the former Waldenbooks (which was doomed as soon as Borders opened on the corner of Church and Cherry); it hung on for about two years before corporate pulled the plug and repoened as a calendar-only satellite for a month or so the next year.
I remember the pet shop that was at one end of the Burlington Square Mall in the late ’70s; as a little kid I liked to go into the blacklit room where the fish were and watch the orange fish swim among blue rocks…and if I was REALLY good there’d be ice cream on the way home (from the original Ben & Jerry’s a couple blocks south of the mall)
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Mark
November 13th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Heres a history lesson for you all. The Town Center Used to Be Called The Burlington Square Mall When i was a child. The place where the mall is located was the site of a major fire in the late 70’s. I can remember my dad taking me there watching the fire and the trucks at night. There was JC Pennys there and the old woolworths was a good store.My Dad worked for a construction company on 101 main st (Old Armory) And he was the super on the mall project.
In the other post about the Unversity Mall, I remember it being built. I used to go through the job site and pick up empty soda bottles the workers left.
My Dads company he worked for even paid me 3.00 hr plus i got to Cash in the bottles.
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