5 New Hampshire Malls That Don’t Exist Anymore
Take a trip down memory lane to some malls in New Hampshire that have long since closed down.
It is hard to imagine a bustling mall ever being empty nowadays, but there are many American malls that didn't quite make the cut.
Deadmall.com looks at these barren retail spaces and tries to find the history behind the empty storefronts. The "retail historians" look at not only the malls themselves, but the community and local economy around them to discovered what happened to them.
Here are Five Dead Malls in New Hampshire That Don't Exist Anymore
This used to be the big mall for tax free shopping in Nashua. It had Woolco and Almy's as anchors. Later a Montgomery Ward would be built behind the mall. A Child World was built next to the mall. There was a 4 screen movie theater across the parking lot. The mall had lots of small stores including national tenants such as Fanny Farmer, Orange Julius and a Hallmark store. Eventually Almy's was closed and replaced with Burlington Coat Factory, and Woolco closed and was replaced with Bradlees. Montgomery Ward closed and was replaced by Ames. In the past few years the mall has slowly been redeveloped. First, the former Child World area was demolished and replaced by Nashua's second Home Depot store. The Bradlees closed and was replaced by Kohl's and the mall entrance was sealed. The movie theater was demolished to make way for a Bugaboo Creek and a Wendy's. Half of the mall was then sealed to make way for a new Christmas Tree Shops store. Not soon after the rest of the mall was closed to make an LL Bean outlet and Babies R Us.
This mall lasted for a very long time, however its demise made perfect sense. This fairly small mall was nothing in comparison to the 2 floor Pheasant Lane Mall, which was anchored by Jordan Marsh, Filene's, Sears, JCPenney, and Lechmere, and that mall was even closer to the Massachusetts border, gaining more people taking advantage of lack of sales tax in New Hampshire. Today, the mall has been renamed Nashua Mall Power Center and is a very successful redevelopment of a tired retail property.
The only enclosed mall in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. This mall was originally anchored by Zayre and Shaw’s An addition to the mall was completed in the late 80’s which housed a new larger Zayre store. In the early 90’s Zayre became Ames. Decelle moved into the old Zayre store. This was the best time for the mall. It had lots of stores including national retailers like Record Town, Foot Locker, CVS, and Radio Shack, as well local retailers. In the mid 90’s Decelle closed and the space became Blockbuster Video.
In 2002, Ames closed along with the rest of the chain. Many of the smaller stores in the mall left with the loss of its major anchor store. The malls owners used this opportunity to renovate the mall to try and attract new tenants. The stores on the side of the mall facing route 3 were given both mall entrances and exterior entrances. Finally, new tenants began to move in like a Pet store and Sal’s Pizza. The former Ames was divided and the part with the mall entrance became New Hampshire’s first Peebles department store. The other half of the store, with no mall entrance, became a Big Lots store. The KB Toy Works in the parking lot also closed since then.
Today the mall has Shaw’s and Peebles as anchors. The mall from the outside appears healthy; however the stores inside that lack outside entrances are largely vacant or taken by non-traditional tenants including the registry of Motor Vehicles office.
The Royal Ridge Mall is probably best comparable to the old Nashua Mall. It was a single story mall just a little smaller, I think, than the Nashua Mall, and it felt smaller as it had a low ceiling. It was a tough location for the mall as it had the larger 2-story Pheasant Lane Mall just down the street, and it was located in Nashua's South End retailing district. I can remember as a little kid going into that mall and it was never all that busy, but there weren't many empty spaces in the place.
Things went quickly as many of the little stores closed up shop in the mid-1990s. The mall had three anchors, one which was a supermarket that is still on site today (changed hands since then), though never part of the indoor mall. Marshalls was the southern anchor, which is still there. Ames was the northern anchor. That section was divided when the Sports Authority and PetsMart moved in there, they had no mall access. The mall was gutted and rebuilt as a shopping center, becoming the Royal Ridge Center.
The design of the plaza still hints at its days of a mall. There are two towers in the fascade, the northern one marks the spot of the entrance at that end of the building. It can be seen in the photos. Also, looking at local.live.com bird's eye view of the building, it appears the roof-line still retains its mall characteristic. I also think that when the building was rebuilt, Marshalls gained a little more space by expanding into what was once the mall area. Their entrance also moved.
The Newington Mall was a modern mall of 480,000 square feet, located in the middle of everything and near highways in tax-free New Hampshire. It had 4 anchor stores, a large parking lot with other businesses including two restaurants. The mall thrived but by 1983, a new and bigger mall opened a few yards away, the Fox Run Mall That mall had more stores and had strong anchors: Sears, JC Penney, Filene's and Jordan Marsh. This would become one of the problems the mall faced through the years.
The Newington Mall mall opened in the 70's and was anchored by Montgomery Ward, J.M.Fields, a supermarket (probably Food Fair) and a Value Store. McDonald's and Bickford's Family Fare were located in the parking lot. In the late 70's, Bradlees replaced J.M.Fields and Shaw's supermarket opened in the former grocery store. Porteous replaced the Value store around that same time. For years, the Newington Mall co-existed with it's new larger neighbor. Each had their own style and array of stores. Toys ?r? us opened at the mall in a separate building in the mid 80's. At it's peak, the mall had up to 70 stores.
The mall and the region suffered when the nearby Pease Air Force base closed. In 1991, Shaw's moved to another shopping center. The space remained vacant for years. Several small stores in the mall also closed down during that period. Many national chains had stores at both malls in Newington. During that hard time, companies decided to keep open the ones at the healthier mall... In 1992, Porteous closed it's doors, leaving another large anchor space vacant. By then, the mall was almost completely vacant. In 1995, mall officials told the remaining half-dozen tenants to leave the dead mall. Bradlees and Montgomery Ward were the only stores left along with the ones outparcel.
Plans were made for a new shopping center that would be located between the two anchors. In november 1995, a proposal was made to demolish and redesign the vacant mall. As planned, a new strip of stores was built between the two department stores. The redeveloped strip plaza was renamed ?The Crossing at Fox Run?. It started slowly in 1997 with MVP Sports and Bed & Bath. In october 1997, Montgomery Ward closed along with 48 other stores nationwide. The store was torn down in spring 1998.
Michaels Crafts opened in the fall of 1998 and Best Buy opened in the new section located on the former Ward site. Barnes & Noble joined Best Buy in the rebuilt space in 1999. Finally, Old Navy opened in the last available section of the former Montgomery Ward space in 2000. By the end of that year, Bradlees announced it would close. Kohl's quickly replaced Bradlees in an expanded store and the center lost the last big piece of it's past. Bed & Bath did not lasted and MVP Sports, renamed Decathlon, closed in 2003.
The power center now features Dick's Sporting Goods, LongHorn steakhouse, IHOP, Pet Quarters, a 15-screen Cinema and Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. The remaining Sullivan Tire store looks lost in that modern power center near Kohl's. Now that Bickford's has closed, it's one of the last piece of the defunct Newington Mall.
The Bedford Mall, nestled in the corner of the interchange with I-293 and N.H. State Route 101, is in a high traffic area and was once a bustling little mall. I haven’t been able to find when the mall opened, but when the movie theater closed in 2007 it celebrated 45 years of business. This puts the mall at an opening of 1962-63.
The only times I’ve been in the area of the Bedford Mall is either passing it on the highway or visiting the Caldor that was across the street. I can only piece together information from recent articles in the Union Leader and from information available across the internet to tell the story of the Bedford Mall.
For the southern anchor, Labelscar.com notes that WT Grant was the original anchor. Following that store, it was occupied by Montgomery Ward. When Wards closed its stores in 1997, it was partially filled by Linens 'n Things. Bob's Stores came later filling in the remainder. The way the Wards space was divided, Linens ‘n Things retained the half with the mall entrance, while Bob’s location was only accessible from outside.
Labelscar.com also notes that the northern tenant was originally Purity, later Alexandria's Supermarket until 1991 when it was purchased by Hannaford’s. More recently it was MVP Sports, which was purchased by Decathlon in 1999. With an altered business plan all but four Massachusetts stores were closed in 2003 (they had 20 stores before the cutback). Eventually they closed those four stores in December of 2006.
Hoyt's Cinema was the mall's movie theater (7 screens), later coming under the name Regal Cinemas in 2003. The theater closed in 2007 handing a blow to the already sliding mall. The older theater couldn't compete with the new more modern ones recently built in Merrimack and Hooksett.
From the February 20, 2009 Union Leader article titled "Major reconstruction planned for Bedford Mall", it states that "Kohl's is moving in as most of the Bedford Mall will be torn down and rebuilt, according to a proposal that will be presented Monday to the town planning board. After the redevelopment, the Bedford Mall would no longer be a mall." The plan, the article states, is that Staples will remain a tenant but moved to another part of the development, Marshall’s will move next to Bob's, thus leaving the southern anchor store intact.
According to the Union Leader's February 2009 article, the vacancy rate was at 60%.
It should be noted that the Mall of New Hampshire, over in Manchester, is two miles away and also located on I-293; perhaps contributing to the decline of the Bedford Mall.
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