What's the future of shopping malls? Steeplegate to get extreme makeover
Sep. 16—For more than a half-century, shopping malls were the centerpiece of modern Americana, luring people from downtown shopping districts to chain stores galore.
Then changes in buying habits, store closings and increased competition started to take its toll.
The Steeplegate Mall in Concord opened to much fanfare in 1990, but over time key tenants left, and the mall turned over to the mortgage holder before being sold in 2016. Now 33 years after its opening, a developer wants to tear most of it down for a mixed-use redevelopment project with apartments, offices and shops.
These open-air developments — such as Tuscan Village in Salem — have proven to be popular as many traditional interior malls have fallen out of favor.
Tim Sink, president and CEO of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, said Steeplegate was once the city's biggest taxpayer. Now it is a shell of its former self.
"At one point it was a very vibrant piece of property," he said. "The decline began 15 to 20 years ago. It was very slow at first."
Steeplegate Mall, which cost $40 million at the time to build, opened with four anchor stores — Sears, JCPenney, Sage-Allen and Steinbach department stores.
Bon-Ton department store arrived later but went bankrupt and closed in 2018. Sears followed a year later.
"Once stores — particularly the anchor stores like Sears and Bon-Ton — start leaving, then it becomes hard for the remaining stores to get the type of traffic that they need," Sink said.
The 62,000-square-foot JCPenney will remain and be incorporated into the development, according to plans.
In 2014, Bloomberg News wrote a 1,100-word feature on the dying Steeplegate Mall. By that time, locals had nicknamed it "Sleepygate."
Other malls in the region are also looking for ways to reinvent themselves.
The Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem opened shortly after Steeplegate, in August 1991, with 131 stores. In recent years, the mall lost anchor stores Lord & Taylor and Sears and now faces competition from Tuscan Village across the street.
Torrington Properties bought the Mall at Fox Run in Newington in November 2022. The 250,000-square-foot mall is home to more than 60 stores. The Sears space, also owned by Torrington, remains vacant after the store closed in 2018.
The Great Recession hit some malls hard, and others shouldn't have been built in the first place, said Mark Cohen, director of retail studies and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.
"There was a ton of square footage built," he said. "The whole 'build-it-and-they-will-come' model worked for a while. But online shopping and other options came along, and customers were no longer tied to their local mall."
The "super-regional malls" with five or six anchor stores and low vacancy continue to do well.
"They are still a destination," he said.
'New life'
Plans to open a charitable gaming casino at the site of the former Sears at the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua were approved by the Nashua Planning Board two weeks ago. The Sears space sat vacant since the retailer closed at the end of 2020.
Planning board member Larry Hirsch said the new use will bring "new life to the mall with just the sheer number of bodies going into the property there."
The casino — to be called "The Mint" — plans to invest about $250 million in the project, between purchasing The Lucky Moose and The River casinos for their licenses and building out the Sears space, according to a company spokesperson.
Across the street from the Pheasant Lane Mall, a struggling plaza in Tyngsborough, Mass., once home to T.J. Maxx and Trader Joe's, is being redeveloped with a keener focus on entertainment.
Developer Sam Park hopes to transform the 178,550-square-foot plaza into a "meet, greet and eat" destination, which will include entertainment, restaurants and other service-oriented businesses. Typically, retailers at the location have ended up moving across the border to sales-tax-free New Hampshire.
Player One Entertainment will bring bowling, ax throwing and other entertainment options to the development, called "The 440." The Tavern in the Square restaurant opened in February.
Unlike Steeplegate's developer, Park did not seek to add housing.
"I think there are other options where housing is better-suited," he said. "You don't want to waste a good interstate location like this. This is an ideal commercial property."
Housing in the mall mix
The Steeplegate Mall project is being developed by Onyx Partners in Needham, Mass. The interior of the mall was closed in 2022 by present owner Namdar Realty Group.
The plans call for between 478 and 625 apartments across five buildings, along with 392,000 square feet of retail. The largest retail building in the plans is 173,000 square feet.
Onyx recently got approvals for similar plans at the Eastfield Mall in Springfield, Mass. That project likely will cost between $65 and $85 million, according to media reports.
Sink said the housing is much needed because of low housing inventory across the entire state.
"A mixed-use property is probably much more appropriate for that location," he said.
Torrington is studying similar developments across the country in hopes of making the Mall at Fox Run and Newington Park Shopping Center a mixed-use community destination that would potentially include other commercial uses like office, entertainment and a hotel, according to a news release.
The space had some unique tenants, including Seacoast Cars & Coffee and the Fox Run Dance Hall. The Spinoso Real Estate Group, which managed the property under the previous ownership, will continue to seek new tenants.
Torrington CEO Jay Bisognano said in a statement the company will work with consultants to study innovative ideas from across the country.
"The Mall at Fox Run is a storied regional property with the potential to once again become a high-traffic, vibrant destination," he said.
Holding strong
At the Mall of New Hampshire, Dick's Sporting Goods and Dave & Buster's sports bar and arcade opened after the former Sears was divided into smaller spaces. Aloha Mini Glow Golf opened fairly soon after Olympia Sports closed.
The mall's anchor stores are Best Buy, JCPenney and Macy's.
The Manchester mall is one of the most successful in the Simon Properties portfolios, according to Erik Lesniak, business liaison with Manchester's Economic Development Office. The mall has drawn a mix of both national retailers and mom-and-pop shops, and most of the spots are filled.
Many of the shops have a strong local following, such as the Manchester Craft Market.
"They actually have a waitlist there, which is interesting," Les-niak said.
The shops have a "deeply rooted following," he said.
The Dick's at the Mall at Rockingham Park soon will undergo a transformation to Dick's House of Sport, which will feature batting cages, a rock climbing wall and an artificial turf field with a track in the parking lot. Dick's opened on the top floor of the former Sears in 2015.
Programs will include sports clinics, yoga classes and birthday parties.
Sears closed in 2018, and Lord & Taylor closed in 2020.
Dick's will operate out of the old Lord & Taylor spot for about a year as part of the renovation.
