Steeplegate Mall is an enclosed

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that ...

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, United States. Opened in 1990, it has struggled with high vacancy rates throughout its existence. Its largest retailer is

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gi ...

, the only traditional store left alongside Talbots and Chico's. It also features a live theater that opened in 2016, a

trampoline park A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched between a steel frame using many coiled springs. Not all trampolines have springs, as the Springfree Trampoline uses glass-reinforced plastic rods. People bounce on ...

that opened in 2018, and a

health club A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health s ...

that opened in 2019. The mall opened with four large retail anchor stores, a

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. ...

with a mosaic, and room for about 62 storefronts, depending on layout. Following the interior's closure on April 22, 2022, after the mall's owners evicted the few remaining interior-only businesses for a potential overhaul, only six businesses with exterior entrances are open.

History

The mall opened August 1, 1990, with

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

, JCPenney,

Sage-Allen Sage-Allen was a mid-market department store chain based in Hartford, Connecticut. The store was a fixture in southern New England and anchored a number of smaller local and regional shopping centers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and, later, Ne ...

and Steinbach as its anchors. It was built by

Homart Development Company Homart Development Company, a Chicago-based subsidiary of Sears, was one of the largest builders of shopping centers and malls in the United States from 1959 to 1995. Company history As retail development in the United States shifted away from d ...

. Steinbach closed its store in 1999 as part of the company's bankruptcy. Sage-Allen, which closed in Fall 1992 and remained vacant for almost 7 years, became

The Bon-Ton Bon-Ton Holdings Inc. is an American online retailer and former department store chain founded in 1898. After rapid expansion in the 1990s and early 2000s, the original company had financial troubles, ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 2018 ...

in 1999, with a second Bon-Ton and

Circuit City Circuit City is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s. After m ...

splitting the former Steinbach. Circuit City liquidated and closed in 2009.

Decline

In 2011, General Growth Properties, the successor company to Homart, transferred ownership of the mall, along with 29 other underperforming malls, to its Rouse Properties subsidiary. In August 2014, Rouse Properties announced that it had defaulted on its loan for Steeplegate Mall and was in the process of turning over the property to its lenders. By April 2015 the property was owned by a consortium of lenders including Wells Fargo Bank and Midland Loan Servicing and managed by Colliers International. In January 2015,

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of the Old Navy stores are its ...

, one of four main anchors at the mall, closed its doors. In May 2016, Steeplegate Mall was bought by the New York-based

Namdar Realty Group Namdar Realty Group is an American shopping mall investment company based in Great Neck, New York. They primarily purchase shopping malls with partner Mason Asset Management. Namdar and Mason are both family owned, and as of 2021, own over 400 p ...

for $10.4 million. As part of an attempt to diversify from traditional retail and food stores, Hatbox Theater, a live theater venue located in the former Coldwater Creek and using the adjoining former

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

space for storage and rehearsals, opened in 2016. Similarly, VIP Bounce Houses and Laser Tag opened in the former

location that year. In April 2018, Bon-Ton closed both of its stores as part of a plan to close 42 stores nationwide. Later that same year, a charter school called Capital City Charter School moved into the former Bon-Ton men's clothing and houseware store, although it closed and filed for bankruptcy in 2021, while an Altitude

Trampoline Park A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched between a steel frame using many coiled springs. Not all trampolines have springs, as the Springfree Trampoline uses glass-reinforced plastic rods. People bounce on ...

franchise opened within the former Circuit City space in November. In 2019, a health club called The Zoo opened a franchise in the former Bon-Ton women's and children's store, marking the first time since Circuit City's closure that all five anchors in the mall had an active permanent tenant. In 2019, one of the mall's oldest tenants, a

confectionery Confectionery is the Art (skill), art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlappi ...

called True Confections Candies & Gifts, moved out of the mall, citing declining foot traffic and the mall owners' unwillingness to lower rent rates. On February 6, 2020, Sears closed the Steeplegate store as part of closing 96 stores nationwide, which left JCPenney as the only traditional anchor. The former Sears store was used as a state vaccination site during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Mall interior closes for overhaul

In February 2022, the mall's owners told the five remaining businesses that were only accessible from inside the mall to vacate their spaces by March 2022 for upcoming unspecified changes to the mall's interior. The same month, the owners also told the Hatbox Theatre, which only had an exterior entrance, that it had until March 13 to vacate the spaces it used. However, the owners renounced their demands shortly afterward and allowed the theater to stay, although Hatbox was no longer permitted to use the adjoining former RadioShack space. By April 2022, all of the last five interior-only businesses vacated the mall; four of them moved to other locations—three to elsewhere in Concord and one to Hooksett—while the fifth decided to close permanently. On April 22, the mall closed its interior to visitors, leaving only the six remaining businesses with exterior entrances—JCPenney, Talbots, Chico's, Hatbox Theatre, The Zoo Health Club, and Altitude Trampoline Park.

Gallery

File:Steeplegate JC Penney Exterior.jpg, Steeplegate JCPenney exterior File:Steeplegate Sears Exterior.jpg, Steeplegate Sears exterior as it appeared in July 2017 File:Steeplegate Mall, Concord, NH.jpg, The mall's previous logo Steeplegate Mall's entirely closed east end on July 31, 2021.jpg, The mall's east end on July 31, 2021; all businesses and other tenants were permanently closed. Steeplegate Mall's empty food court on July 31, 2021.jpg, The mall's food court on July 31, 2021, with no tenants. Tables and chairs were removed during the

References

External links

* {{Shopping malls in New Hampshire Shopping malls established in 1990 Buildings and structures in Concord, New Hampshire Tourist attractions in Concord, New Hampshire Shopping malls in New Hampshire 1990 establishments in New Hampshire Namdar Realty Group