Meriden Mall (formerly Meriden Square and Westfield Meriden) is a

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

located in Meriden,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. At almost 900,000 square feet, Meriden is Connecticut's seventh largest mall, housing over 140 shops. As of 2022, the mall maintains the chains

Boscov's Boscov's Inc. is a family-owned department store with forty-nine locations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Twenty-six of these stores are located in Pennsylvania. Corporate headqu ...

, and

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized as "DICK'S Sporting Goods") is an American sporting goods retail company, based in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company was established by Richard "Dick" Stack in 1948, and has approximately 854 stores an ...

History

The facility, originally built and owned by

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

opened in 1971. Its original architecture was a two-level, dumbbell shaped

shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

with two anchor stores, the Connecticut-based G. Fox, which was also owned by

The May Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

chain, and

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, Gir ...

. Original tenants were Radio Shack, Spencer Gifts, Hickory Farms, Barricini Candy, Record World, Waldenbooks, CVS, Singer sewing machine store, a piano and organ store, a travel agency, a liquor store, and a tobacco store. The only restaurant in the main part of the mall was a Friendly's Ice Cream parlor and restaurant, though both JCPenney and G. Fox had restaurants located inside of their stores. The mall also featured an incline ramp-escalator in the center court. A 1993 renovation added a two-level wing anchored by a new

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 ...

department store and also included a new

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. I ...

, creating a T-shaped

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

. Also in 1993, G. Fox parent, May Company acquired Boston based

Filene's Filene's (formally William Filene & Sons Co.) was an American department store chain; it was founded by William Filene in 1881. The success of the original full-line store in Boston, Massachusetts, was supplemented by the foundation of its off-p ...

and merged the two department stores together under the Filene's name. The Meriden G. Fox store changed its name to Filene's. The

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; ...

acquired the mall in 1997. The mall was expanded again in an ambitious

renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, ...

announced in 1997. The renovation saw an extra floor area of added to the center, as well as an additional 30 stores, creating a cross-shaped

. The new anchor, built opposite Sears, was upscale department store

Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as ...

, the centerpiece of the $38 million revitalization and expansion plan. In addition to its new anchor, a multistory

parking garage A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

was also built beside Sears on the end of the mall facing Lewis Avenue. The renovation was completed and officially opened in 1999. In 2003, Lord & Taylor shuttered this location after being repositioned. Westfield quickly moved to fill the vacancy by bringing in

, which moved right into the empty Lord & Taylor space. In 2005, Filene's announced that all locations would be converted into the Macy's brand, including this location. In 2014, it was announced that

would replace JCPenney, both expanding and completely remodeling the structure. The location is Boscov's first in Connecticut and in the entire New England region. The store opened in November 2015. On November 8, 2018, it was announced that Sears would shutter. On January 6, 2020, it was announced Macy's, which maintains additional outposts close by, would shutter in an effort to maximize profit margins. On September 21, 2021, it was announced that Best Buy would shutter. On October 4, 2021, Yale New Haven Health bought the former Macy's, and is set to demolish and repurpose the property for a retail health facility.

References

{{Shopping malls in Connecticut Shopping malls in Connecticut Buildings and structures in Meriden, Connecticut Shopping malls established in 1971 Shopping malls in the New York metropolitan area 1971 establishments in Connecticut Namdar Realty Group

History

See also

References