As my return post to the blog, I decided the best mall to write about is the now-demolished Greendale Mall in Worcester, Massachusetts. Greendale Mall was a very different place in design, department stores, and its tiny footprint. However, this small footprint was a key marketing tactic that the mall used in its earlier years and was proven to have worked because of how successful the mall was up until the 2010s. I can see what was so appealing about this mall before it died and it is unfortunate that I never got to see it at that stage of its life.
Greendale Mall opened in 1987 and was a product of New England Development also developed the Arsenal Mall in Watertown which was one of my childhood malls I have many memories there in its final years. I am very familiar with the now-shuttered mall and can tell you firsthand that Arsenal and Greendale are very similar architecturally and in many other ways as well.
At Greendale's opening, it was the second mall in the city of Worcester, joining the larger Worcester Center Galleria located downtown, Greendale was quickly able to find its footing in the city's retail landscape. However the Galleria started to lose stores and shoppers, and with help from the nearby Auburn Mall, the Galleria closed for redevelopment in 1994. Later that year the Galleria was reponed as a large indoor outlet mall which was the first and only of its kind for multiple in New England until 2015 when Tanger Outlets Foxwoods opened at Foxwoods Resort Casino. The Common Outlets contained high-end New York-style brands like Saks Fifth Avenue, Levi's, Barney's New York, and Bally. When the massive and open air Wrentham Village Premium Outlets opened in 1997 that started the decade-long downfall of Worcester Common Outlets until it closed in 2006 for redevelopment.
In 1987 Greendale was opened it was anchored by Lechmere and Marshalls and had a dumbell-style layout. and featured the regular mall tenants like Foot Locker, Gap, and Bath & Body Works. All of which were on the mall level. The basement level included the food court, which was on the Marshalls side of the mall.
In the early 1990s the mall was coexisting with Auburn Mall, both were thriving despite having many of the same stores. At the same time, it was killing Worcester Center Galleria. Around this time Greendale Mall was at its peak and even had a slight expansion at the Lechmere end with a new mall entrance built for a new T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods combo. DSW took over the left side of the food court around this time.
In 1996 the Worcester metro area gained its fifth and final enclosed mall, Solomon Pond Mall. At this time all five malls in Worcester The Mall at Whitney Field (1968), Auburn Mall (1971), Worcester Common Outlets (1971/Outlets in 1994), and Solomon Pond Mall (1996) were all coexisting and thriving at this time. This Worcester area did eventually become a game of survival of the fittest and Wrentham Village in the Providence area was able to get that ball rolling with its opening.
In 1997 Lechmere closed all its stores and just like many other locations the Greendale store became a Best Buy shortly after Lechmere closed. 1999 New England Development sold all its malls; including Greendale Mall, Arsenal Mall, and Solomon Pond Mall to Simon Property Group. The only mall they didn't sell was CambridgeSide. At this time there was little to no change in the mall itself except for new tenants like Old Navy. Most changes were behind the scenes; ie marketing and mall branding overall.
In June 2004 The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley opened in nearby Millbury. It was the final nail in the nearly abandoned Worcester Common Outlets in Downtown Worcester, it hurt Greendale the most after the closure of the Outlets and post-recession, Auburn Mall a tad but not enough for serious damage since Auburn continued to thrive through the recession to today in 2022.
Things remained unchanged until 2007 when Marshalls closed most likely because of the T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods store combo at the other end of the mall. The space stayed empty for a few years because of the Great Recession and how small of a space Marshalls was located in. However, it did eventually become Big Lots in 2010. During the Great Recession, the mall started to lose stores like Gap and Old Navy.
In 2015 Simon started to not pay the debt on the mall and it went into foreclosure, the mall was quickly sold to a Chicago-based law firm, Seyfarth Shaw (so random lol). The mall was managed by KeyPoint Partners which is headquartered much closer to Worcester in Woburn.
Many national brands left during Simon's final year in ownership like American Eagle, Hot Topic, and rue21. Between the sale of the mall in May 2016 and my first. visit on July 20, 2018, even more, national brands had departed the mall; like Claire's, Aeropostale, and The Children's Place. Most of these spaces were not filled or had store signs on them that were never opened. I visited the mall again on September 16, 2018, with little to no changes than in July of that year. Between 2015 and 2017 the small food court in the basement would die then come back to life regularly until only being able to keep a Stir Fry 88 and a taco restaurant until the mall's closure.
In 2019 two out of four department stores closed. Big Lots announced their Greendale Mall departure on December 19, 2018, and closed in January 2019 to focus on their Auburn location. On September 9, 2019, Best Buy announced that they would be closing to focus on their location at The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Milbury, which also means that they were losing money at Greendale.
On December 16, 2019, Greendale Mall was purchased for redevelopment by Finard Properties of Boston. Originally the plans were to make it similar to Arsenal Yards in Watertown but they missed the boat that Arsenal was on because of COVID and other related causes. The after lockdown plains was to convert the site into an Amazon warehouse (yawn).
With this news, many speculated that the mall would close after Christmas of that year but as each month passed after the sale and Bath & Body Works stayed open it was clear that wasn't happening. By March 2020 before the state and nationwide mall closures occurred Bath & Body Works closed their Greendale Mall location. It was clear that the mall's days were numbered. By mid-March, the mall "temporarily closed" along with every mall globally.
As those three and a half months went by between most mall's closures and reopening, a question loomed over the Greendale Mall site, if it would reopen. It did, or at least kind of. T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods reopened to a crowd of people that this mall hadn't seen in 10+ years. DSW closed with the mall's temporary closure in March and didn't reopen. DSW told their clients to visit their stores at The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Milbury or its store near Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough.
T.J. Maxx closed on April 24, 2021, and moved to Lincoln Plaza, still in Worcester just a few minutes away. Lincoln Plaza is an outdoor plaza with stores like Target, Gap Factory, and Five Guys. T.J. Maxx was the final store close at Greendale Mall, shortly after the closure of T.J.'s the mall was gutted for demolition and was demolished for the Amazon warehouse which is currently being built.
This was Worcester's only enclosed major mall for the last 14 years of its life. There is a small portion of Worcester Common Outlets that was integrated into the City Square project. The former mall portion that is standing in the western end like the former Media Play, food court, and Media Play wing. The two towers that were built as part of the original Worcester Center Galleria project are 100 & 120 Front Street and are still there. At 22 Front Street sits Midtown Mall which is a small mini-mall with small businesses on three levels. That mall is currently in the process of an interior and exterior overhaul with new tenants.
Greendale Mall was very depressing, especially when I visited in its final years. There were very few people to match with the minimal amounts of stores that were open as well. When the mall was only a T.J. Maxx the lobby and property was blanketed in soda bottles and other trash. The actually building was run down and desperately needed a makeover, I just wish that the makeover didn't include the Amazon warehouse. The finally time I was there the roof in the underground parking garage was collapsed near Neponset Street. The T.J. Maxx store had giant barrels catching leaks. The open section of the mall wasn't terrible, but the closed section had old illusion that must have fallen out from somewhere.
These pictures were taken on July 20, 2018, September 16, 2018, July 28, 2020, and December 12, 2020.
2018
2020
Greendale Mall's concourse was mostly blocked off at this point. The T.J. Maxx court remained open until April, 2021 but through the fence that blocked the. mall you can see many shuttered stores like Bath & Body Works, Claire's, and The Children's Place.
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