Crystal Mall in Waterford, Connecticut

Christmas Tree Shops, a store specializing in home décor, giftware, housewares, food, paper goods, and seasonal products, was acquired by the Bed, Bath, and Beyond store, specializing in domestics and home furnishings, in 2003.

According to The Caldor Rainbow, it is the only combination Christmas Tree Shops and Bed, Bath, and Beyond store in Connecticut and the only Bed, Bath, and Beyond in Connecticut to be located on a second level. Also, it is the first time in Connecticut that the two stores have opened in enclosed shopping malls; their other locations are in lifestyle centers or stand-alone locations.

It is not uncommon though for the stores to open in enclosed malls in other states. I have visited the Bed, Bath, and Beyond store which is located on the Concourse level of the Providence Place Mall in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Christmas Tree Shops located on the lower level of the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Both of those stores are larger square-foot-wise than their Crystal Mall locations. Based on feedback from customers, it is undoubtedly the smallest square-footage wise Christmas Tree Shops and Bed, Bath, and Beyond to open in Connecticut. It is also the first time the Crystal Mall will be anchored by a non-traditional department store.

According to another Web page at the Caldor Rainbow Web site, while the mall formerly had junior anchors D&L and Tweeter, Etc., its current primary anchors consist of J.C. Penney, Sears, and Macy's, with the first two opening in the mall from the mall's opening in 1984 while the later is a store converted from being a former Jordan Marsh Department Store. Filene's opened in 1984 and was closed when its parent company, May Department Stores, was acquired by Federated, owner of Macy's.

The Crystal Mall's parking lot on the north end was full of shoppers on February 23-24 with new shopping cart corral returns taking up approximately 6-8 parking spaces. Vehicles constantly drove up and down parking aisles as drivers scoured for parking spaces as far away as Sears, the food court, and J.C. Penney. Pedestrians dodged vehicles that were either driving or who had temporarily parked their car in front of the exterior entrance of Christmas Tree Shops waiting for friends and loved ones to descend with packages. Shoppers came to visit the two stores after a snow storm hit the area with snow so deep that there were six-foot snow piles in the parking lot taking spaces that otherwise would be filled with shoppers on such a busy day.

New white lettering indicating the name of the two stores has already been installed on the mall's blue directory signs leading shoppers around the mall's perimeter road. The exterior of the building has the names of the two stores on all three sides. The store opened in the former Filene's Department Store at the mall's northern end.

Christmas Tree Shops and Bed, Bath, and Beyond are both approximately 40,000 square feet with the later slightly smaller. While both stores have mall access, a unique arrangement allows shoppers from both stores to access an entrance going to the parking lot. The former Filene's south entrance to the parking lot was sealed off and the north entrance is now the only entrance going to the parking lot. Signs indicate that a door on the south end of Christmas Tree Shops is for employees only; this was the former main loading dock for Filene's. Another door, located further north, indicates this is the Customer Pick-up area for Christmas Tree Shops. The north parking lot entrance and the exterior of the building itself remains relatively unchanged from what it looked like after Filene's received its last renovation only shortly before closing it store.

As soon as shoppers walk in from the outside, they can walk straight ahead into the Christmas Tree Shops or walk into a small hallway to the left leading to a pair of escalators head-on or elevators on the right-hand side. Both escalators and elevators on the lower level indicate that they provide access to Bed, Bath, and Beyond while, on the upper level, painted on letters indicated that both provide access to Christmas Tree Shops.

Christmas Tree Shops aligned registers closer to their exterior entrance while Bed, Bath, and Beyond aligned registers closer to their mall entrance. Neither store has two sets of registers which is typically the practice of stores choosing to have a mall entrance and exterior entrance.

According to the Christmas Tree Shops Web site, its Crystal Mall store, located at 824 Hartford Turnpike, will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The store can be reached directly by contacting 860-442-0066.

For the chain, this is their fourth store in Connecticut with the other three stores located in Danbury, Manchester, and Orange. The chain consists of 36 stores in 10 states.

It is the first Christmas Tree Shops store to open in southeastern Connecticut and was much busier opening weekend than its parent company's store, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, located just above.

The mall entrance of the Christmas Tree Shops still has stone fascia reminiscent of the former Filene's entrance. The interior layout of the store was changed since the chain decided to have much of its stock areas and employee only areas on the southern end of the store.

Christmas Tree Shops has signs on either side of its arch entrance with the red words "Don't You Just Love A Bargain?", the company's logo featured on television commercials, at the top of the arch. The arch shape is quite similar to the one Filene's had and Filene's on the lower level had a sign on either side of the arch but did not have any sign at the top of the arch.

The store was designed so that customers can have access to the elevator and escalator hallway while Christmas Tree Shops is closed. There is a metal gate that can come down separating the hallway from the store in case Bed, Bath, and Beyond chooses to have separate hours from Christmas Tree Shops.

Currently, it appears that Bed, Bath, and Beyond will, in fact, have separate hours from Christmas Tree Shops. The Bed, Bath, and Beyond Web site, states that its Crystal Mall store, located at 850 Hartford Turnpike, will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The store can be reached directly by calling 860-442-0064.

For the chain, it is their sixteenth store in Connecticut with the other stores located in Brookfield, Danbury, Enfield, Fairfield, Farmington, Hamden, Manchester, Milford, Norwalk, Shelton, Simsbury, Southington, Stamford, Torrington, and Wethersfield. The chain consists of over 800 stores.

While some of the chain's larger stores have home delivery service, an expanded health and beauty care department, and a fine tabletop and giftware department, this store will not but customers can order the later in all stores and online.

It is the first Bed, Bath, and Beyond store in southeastern Connecticut.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond, since it decided to make part of the former upper level of the Filene's store into a continuation of the mall's corridor has completely gutted all interior features reminiscent of Filene's including the large windows looking out to the parking lot. The continuation of the hallway allows adequate room for the Bed, Bath, and Beyond to have its own "court" in front of its mall entrance. There are no benches in this court and it is uncertain whether benches will be placed in this area in the future.

The Christmas Tree Shops court has benches and is expected to host events.

Neither store will keep the exact hours of the Crystal Mall proper which is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

It is expected that when the mall is closed, the stores will close their mall entrances and force customers to use the exterior entrance which has been the traditional practice of anchor stores at the mall.

The opening of the two stores is expected to help bring more walk-in traffic into the mall and hopefully will bring in more tenants to a mall which currently has several vacancies, the largest being the former Tweeter, Etc. sandwiched between Christmas Tree Shops and Sears. Neither store has announced whether they would have a Grand Opening celebration but it is expected they will have one after their "soft opening" concludes.

The Crystal Mall is located at the intersection of Interstate 95 exit 82 and Route 85 in Waterford, CT.