Norwichtown Mall in Norwich, Connecticut Breathing Its Last Breath

Within the past two months, two more retailers have closed in the Norwichtown Mall in Norwich, a mall once anchored by a discount store, department store, grocery store, and a number of specialty shops.

The mall is located at 36 Town Street off of Route 2 in the Norwichtown Historic District, not far from Interstate 395.

Radio Shack and the Golden Star Chinese Restaurant recently closed and its customers must now go elsewhere to meet their technology and food needs.
Radio Shack has been in the one-floor 241,000 square foot mall since the mall's opening in 1968.

In fact, the store was relocated and received brand new fixtures in the 1990's.

The closing of this store means that Norwich has only one Radio Shack which is located in the Marcus Plaza, anchored by Shop Rite Supermarket and T.J. Maxx Department Store, located on the south end of town, at 624 West Main Street.

According to the Norwich Bulletin, the closure comes after the Radio Shack manager reportedly said in the past the chain had no plans to close the store.

According to Labelscar, originally the north end of the Norwichtown Mall was anchored by a Grant's Department Store with an automotive center with garage bay doors still on the building.

Grant's closure lead to the building receiving a renovation for Caldor Department Store, a discount store which resembled Wal-Mart, which was in the mall for a number of years.

After Caldor closed, Bob's Discount Furniture moved in but even they closed in 2007 when the chain opened a new location in East Lyme and the space is now vacant.

After its closure, the City of Norwich placed the traffic light near the intersection of the north mall entrance driveway and New London Turnpike on blinking yellow.
Style's Department Store was another long-standing tenant in the mall resembling a Macy's Department Store.

They closed before the mall was renovated in the 1990's and currently much of their space is vacant except for a 5,000 square foot Dollar Tree.

According to the Evant and Avant Web site, owners of the mall, the only anchor in the mall still there from the mall's beginnings is Stop and Shop, which was upgraded and expanded in the mid-to-late 1990's making it a Super Stop and Shop.

It never had direct mall access and mall shoppers were forced to walk outside to access the supermarket.

Currently, the supermarket has a People's United Bank, pharmacy, and a Dunkin' Donuts.

Today, the only stores currently in the mall are Super Stop and Shop, Dress Barn/Woman, Fancy Nails, Dollar Tree, and GNC.

According to the Norwich Bulletin, many shoppers of the Dollar Tree, one of the most popular stores in the mall, are sad to see almost nothing is left of the Norwichtown Mall and expect the mall to be closed within the next year.

The dumbbell shaped mall has a small corridor that literally goes nowhere except for GNC, the only tenant still in that small wing.

Several empty kiosk carts are located in the mall and the mall has not had those kiosks used for quite some time.

According to The Caldor Rainbow, the mall lost several of its specialty stores after Caldor left which significantly decreased mall walk-in traffic and the closure of Bob's Discount Furniture sealed the fate to even more tenants.

Tenants previously at the mall included the junior anchor Suburban Stationeries card and gift store, Waldenbooks, an optical, a computer store, a drug store, Westies Shoe outlet, a cable company office, a travel agency office, a woman's clothing store, Tons of Fun arcade, Puppy Love pet store, a candy store, a jewelry store, an independently-owned music store called University Music, Cutting Crew hair salon, Chelsea Groton Savings Bank, a family restaurant, and Bee Bee Dairy Bar.

According to the American Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University Web site, the mall reportedly had up to 18 stores during its time when it was anchored by Bob's Discount Furniture.

While The Day reported that Edens and Avant, was in negotiations to seek new retailers and make the mall a lifestyle center, such talks apparently fell through.

According to previous articles in the Norwich Bulletin, I remember reading that Edens and Avant helped seal the mall's fate by failing to provide the ability for retailers to seek long-term leases and force retailers to rent on a month-by-month or a six-month basis unless they already were renting under a previously signed long-term lease.

According to Labelscar, Norwichtown Mall's years of most success happened before the Crystal Mall was built in the early 1980's; this was at a time when the whole Norwich-New London area only had two malls: New London Mall and Norwichtown Mall.

The New London Mall was once anchored by Sage-Allen Department Store and Bradlees Department Store.

The mall later was anchored by D&L and Marshalls along with Bradlees and a number of smaller retailers.

In 1998, most of the mall was demolished to make it a lifestyle strip shopping center which is now anchored by Shop Rite Supermarkets, A.C. Moore Crafts, HomeGoods, Marshalls, and West Marine.

It is unknown whether the Norwichtown Mall will be converted in a similar fashion but even the New London Mall, during its worse times, never had as many vacancies as the Norwichtown Mall has now.

Small Connecticut malls that have closed and either been demolished or turned into lifestyle centers include the Bristol Center Mall, Naugatuck Valley Mall, Farmington Valley Mall, New London Mall, Meriden Hub Mall, Ansonia Mall, Civic Center Mall, Chapel Square Mall, and Charter Oak Mall.