Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Look Back At "Pavilions at" Buckland Hills

One of our readers, Joseph Rifkin, sent me an email with a few attached images one of Connecticut's newer shopping malls: Buckland Hills. Curious about the history of the nearing 20 year old mall, he brought light to some "vintage" images that certainly bring back some memories of a mall I frequented aplenty.


THE ORIGINAL TENT-LIKE CANOPY MALL ENTRANCE (IMAGE: FUSCO CORP.)

"The Pavilions at Buckland Hills" as it was originally known by opened in March 1990, and has since renamed to "The Shoppes at Buckland Hills" following an extensive decorative renovation shortly after the mall's tenth year, largely in retaliation to a fledgling outdoor center (who stuffs more fluff words than usual to boost its cache) built on the South Windsor line which later threatened its precurosy to a "faux-main streetscape" trend in the neo-mall landscape to which it later joined in image with a post-millennial remodel.


A TYPICAL VIEW OF THE ORIGINAL "PAVILIONS" ERA BUCKLAND HILLS MALL (IMAGE: FUSCO CORP.)


A VIEW FROM "THE SHOPPES" ERA, AFTER THE RENOVATION

Many might not know the full history of what's now one the dominant aerial malls that has been tagged for its crippling and devastating of many surrounding centers including one rotting away ghost town plaza on the other end of town, East Brook Mall in Willimantic, Enfield Square in Enfield and even Auburn Mall in Auburn, Mass. right up on I-90, and shortly over the Connecticut line (sorry, I blame the awful I-90 access and annoying Pike tolls to skim the surface of this mall's troubles).

After the development and opening of Crystal Mall in Waterford in 1984, one year later talk rose of another mammoth mall project and pseudonymed "Winchester Mall", proposed on the (South) Windsor and Manchester lines, on a plot of endless farm land on the outskirts of the towns. The folks turned it down, holding it up for years, until it was given the green light in the late 80's. At this time, the closest thing to what was soon to become a new mall was the Caldor-anchored "Burr Corner" plaza, constructed in the mid-1960's, polar to the once thriving outdoor Manchester Parkade near the center of town.

By the early 90's, The two-level Winchester Mall project bloomed (no, exploded) into The Pavillions at Buckland Hills.

How the fates have turned -- in just ten years the "Buckland Hills", comprable to farmland as far as the eye can see has become what's known as the explosion of Americana emporimania, squashing the town's slogan "A City of Village Charm". Soon after the advent of the two-level toppler to the surrounding malls, plaza after plaza popped up around it, including the big blue monster Walmart, who sprung up with its first, albeit humbly-sized Connecticut location in 1993 (which is coincidentally slated to close up soon and move down the street for, you guessed it, a larger complex).

While I still frequent Buckland Hills today, I've watched it grow and change throughout the years and it doesn't share the same zeal as it did back then despite it being more grandiose than ever. Anchors including G. Fox eventually became Filene's a few short years later (then Macy's), and SEARS and JCPenney are still there (exteriorly unchanged, of course). Steiger's, D&L are but memories while Dick's Sporting Goods opened one of its premiere outlets at Buckland, additionally was one of the first to have remodeled drastically from an original wood-floor clad, cramped albeit two-level interior.

The overall temperature of the mall was ho-hum darker shades of blue and monochromes, often attracted unsavory crowds at night (got a few stories to back that up), but the offerings were different from what Westfarms had.

'The Pavilions' couldn't capture a 90's mall any better than it did.

Today's upscale image has done it over well cosmetically, and has taken a sharp turn from what it once was especially in its later years adopting a rattier image. In spite of its original design provincialism, Buckland Hills was considerably the fun mall compared to Westfarms.

Distinctively, its developers made it top of the line for a 90's trendy center: a food court, alien to many malls around this time with all the quick-bite junk food trimmings like Panda Express, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Sbarro, and more mid-range stores instead of Westfarms somewhat highbrow offerings. Time-Out videogame arcade couped up in the rear of the food court, which centered itself around my childhood experiences here especially with it being a selling point for my mom dragging me here originally.

Buckland Hills, the more community-based mall on steroids, had its charm and challenged shoppers to all new destination.

Today the arcade, Panda Express and Sbarro "wall" have gone the way of the dodo, completely demolished for a carousel, the food court has been rearranged (Burger King took over McDonald's space) but still has an exorbitant amount of unused seating, and the decor has gone much classier. Some of the offerings have dipped into the "discount" and ordinary realms, gaps are evident from fallen retailers which thrived into the 1990's -- KB Toys having closed up last year, Suncoast now taken over by the always exciting indie Cambridge, Mass.-based Newbury Comics and its first Connecticut shop, and a furniture store operating out of a years departed Sam Goody and recently a hole left by The Disney Store -- whose been with the mall since the very beginning no more.

These shots are property of the mall's original contractor, Fusco Corporation. We're not sure how far they date back to but they mine as well be dated 1990. Also check out this shopping bag from Fox N Allen's collection. The mall once had kiosks which sold these custom logo-printed handlebags for a quarter (or two?) -- I used to have a ton of these.

If you've got any memories (or better yet, photos) shopping here in the 90's, perhaps ones that have eluded my recollection, share them with us!

See also: Labelscar's piece on The Buckland Hills (disclaimer: author Damas' visited the mall "in progress" of final touches on the remodel).

12 comments:

Pseudo3D said...

I believe it was you on the Labelscar post which mentioned this:

"The upscale renovation blew Buckland Hills former crummy/average image away and much for the better adding more restaurants and removing some older food court shops."

I was always curious about that and I asked to no avail on the comments. I guess that McDonald's, Sbarro, and Panda Express were too "junky", but I really had the "local, unappealing" stands in mind.

What do you mean by Sbarro's "wall"?

Anonymous said...

I remember not only going to the opening of this mall, but having to do an American Government report on regulations that govern the building of something so large. It was really a central point of a lot of community doings back when it was first opened. If I recall, it was originally slated to open in South Windsor, but the board of selectmen and taxpayers voted against it, fearing the project. It was intended to help boost Downtown Manchester, but sadly, had the opposite effect. A lot of the mainstay stores on Main Street closed, due to competition from the mall and the box stores that popped up around it.
Still, many a youthful day ad night were spent at this mall, and to this day I'm surprised by the changes I see in it.

Nicholas M. DiMaio said...

Allow me to elaborate on the "wall" in front of what was once the Time Out arcade.

Before the arcade was demolished for the carousel following the remodel of the mall, there was what was best described as a "wall" which divided the arcade on one side and the food court's two food parcels, Panda Express (left side) and Sbarro (right side), on the other.

After the remodel, this wall was cleared to give it an open-air look it has now, resulting in both chains to be relocated elsewhere within the court.

About McDonalds, I'm not sure why it left the mall but you rarely see the golden arches replaced by a Burger King.

Anonymous said...

The original design of this mall is unmistakeably coming straight out of the late 1980s (1990--still seeing the fade out of the 80s). Some of the skylights in the mall still have some of the original globe lighting around the seams. And other plaza's that surround the mall still hold it's original theme I notice (giant squares, a lot of turquoise colors).

I am still a bit desperate to find out exactly what the original food court looked like. Nick, if you could take a pencil and paper and sketch a quick floor plan to give me an idea of what the food court/arcade use to look like, that would be great!

Pseudo3D said...

Don't know if you're interested, but here's a lease plan of Buckland Hills from 2003...

http://web.archive.org/web/20031017073226/http://www.generalgrowth.com/content/live/data/LeasePlans/The+Shoppes+at+Buckland+Hills_site_and_lease_plans.pdf

Anonymous said...

I just came across your site. I love defunct retail chains and although I am not from your area, I enjoy teh photos and appreciate the history nonetheless. Keep up the great work.

Anonymous said...

Mall looks great the way it is now but taking out the arcade was one big mistake,alot of these kids looked forward to meet at the mall with their friends to go to the arcade.I used to be an ex employer at the arcade at buckland mall and belive me we made money

Anonymous said...

This mall is declining even more due to the urban blight that is bused in from Hartford. They have declined so much that they have to stoop to the level of signing leases with Tattoo parlors and "massage" parlors while they close customer service and lay off security gaurds ( Funny this property isn't listed on GGP's website as being affected by the bankruptcy filing?... business as usual I think not). They need to fire the entire mall management office and stop the busses. Rumor has it that Simon property group has recently purchased this property from failing GGP. We can only hope it's true. There isn't a store manager in this mall that wouldn't like to see that happen. I'll personally volunteer to give Nancy (Mall Manager) her pink slip.

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It is a very good mall, I visited until last year, It has some great stores, and some great food services, the parking lot is big and the surroundings great.
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It is an incredible mall not also because of the food court but also because it has a perfect environment it's like a kind of semi-open air structure.

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