The malls will surely be swamped on early Friday of this end of November. The blackest day in retail, for both shoppers and employees, will be at hand - but not at the Bristol Centre Mall. Will it ever leave the City, along with the curse it‘s bestowed on Bristol for decades? Not if lone remaining anchor Ocean State Job Lot has anything to do about it - which they have.
A former entrance to a once upscale clothier, now shuttered in the grasp of a closeout/fallout retailer Ocean State Job Lot. My how times have changed...
Earlier this year, the City of Bristol, who owns the vacant eyesore Mall at Bristol Center on North Main Street, announced an "Everything (or anyone) Must Go" clearing for any remaining tenants inside the over 90% vacated mall to relocate their premises. Most business like Eagle Auctions; operating in a long departed Sears Outlet Center, left prompty, Choices, a gift boutique, which was one of the mall’s charms left without any fight, and the manlessly operated neither-world amusement park-from-the-other-side, Ride-a-Rama, fought nothing. Long time restaurant, and one of the mall’s few eateries, Center Mall Pizza, finally left in the Fall of ‘06, ironically, while the warrior Ocean State Job Lot is awaiting their cancerous court battle to prolong their business as long as possible. Job Lot, who’s infested two grandiose fleabag retail enterprises in Bristol, one in this former Sage-Allen at the mall and another opened shortly after the demise of Bradlees in Bristol Plaza, inside the original Stop & Shop, has been fighting the entire year to keep their original store alive inside an otherwise long-doomed Bristol mall.
The Last Mall; a lasting image of the now locked-up center, awaiting death row.
The City, who purchased the already largely vacant shopping center via eminent domain a few years back, has plans to further revitalize the City; the mall having much to do with the stalemate to an already vastly improved landscape of North Main Street in historic Brisol. The Mall at Bristol Centre, built in the 1960’s, has always been something of a burden for the City, not attracting as many patrons as the bevy of other successful successors in the Hartford and beyond areas. Largely, the mall’s mal (or mall)-success was due to the center being poorly managed and placed; too far from any vitality (or interstates), having virtually never received any renovations since it’s conception. The mall found it hard to be more than a service to Bristol residents as well as out-of-town traffic. Shopping malls, which survive based on umbillical interstate commerce, had none from the start and whether or not adding a mainline to the Bristol Centre was once visioned - never happened.
A long dissociated mall entrance to Centre Mall Pizza, a familar spot for locals have moved just across the street. For years, this glass canopy has served as a portal into the dead world...
As recently reported in native city newspaper, The Bristol Press, tenants on the outlines of the property, like Sherwin-Williams, and off, like McDonald’s, owned by franchise-owner Santa Cruz, have each made deals to relocate within Bristol. McDonalds, which looks antiquely brown-draped, unrenovated interior will be one of Connecticut’s oldest McDonalds to follow in the shadows, second to the former Berlin Turnpike location, currently receiving an enormous upgrade.
A unique "M" eched bush beside the temple-esque steps at Bristol Centre McDonalds will soon be no more.
As it stands today, just a roadblock in Bristol’s plans to upkeep the city with the times, The Mall at Bristol Centre has been locked up since Summer’s end. The City plans a demolition to happen, but not as soon as residents and city leaders would want. Once Ocean State looses their useless battle, the $2 Million dollar project to rid the mall of it’s everlasting misery will be final. Luckilly, the Caldor Rainbow has secured well over 200 images of the mall property shortly before it‘s end, mostly viewable on Facebook (if anything, a fine host for pictures). With all the mall’s tenants finally gone, it stands out of time, waiting for it’s big steel ball of destiny. Even a child, visiting this mall a good 15 years ago, the mall was eerily dead...
A former entrance to a once upscale clothier, now shuttered in the grasp of a closeout/fallout retailer Ocean State Job Lot. My how times have changed...
Earlier this year, the City of Bristol, who owns the vacant eyesore Mall at Bristol Center on North Main Street, announced an "Everything (or anyone) Must Go" clearing for any remaining tenants inside the over 90% vacated mall to relocate their premises. Most business like Eagle Auctions; operating in a long departed Sears Outlet Center, left prompty, Choices, a gift boutique, which was one of the mall’s charms left without any fight, and the manlessly operated neither-world amusement park-from-the-other-side, Ride-a-Rama, fought nothing. Long time restaurant, and one of the mall’s few eateries, Center Mall Pizza, finally left in the Fall of ‘06, ironically, while the warrior Ocean State Job Lot is awaiting their cancerous court battle to prolong their business as long as possible. Job Lot, who’s infested two grandiose fleabag retail enterprises in Bristol, one in this former Sage-Allen at the mall and another opened shortly after the demise of Bradlees in Bristol Plaza, inside the original Stop & Shop, has been fighting the entire year to keep their original store alive inside an otherwise long-doomed Bristol mall.
The Last Mall; a lasting image of the now locked-up center, awaiting death row.
The City, who purchased the already largely vacant shopping center via eminent domain a few years back, has plans to further revitalize the City; the mall having much to do with the stalemate to an already vastly improved landscape of North Main Street in historic Brisol. The Mall at Bristol Centre, built in the 1960’s, has always been something of a burden for the City, not attracting as many patrons as the bevy of other successful successors in the Hartford and beyond areas. Largely, the mall’s mal (or mall)-success was due to the center being poorly managed and placed; too far from any vitality (or interstates), having virtually never received any renovations since it’s conception. The mall found it hard to be more than a service to Bristol residents as well as out-of-town traffic. Shopping malls, which survive based on umbillical interstate commerce, had none from the start and whether or not adding a mainline to the Bristol Centre was once visioned - never happened.
A long dissociated mall entrance to Centre Mall Pizza, a familar spot for locals have moved just across the street. For years, this glass canopy has served as a portal into the dead world...
As recently reported in native city newspaper, The Bristol Press, tenants on the outlines of the property, like Sherwin-Williams, and off, like McDonald’s, owned by franchise-owner Santa Cruz, have each made deals to relocate within Bristol. McDonalds, which looks antiquely brown-draped, unrenovated interior will be one of Connecticut’s oldest McDonalds to follow in the shadows, second to the former Berlin Turnpike location, currently receiving an enormous upgrade.
A unique "M" eched bush beside the temple-esque steps at Bristol Centre McDonalds will soon be no more.
As it stands today, just a roadblock in Bristol’s plans to upkeep the city with the times, The Mall at Bristol Centre has been locked up since Summer’s end. The City plans a demolition to happen, but not as soon as residents and city leaders would want. Once Ocean State looses their useless battle, the $2 Million dollar project to rid the mall of it’s everlasting misery will be final. Luckilly, the Caldor Rainbow has secured well over 200 images of the mall property shortly before it‘s end, mostly viewable on Facebook (if anything, a fine host for pictures). With all the mall’s tenants finally gone, it stands out of time, waiting for it’s big steel ball of destiny. Even a child, visiting this mall a good 15 years ago, the mall was eerily dead...
Other vital shopping centers like the richly preserved former Caldor (since Kmart, now Price Chopper) Bristol Commons along the Route 6 corridor, will be celebrating the holidays again.
Bristol Centre Mall galleries from earlier this year, just before closure can be seen here...
My Trip and The Return.
My Trip and The Return.
