NEWPORT – After four decades, a popular women’s clothing store located on a prominent city intersection will be closing shop on Sept. 9 and replaced by a JPMorgan Chase Bank branch, according to employees and public filings with the city’s Historic District Commission.
Reached by phone Friday, Diane Kerins, an associate at Talbots Newport, said that rumors had been swirling since March, but the seven staff members were only recently informed the store would be closing.
Kerins said they were not offered transfers to other locations.
“We are all very sad about it,” she said. “This is a big loss.”
JP Morgan Chase Bank is amid a statewide expansion that began in 2018 and includes 13 new branches in Rhode Island. The first Rhode Island branch opened in Providence in 2019 and its first Aquidneck Island location opened in Middletown last year.
Conversely, Talbots Inc., the Hingham, Mass.-based retailer with hundreds of locations throughout the United States, is losing its local footprint. The Providence Place Mall location closed in January. The only remaining Rhode Island stores are in Barrington and Cranston.
Located within the Bellevue Avenue Historic District and the Newport Local Historic District, the Travers building on the corner of Memorial Boulevard and Bellevue Avenue was constructed in 1870.
According to plans filed with the city, the bank plans to operate within the existing footprint. The HDC held a special meeting on Aug. 15 to discuss the new tenant’s requests to install new black awnings with the Chase logo on the building along Bellevue Avenue. The commission recommended any alterations “Retain and preserve the historic character” and that they not remove any historic materials.
Messages to a Chase Bank spokesperson and calls to Melvin Hill, principal with Travers Associates Ltd, which owns the property, were not returned.
Most recently valued at $4.5 million, according to the tax assessor’s office, the roughly 30,000-square-foot muti-tenant Travers building is part of a continuous commercial block on the east side of Bellevue Avenue. The building was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt and is adjacent International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
