Susan Denningham virtually grew up at Rhode Island Mall.
Her mother and grandmother both worked there, and today Denningham, a Cranston resident, works at Sears, where she has been employed for 15 years.
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Denningham’s mother used to drop her off at the mall to shop with friends or catch a movie.
“This was the ‘in’ spot when I was 14,” she said.
But on this lunchtime Friday, while a steady stream of pedestrian traffic milled about Sears (one of the original anchors of the mall, opened in 1967), most of the activity in the mall appeared to be mall workers on breaks themselves.
Business has dropped off dramatically. In fact, the mall no longer maintains a customer service desk.
The mall has 55 tenants. According to the mall’s directory, not including anchors, there are 68 spaces for stores.
Tenants say that while the presence of Providence Place and the slumping economy haven’t helped, it is the lack of at least one more anchor store that has been the mall’s true challenge. After Filene’s left in 1997, they will tell you, the hard times really began.
Vacant stores – abandoned husks with shadowy outlines where electric signs once hung – like Cherry & Webb, Foot Locker, Things Remembered, to name a few, are sandwiched between the few that remain. Of those, most have a sale in progress or a special offer.
Much of what Rhode Island Mall has to offer is far from traditional mall-rat fare: a branch of the Rhode Island Blood Center and a satellite office of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), for example.
One of a series of murals along the second floor wall of Sears depicts gathering places and amusements of Rhode Island’s past: Shepard’s Department Store, the Oakland Beach Wiz Coaster, Rocky Point Amusement Park and the Warwick Musical Theatre.
Ironically, the Rhode Island Mall could be added to the mural if things don’t change.
Denningham said she’s seen the mall through ups and downs, but said this is by far its lowest point.
“This is the sparsest it’s been,” she said, asserting her belief that Wal-Mart’s scheduled opening during the first quarter of 2002 should be just the shot in the arm the mall needs.
“Other stores will be interested in coming into the mall,” she said. “I think it will make it alive again. It will be good for this area.”
Rhode Island Mall could be just about to turn a corner, and Denningham is not the only one who thinks so.
Warwick’s Director of Economic Development, William R. Facente, said he sees a strong comeback in Rhode Island Mall’s future once Wal-Mart is in place. That, coupled with its location (near Route 2’s largest intersection, immediately off highway 95) and the fact that real estate availability is at a premium on the strip, persuade Facente that Rhode Island Mall’s semi-inhabited days may soon be coming to a close.
“There are not a lot of spaces available on Route 2,” he said. “Rhode Island Mall plays a major role in Route 2 – there are a lot of stores on Route 2 because of Rhode Island Mall and Warwick Mall.”
Another thing the mall has going for it is Sears, whose customers Facente described as “brand loyal” and are still shopping at the mall. Additional anchors will give those shoppers reason to walk the mall, he said.
Changes are under way at the mall, including a $6-million renovation project at Sears. Construction of the Wal-Mart proceeds. The nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart is expected to make a major difference on the mall.
Steel has also gone up for what will be a third anchor store for the mall, although mall management is tight-lipped as to what that store will be.
For these reasons, Rhode Island Mall’s Marketing Assistant Suzanne Viner prefers to think of the shopping center as a “mall in transition.”
With three anchors in place “we’ll have a lot more ability to attract future tenants,” she said. “We’re telling our tenants ‘Hang on with us – we’re going to get to a good place.'”
Viner said some of the mall’s more unusual offerings are actually quite popular. The DMV attracts 500 people each day, Viner said, and – especially in the weeks following the terror attacks in Washington D.C. and New York – the mall’s branch of the Rhode Island Blood Center has had very busy evenings and Saturdays.
The mall has been under new management – Chicago-based General Growth Properties (GGP) – since late January. General Growth is one of the largest owners and managers of shopping malls in the country, also handling Natick Mall and Silver City Galleria in Taunton. A new mall manager has yet to be announced. In the interim, Marketing Director Janice Pascone is acting general manager.
Referring all questions about the mall to GGP, Pascone declined to comment on the mall’s current status, but promised that “the mall has a story to tell – we’re just not quite ready to tell it yet.”
Figures released by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UBS Warburg suggest that shoppers are returning to stores after the events of September 11 (according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, September retail sales fell 2.4 percent from August), but uncertain times coupled with lagging consumer confidence make the holiday season difficult to predict. Some, such as Carl Steidman of Deloitte Research forecast a one percent drop in sales this holiday season, compared to last year’s 3.1 percent sales increase.
John Hassell is one of a group of retired men who meet at the mall each day at lunchtime to trade stories and pass the time. The club used to meet in the mall’s food court, but when that space was demolished to make room for Wal-Mart, the men began meeting on the first floor, in the center of the mall.
The group seems to be in conflict about the shopping center’s future prospects.
“The only thing that is keeping the mall busy right now is the registry,” said John Antonaccio, another of the group.
Hassell said the DMV is a good service for the mall and that more malls should have such satellite offices for shoppers. He also lauded the presence of the Rhode Island Blood Center.
Still, Hassell, like many others at the mall is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the superstore that, in terms of its effect on the struggling center, could truly be super.
“No matter where Wal-Mart goes, they bring customers,” he said.
