By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
After plans for factory outlets fell through, the newest owners of the former Rhode Island Mall are confirming details about their first tenant.
David Frederick, managing partner at MCB Real Estate, tells WPRO that Burlington Coat Factory is scheduled to open on the first level of the mall in August of 2016. He hopes the other tenants will be ready to open at the same time.
“We’ll be building their store, probably starting sometime in the fall,” Frederick said Wednesday. There are three other Burlington Coat Factory stores in the state: one in East Providence, one in Woonsocket and another in Johnston. Burlington describes themselves as a “leading off-price apparel and home product retailer.” Frederick said Burlington will co-exist well with the existing clothing stores on the property, Sears and Kohl’s
Frederick said they are talking to a “variety of retailers” to fill up to four other vacancies in the mall.
He also said they are also in the process of rebranding the shopping center.
“It’s name, ‘Rhode Island Mall,’ is something that, because of the vacancies and the closings and so forth…it’s important for us to get a fresh start,” he said. “So you’ll be seeing some attempts at changing the image, the name, et cetera, over a period of time.” He wouldn’t offer details on what the new identity of the mall might be.
READ MORE:
- Sale of RI Mall to Baltimore company complete
- Archive: Rhode Island Mall to become factory outlets
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MCB, a Baltimore-based firm, closed on the purchase of the mall in June. They are not disclosing the sale price.
The new owners plan to convert the once-popular shopping mall into several “big box” retailers. Sears, Wal-Mart and Kohl’s are separately owned and will remain anchor stores.
“Our plan is to close in the atrium and basically separate the two floors,” Frederick said of the former Midland Mall. “It won’t be a mall anymore, it will basically be junior box [stores].”
MCB bought the empty shell of the now-defunct mall from Surrey Equities and Winstanley Enterprises, two firms that planned to turn the shopping center into factory outlets. Surrey and Winstanley announced earlier this year that the plans for factory outlets had fallen through.
The Midland Mall opened in the late 1960’s and became known as the Rhode Island Mall in the 1980’s. The two-story shopping center began to lose retailers once their major anchor store, Filene’s, left in the mid-1990’s. The nearby Warwick Mall opened in 1972 and succeeded in growing while the Rhode Island Mall shrank.
Eventually the stores in the mall dwindled to just a few: LensCrafters, GNC and First Place Sports were the only tenants when the mall officially closed in the spring of 2011.
This story has been corrected to include the Burlington Coat Factory also has a location in Woonsocket, RI.
