This is our walkthrough of the Eastfield Mall in Springfield, MA from January 2, 2019. This is a quite sad, dying mall in eastern Springfield. All anchors are vacant. Occupancy is terrible, with more than half the mall empty. This mall has an incredibly vintage vibe going on, with teal neon literally everywhere. Check out our ongoing series of dead and dying shopping malls!
Songs used in this video (in order):
Herb Alpert - Manhattan Melody
Herb Alpert - Beyond
Steve Gray - Wonder Groove
Here is a brief history from Wikipedia:
The Eastfield Mall is a shopping mall in Springfield, Massachusetts, and is owned by Mountain Development Corporation. Built in late 1967 by the Rouse Company, it includes a 16 screen movie cinema owned by Cinemark. The three anchors, JCPenney, Macy's, and Sears closed in 2011, 2016, and 2018, respectively. The mall is managed by Mountain Development.
Eastfield Mall opened in 1967 with three anchors, two of which were local department stores: Forbes & Wallace and Steiger's. The third anchor store, Sears, also opened with the mall. Forbes & Wallace closed in 1975 leaving the space vacant, it was eventually sold to JCPenney, which moved into the former space. In 1994, Filene's, whose parent company May Department Stores had bought Steiger's moved into their old space. This store became Macy's in 2006 after May was purchased by Federated Department Stores (Macy's parent company at the time). The 16 screen movie theater was added in 2000 and was initially a Showcase Cinemas. Today the theater is owned by Cinemark.
The addition of a Steve & Barry's clothing store in 2006 put the mall at full occupancy for the first time since 1978. The store displaced nine smaller retail outlets, of which only two relocated within the mall. This store closed in 2008 following the chain's bankruptcy proceedings. In 2009, Hannoush Jewelers opened a showroom in the space vacated by Steve & Barry's. In 2004, the mall implemented a teen escort policy, stating that any customer under the age of 15 must be with an escort after 5:00 PM.The JCPenney store was later downgraded to an outlet store, and closed in 2011 when JCPenney eliminated its outlet store division.
On January 6, 2016, Macy's announced that it would be closing the Eastfield Mall location in April 2016 as part of a plan to close 36 stores nationwide which left Sears as the only anchor store left.
On May 31, 2018, Sears announced that its store would also be closing as part of a plan to close 78 stores nationwide. The store closed on September 2, 2018. The closure of Sears left the mall with no store anchors. The mall's only fountain was shut off sometime in the fall of 2018.
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