Eastfield Mall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Eastfield Mall is a shopping mall in Springfield, Massachusetts. Built in the late 1967, it was one of the first indoor malls in New England. Its three anchor stores were built as free standing stores originally with the actual mall built between them afterwards. Today, Eastfield refers to both the mall and the entire retail district interchangeably.
[edit] History
Eastfield was built to cater to booming suburbs and rapidly developing Sixteen Acres neighborhood of Springfield. At 600,000 square feet it was largest mall in the area until Holyoke Mall opened some ten years later. Originally, two of its three anchor stores were branches of the hometown department store Forbes & Wallace and Steigers. The third anchor store, Sears remains to this day. The mall underwent changes over the years including construction of a food court and the change of anchor stores.
As Springfield's downtown retail sector slowly shut down, Eastfield increasingly become the primary retail venue in the city. Additional retail developments grew up around the mall along Boston Road in both directions and into neighboring Wilbraham. However, Eastfield began to suffer when the local department stores closed and the Holyoke Mall and Enfield Square Mall, both with direct access to I-91. Forbes closed in 1975 leaving the mall store vacant. It was sold (the anchor stores are wholly owned by their tenant or proxies) and JC Penney moved in. Over the following two decades, Steigers, several mall stores, and nearby establishments including a neighboring Lechmere closed.
However, the malls fortunes were reversed. After some hesitation, Filene's, whose parent company May Department Stores had bought Steigers, moved into their old space. A movie theater was built on unneeded parking in the late 1990's, drawing many more people in the mall. Some new restaurants opened nearby, including two onsite. The mall repositioned itself as a smaller alternative to Holyoke, and as the preferred choice to those in the city's eastern suburbs and neighborhoods.
[edit] Current Stores
The Eastfield Mall has over seventy-five stores and restaurants including Macy's (formerly Filene's), Sears, American Eagle, Aéropostale, Old Navy, Hot Topic, Pacific Sunwear, Showcase Cinemas, 99 Restaurant & Pub and most recently Steve & Barry's. JC Penney retains a presence at the mall, however, it turned its store in an outlet for its catalog merchandise in 2005. The mall also has a fair number of independent establishments in both food and consumer goods.
