In the post immediately above, the first photo on its left shows the bunkerlike structure that houses Macy’s, part of Stamford’s dying mall, which opened in 1982 and has been in decline for at least the past decade or so.
The sooner the mall dies the better. The nearly impenetrable windowless citadel is a stain on Stamford’s downtown, and its inevitable death, demolition and replacement will be sure to add vibrancy and accelerate growth in the central business district.
Stopgap solutions like indoor pickleball (who plays pickleball under a low ceiling?) will not save the mall.
It’s time to admit that nothing lasts forever, not even Forever 21.
The demolition of the mall and its associated high-rise parking garage (with its various aerial ramps and loops) will open up a huge area for redevelopment and may allow Stamford to restore walkable streets that were discontinued when the mall and Landmark Square were built (such as Main Street between Atlantic Street and Greyrock Place).
As we have written before, the partially vacant Landmark Square office complex that occupies the same block is planning to demolish some of its office buildings to make way for high-rise housing. Let’s hope the same happens to the Stamford mall:
Another largely windowless retail bunker is the Burlington Coat Factory at 74 Broad Street, down the street from the dying mall. As I wrote before, this used to be Caldor, and it is inevitable that Burlington will eventually close here in favor of another location in Stamford. This is a great site for redevelopment. An ideal future owner is University of Connecticut, whose Stamford campus is just a block away. This site could easily house classrooms, student housing or a mix of both. That said, the likelihood of UConn buying this property is somewhat low, as they already own a piece of underdeveloped land, the riverfront parking lot at the NW corner of Washington Blvd and Broad Street, and UConn hasn’t yet figured out how the parking lot fits into their long-term plans for the Stamford campus.