A place to gather, but where to shop?

STEEL CURTAIN: Once surrounded by other shops, First Place Sports in Warwick’s Rhode Island Mall now sits adjacent to gated vacant storefronts. Above, owner Frank Silva poses with gear he 
discounted in advance of the Super Bowl. /
STEEL CURTAIN: Once surrounded by other shops, First Place Sports in Warwick’s Rhode Island Mall now sits adjacent to gated vacant storefronts. Above, owner Frank Silva poses with gear he discounted in advance of the Super Bowl. /

Each Tuesday and Friday, retirees Donald Fairley, Edward S. Thomas and John Antonaccio meet at about noon near the interior fountain at Rhode Island Mall, the first modern mall to open in the Ocean State, to sit, talk and relax.
One thing they rarely do on their visits is shop.
West Warwick’s Thomas, 91 years old and the eldest, made it clear last week that even if he did feel like spending a few bucks, there aren’t many stores left in the mall’s interior to do so. “Where?” he asked, looking at vacant storefronts in both directions. Fairley, from Warwick, added, “There’s nothing left here.”
A map at the mall shows 68 total storefronts and lists 20 stores in residence, but a quick survey of the interior of the mall last week showed that there are about eight interior storefronts open for business.
Although the mall’s cavernous, two-floor interior is largely devoid of open storefronts, there is activity inside. The retirees make it a point to sit near the R.I. Division of Motor Vehicles branch that’s on the lower level, so they can watch people waiting in line. And the rest of the mall has become a haven for indoor exercise, with walkers stretching their muscles and power-walking around the upper level.
“The vacancy is no mystery, it’s really high,” said Jeffrey Grab, of Eastern Real Estate LLC, the Woburn, Mass.-based firm that manages the mall.
According to City of Warwick records, Eastern sold the estimated 460,000-square-foot mall – including a 100,000-square-foot Kohl’s and 134,000-square-foot Wal-Mart – to Munich, Germany-based GLL Real Estate Partners for $36.6 million in 2004. The building is assessed at $34.07 million, according to records.
Grab made it clear that the mall relies heavily on its three strong anchor stores. But two of those stores don’t have interior entrances; Sears, the only anchor with an interior entrance, is in an attached but separate 203,000-square-foot building that’s owned by Illinois-based Sears Roebuck & Co.
As for the rest of the mall, it’s unclear exactly why so many interior storefronts are vacant. Grab declined to comment on any current leases, but he said there were no plans to “change anything in the immediate future. With Wal-Mart and Kohl’s there – they’re fantastic tenants.”
Some of the interior space has been let to Stop & Shop Supermarket Co.’s parent corporation, the Netherlands-based Royal Ahold. Stop & Shop spokesman Peter M. Hamilton last week declined to disclose terms of the lease, or the amount of space the company is leasing. Stop & Shop last fall opened an estimated 60,000-square-foot supermarket in Carpionato Properties Inc.’s The Greenwood Shops, which is less than a mile from the Rhode Island Mall.
“We do have a lease in the mall but have not made any final determinations regarding our future plans,” Hamilton said in an e-mail last week.
On the mall’s upper level and off the main concourse, Frank Silva has run First Place Sports for 21 years. He and the other interior tenants have been on month-to-month leases for eight years – since Royal Ahold signed a lease, he said. The insecurity of short leases has kept new tenants away and drove others out.
“There used to be 60 stores and a food court in here,” he said. “Stop & Shop could sublease its space to other stores, but for anybody who had a long-term lease – when those ended they wouldn’t negotiate any new long-term leases.”
Silva said there long have been rumors among Rhode Island Mall tenants that Stop & Shop is holding the lease on unused space to stop another national chain from filling it. “It’s a competition,” he said. Neither Hamilton nor Grab would comment on whether Stop & Shop intends to build in the mall.
Nationally, it’s expected to be a tough year for retailers and malls. The National Retail Federation last week announced that 2009 sales might fall 0.5 percent from 2008 sales.
Providence’s Bliss Properties is owner of the Warwick Mall, which is just across the Pawtuxet River and a short drive from the Rhode Island Mall. Bliss principal Aram G. Garabedian announced last week that his mall will be trimming an hour each day in an attempt to reel in energy and employment costs. The mall’s anchor stores – Target, Macy’s and JC Penney – won’t be affected.
The Warwick Mall, with storefronts that include several national chain stores, is much busier than the Rhode Island Mall, although Garabedian would not comment on how many empty storefronts he has.
The Warwick Mall and Rhode Island Mall were built within two years of each other, Warwick historian Don D’Amato noted in a conversation last week.
Rhode Island Mall’s construction – it was called Midland Mall when it opened in 1968 – was spurred by the Interstate 95 and Interstate 295 interchange being built nearby. The property had previously been part of the Knight Farm and it “changed the retail landscape at that time.” Before the mall was built, Providence was the retail center of Rhode Island and it was “difficult to buy a suit of clothes in Warwick,” historian Dan D’Amato said.
While the Warwick Mall seems to have weathered upscale Providence Place mall’s 1999 opening, the Rhode Island Mall hasn’t been as successful in keeping its storefronts full, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian said last week. “It was a real groundbreaking retail center,” he said. “But it just has not kept pace with everything else that’s been happening.”
But the Rhode Island Mall isn’t necessarily failing, he said, adding that GLL is up to date on paying its tax bills.
First Place Sport’s Silva said his business is still going strong. “I still have my regular customers, who keep coming back,” he said. He said the express DMV branch brings in customers and that he expects the closing of other DMV branches to bring more customers.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Charles Frigon, a 25-year-old Block Island construction worker, and his girlfriend, Deedra Keach, were idling near the mall’s elevator and water fountain, talking and waiting for their number to come up at the DMV. Frigon was there to renew his license and said he hasn’t recently gone to the Rhode Island Mall for anything other than that purpose.
Frigon talked about the mall’s history in a wistful way, almost as though it no longer existed. “I remember coming here – I remember riding the elevator, throwing pennies in the fountain. I remember looking at the animals in the pet store,” he said, pointing down the row of empty storefronts, no pet store in sight. •

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