In the Eastfield Mall on Saturday, a child rode a bicycle on the Springfield shopping center’s floors, several customers waited for their hair appointments at D.R. Tropic Beauty Salon and others relaxed in black, plush massage chairs.
All were visiting the mall on its long-expected final day of business. After opening in 1967 as the region’s first enclosed mall, the Western Massachusetts shopping center closed its doors for good Saturday. Long a staple of the city and the region, the shopping center, like many across the U.S., has seen major vendors at its site, including Macy’s and Sears, shutter in the past decade and experienced a nosedive in popularity as online retailers like Amazon have witnessed their sales soar.
In April, developer Onyx Partners Limited, the company that contracted to buy most of the mall, was granted a special permit from the Springfield City Council to begin redevelopment at the shopping center. In the rubble of the decades-old mall, work is expected to kick off soon to build the Eastfield Commons, a property the developer anticipates will span more than 360,000 square feet and include retailers, offices and other businesses.
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Mountain Development, which previously floated the idea of the Eastfield Commons in 2018, sold the mall to Onyx Partners for $4.5 million in April. The redevelopment of the property is expected to take roughly two years and cost $65 million to $85 million.
The building is expected to be demolished soon after the remaining employees at the mall finish removing salvageable items from inside the shopping center and close the site for good next week.
Open on the mall’s last day of business were the arcade at the shopping center, Donovan’s Irish Pub, D.R. Tropic Beauty Salon, E.B.S., Rainbow Shops, The Pretzel Twister and Tranquility Day Spa. Moving trucks lined many doors on the periphery of the property as people packed up their stores. A couple dozen individuals walked around the site Saturday afternoon, many taking photographs and videos.
- Read more: Take one last look at the Eastfield Mall
Forty-three small business merchants remain at the site, and most had their last day Saturday. Donovan’s pushed back its last day at the mall to Saturday, July 21.
The Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts is working with many of the businesses at the mall to relocate. Some have found space at the Holyoke Mall.
In April, David Thompson, the manager of the mall, said all of the shopping center’s in-line spaces were rented as recently as last year by small businesses, but the spaces previously occupied by anchor stores went unfilled, The Republican reported.
JCPenney closed its doors at the mall in 2011 . Macy’s followed suit, shuttering in 2017 , and a year later, Sears closed as well .
Jim Kinney, business reporter at The Republican, contributed to this report.