Rehabilitation Projects Give Area Malls a New Lease on Life

GREATER BOSTON-Three area malls have recently been renovated, demonstrating a national trend to redo existing centers rather than build new ones. The Dedham Mall, the Village Mall in Canton and the Westgate Mall in Brockton have all received facelifts, reversing years of decline in each of these centers.

“The new centers are huge and incorporate a lot of different components such as entertainment and restaurants,” Patrice Selleck, spokesperson for the International Council of Shopping Centers, tells GlobeSt.com. “Renovations are expensive but not as expensive as building a new center. If a company has an existing facility it will look to see how it can renovate the center to keep it vibrant.”

Selleck adds that because of the competitive nature of the industry, companies generally need to renovate shopping centers every seven to ten years. These three malls are not looking to compete with the larger shopping centers–none of them added food courts or movie theaters to their centers. Changes enabled them to survive in an increasingly crowded market. Throughout the 1990s, big box retailers and huge regional malls in the area became the shopping draw for consumers. Many of their key anchor stores–such as Woolworth, Child World and Caldors–went out of business.