Photo's taken in 2006 Music : Futureshock / Mike Turcotte ( Copyright MTM 2025 )
From Wiki ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Worcester Center Galleria, located in Downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, was a two level shopping mall which originally opened on July 29, 1971, as a part of the Worcester Center urban renewal project. The mall, which connected the 100 Front Street and 120 Front Street office towers, was successful for 20 years until it closed following a series of store vacancies. The mall re-opened in 1994 as a short-lived outlet center called Worcester Common Fashion Outlets, finally closing in 2006. The mall was demolished and redeveloped into a project called CitySquare.
History 1971–1993: Beginnings
Advertisement for Jordan Marsh, 1971
Mall Guide, 1971 The Worcester Center Galleria opened on July 29, 1971.[1] To be built, a large swath of Worcester's downtown was demolished to make room for the 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) mall and two connected skyscrapers (100 Front Street and 120 Front Street). The Galleria had a large open area with an arched roof that was supposedly modeled after the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy.[1][2] The design for the mall also included a 4,300-space parking garage, which, at the time, was the largest parking structure in the world.[2][3] Two construction experts from New York and California had called the original mall "the finest shopping center they had ever seen in the United States."[1] The original anchor stores included Filene's, Jordan Marsh, and Kennedy's.[2] the mall was hugely popular from 1971-1986 but By the late 1980s, the mall started to decline because two of the major anchors, Filene's and Jordan Marsh, had moved out, and other area malls such as the Auburn Mall and Greendale Mall began drawing away customers.[4]
1994–2003: Revitalization In 1994, Worcester Center Associates sold the Galleria to New England Development which slowly shut down the remaining stores with plans to revitalize the mall.[4] On October 29, 1994, the Galleria reopened as the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets, with Judith Light taking the role of spokesperson, appearing in a large publicity campaign for the mall.[1][5] With the reopening, there were drastic changes to the stores housed in the mall and the look and layout of it. The original anchors were gone and replaced with Sports Authority, Bed Bath and Beyond, Saks Off Fifth Avenue Outlet, Media Play, and Filene's Basement (later VF Factory Outlet). After the re-opening, the mall contained a total of 126 outlet stores.
As time went on, this re-marketing of the mall did not help. In 1996 the name was changed another time to simply Worcester Common Outlets,[6] and in 1997, a larger outlet mall, the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets, opened off nearby Interstate 495 in Wrentham, Massachusetts drawing from the Common Outlets' customer base.
