Lord & Taylor / J.C.Penney - Providence Place Mall - Providence, RI

Lord & Taylor / J.C.Penney - Providence Place Mall - Providence, RI

  May 27, 2018    Robby S.

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Some exterior Lord and Taylor signage to the left ©MagazineUSA

LORD & TAYLOR
J.C. PENNEY
BOTH CLOSED ANCHORS
PROVIDENCE PLACE MALL
PROVIDENCE, RI

So if you know anything about the Providence Place Mall, you would know that the mall is doing exceptionally well, considering how it's an indoor shopping center. There are very few vacancies and many popular retailers and tourist attractions such as Dave & Busters on the third floor.

The Providence Place Mall is a shopping center located in Rhode Island's capital city of Providence, just off of the I-95. The mall currently houses 146 shops and three anchor stores (Macy*s, Nordstrom, and Bed Bath & Beyond). Doesn't it seem odd that for such a large mall there are only three anchor stores, one of which is quite small?

Well, that's because the mall was designed to house an additional anchor space, which has been owned by two different companies throughout the mall's existence. When the mall opened in 1999, it was anchored by Nordstrom and Filene's, with Lord & Taylor moving in sometime in 2001.

Here we have a few shots of the store of the Lord and Taylor store prior to its opening. The images come from the architectural firm Johnson Schmidt & Associates, who was in charge of the store's construction

©JSA via Dimeo

©JSA via Dimeo

©JSA via Dimeo

The store was originally constructed to account for three levels of retail space, much like Nordstrom and Macy*s. The mall's only anchor to be limited to one floor is Bed Bath & Beyond, which is on the first floor only.

L&T would only last for four short years until 2005, and J.C. Penney opened in the mall on February 24, 2006. Later on that same year, Filene's would be converted into a Macy*s store.

Here we have some of JCP's exterior signage facing I-95 ©The Daily Meal

Interior signs pointing towards JCPenney ©Greater City Providence

JCP's interior entrance on an unknown floor ©프로비던스 기차역

Inside the store ©Dexter V via Yelp

Despite opening in 2006, the JCPenney underwent renovations in 2012, showing that the company had some confidence in this location. The reason it gave for shuttering the location, however, was that the store was under-performing.

As it stands in the mall today, the L&T/JCP space has been barricaded off and the bottom two floors of the main retail area have been demolished to expand the north parking garage. Remarkably, the exterior of the building remains completely intact.

While the location was still open, YouTuber georgef551 went into JCPenney and filmed the store's escalators. While the focus of the video of course is on the escalators, you can see quite a bit of the store from the video, so be sure to check that out below!

Stay tuned for Providence Place Mall updates in the near future. It's pretty interesting since this mall is one of the most 'alive' malls I've been to ever, compared to the mostly dead malls I frequently cover on this blog.

Until next time
~RS