The Mall of New Hampshire is a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

located in the Lower South Willow neighborhood of

Manchester, New Hampshire Manchester is the List of municipalities in New Hampshire, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Located on the banks of the Merrimack River, it had a population of 115,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Manches ...

. Its major anchoring stores are

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay, San Francisco, Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of t ...

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized in all caps as DICK'S Sporting Goods) is an American chain of sporting goods stores founded in 1948 by Richard "Dick" Stack. It is the largest sporting goods retailer in the United States and is listed ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

, and

Dave & Buster's Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. (stylized in all caps) is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's location has a full-service restaurant, full bar, and a video arcade; the latter of w ...

. The mall has 125 stores as well as a large food court and is , making it the third largest mall in New Hampshire after the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, and the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, which opened in 1991 and 1986, respectively. This was the first large-scale shopping mall in New Hampshire; initial construction of the mall was completed in August 1977, though it has since been dramatically expanded. The Mall of New Hampshire is managed by

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in Indian ...

, which owns 56.4 percent of it. The mall is also 44 percent owned by the

CPP Investment Board The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB; ), operating as CPP Investments (), is a Canadian Crown corporation established by way of the 1997 ''Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act'' to oversee and invest the funds contributed to and h ...

, which manages the

Canada Pension Plan The Canada Pension Plan (CPP; ) is a contributory, earnings-related social insurance program. It is one of the two major components of Canada's public retirement income system, the other being Old Age Security (OAS). Other parts of Canada's retir ...

national pension system. The mall is located just off the South Willow Street exit (Exit 1) of

Interstate 293 Interstate 293 (I-293) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway surrounding Manchester, New Hampshire, roughly shaped like two sides of a triangle. Completing the loop in the northeast (the third side of the triangle) is Interstate 93 in New Ham ...

, and has convenient access from the entire

Golden Triangle Golden Triangle may refer to: Places Asia * Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia), named for its opium production * Golden Triangle (Yangtze), China, named for its rapid economic development * Golden Triangle (India), comprising the popular tourist sp ...

of New Hampshire and portions of northeastern

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Because of its location in south-central New Hampshire, the mall, along with other area malls draw a significant portion of its customer base from

citizens, as well as residents of neighboring

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

and

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

, wishing to take advantage of New Hampshire's lack of

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

History

The Mall of New Hampshire opened in August 1977 with

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

Filene's Filene's was an American department store chain founded in 1881 by William Filene. The historic Filene's Department Store in the Downtown Crossing district of Boston, Massachusetts housed the flagship store and headquarters, while branch store ...

, and

Lechmere Lechmere was an American retail store chain founded in 1913 by Abraham Cohen. The name was inspired by the Lechmere Square part of Cambridge, Massachusetts where the first store was located. It originated as a harness shop, and evolved to incl ...

as anchors. The mall underwent a huge expansion and remodeling from late 1996 to early 1998. Sears was expanded in 1997 and remodeled. The original Filene's was relocated to a newly built store in a newer wing of the mall in early 1997. The original Filene's was demolished and rebuilt into a 2-level

in early 1998. The Lechmere closed in 1997 and became in 1998 a

and a Kitchen ETC. The

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food Vendor, vendors and provides a common area for self-serve di ...

was renovated in early 1998 and changed to a 550-seat food court. In 2006, as a result of the Federated/

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May in the Southern Hemisphere is the ...

merger, all Filene's locations, including the one at the mall, were closed, followed by most of them, including the Mall of New Hampshire location changing over to

. In April 2013, JCPenney went under another big renovation on both the top and bottom levels of their store, adding in a

Sephora Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products, offering nearly 340 brands alongside its own private label, the Sephora Collection. Its product range includes cosmetics, skincare, fragrance, nail color, beauty t ...

to help ease customers from going to the locations down at the Mall at Rockingham Park and the Pheasant Lane Mall. In 2015,

Sears Holdings Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20th-l ...

spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Mall of New Hampshire, into Seritage Growth Properties. On August 22, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to 46 stores nationwide. The store closed in November 2018. On December 8, 2018, it was announced that

would be opening in half of the former Sears. The other half of the former Sears will become

. Dick's Sporting Goods opened on October 30, 2019, and Dave & Buster's was originally scheduled to open on March 30, 2020, however it was delayed to August 24, 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The former Sears Auto Center will be demolished for more parking spaces.

References

External links

The Mall of New Hampshire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mall Of New Hampshire Buildings and structures in Manchester, New Hampshire Simon Property Group Shopping malls in New Hampshire Shopping malls established in 1977 Tourist attractions in Manchester, New Hampshire 1977 establishments in New Hampshire