Opening as the first indoor shopping center in the Buffalo area, the Boulevard Mall's name is taken from its prime location along Niagara Falls Blvd. The center opened in 1962 with a local Sattler's store which would go through the following transitions over the decades: Sattler's to Sibley's, Sibley's to Kaufmann's and finally Kaufmann's to Macy's. The mall was also anchored by a flagship Jenns store which would later become a Kaufman's mens store in 2000 and later a Macy's mens store. The space is currently now empty, but pics below will show it before it closed. JCPenney became a third anchor by opening a store at the property in 1970.
The mall saw a small expansion to the south in 1978. A food court was added in 1994 and a major renovation occured at the property three years later. Sears would become a fourth anchor in 2000 and close in 2017. The food court was removed in 2015 and replaced with a Dick's Sporting Goods store. With two empty anchor spaces, future plans call for the mall to be redeveloped into a mixed-use property.
You may recall an earlier post I did that covered the liquidation of this Sears location.
Removing the (very popular) food court from the Boulevard to put a Dicks has to go down as one of the dumbest and short sighted moves in Buffalo retail history. Shortly after doing this, both the Macy's Mens (former Jenss) and Sears were both empty - probably 200,000 square feet of real estate with frontage on Niagara Falls Boulevard. Both would have been better options for either integration into a Dick's or demo and rebuild of a new Dick's instead of the dumb location in the back of the mall. It blows my mind how this mall went from a center that stood up to Galleria for 20+ years successfully to being on life support and looking like death in less than 5 years. With Douglas Jemal now owning it, there is hope for the future, but my guess is a lot of the 1962 infrastructure and setup as an actual mall won't last much longer.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought that was odd thing to do as well. I get it if the food court was dead, but it sounds like that was not the case.
DeleteIt does sound like the mall may not be in existence for much longer, but I guess only time will tell.