Rhode Island Mall
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Rhode Island Mall (or informally known as the Midland Mall, as it originally opened under that name) is a shopping mall in Warwick, Rhode Island. It is at the corner of RI 2 and RI 113 and is across the road from CCRI Knight Campus as well as being across the river from Warwick Mall. It is a two level split mall.
[edit] History
The Rhode Island Mall opened in 1968 as the Midland Mall, which was then the first two-level enclosed shopping mall in New England. The larger Warwick Mall opened just to the north of the Midland Mall in 1972, but until the mid-1990s these two mid-sized malls co-existed peacefully. As each mall had space for fewer than 100 stores, both malls were able to operate without much overlap between them and their proximity reinforced the Warwick area as a premier shopping district for southern New England. The Midland Mall's long-time anchor stores were Sears and G. Fox, and the mall also hosted one junior anchor in a Cherry & Webb store on the first level.
The Midland Mall was extensively renovated and re-branded as the Rhode Island Mall in 1984. The Greenhouse Cafes food court, the first of its kind in the area, also opened around this time.
[edit] Current Status
In 1988, May Department Stores acquired Boston-based department store chain Filene's. May merged its previously owned G. Fox division into Filene's in 1993, and converted all of its stores, including the Rhode Island Mall location, to the Filene's name. In 1997, Filene's announced they would be closing their branch due to the redundancy of this location with another store across the street at the larger Warwick Mall. This was a major turning point in the profitabilty of the Rhode Island Mall. After the closure of Filene's, the retail space it took as well as 1/3 of the mall (including the Greenhouse Cafes Food Court) was demolished and replaced by two other stores that each occupy one floor of the two-level mall: Wal Mart on the first level and Kohl's on the second. These stores do not have any inside access to the mall, which caused many of the mall's remaining tenants to vacate. Only 18 stores in the mall are occupied.
