Discounters crop up near Maine Mall
Low-price shops find the recession has cleared some space in the area and made it affordable.
By BETH QUIMBY, Staff Writer
November 12, 2009
Manager Cori Hodsdon arranges inventory Tuesday at the Olympia Sports outlet in Scarborough. The year-old store was converted to an outlet Oct. 29.
Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
The recession is changing the face of the Maine Mall, the state's major shopping mecca.
Retail space in the mall and surrounding area left vacant by national chain cutbacks and closings is filling up with discount stores, outlets and thrift shops. And while the mall area may not be ready to compete with the Kittery and Freeport outlets, retailers say adding more discounters to the mix is a draw for recession-era bargain hunters.
"It is great for off-price retailers to attract common customers," said Randy Finamore, vice president of retail for Goodwill Industries of New England, which is opening its first Maine Mall-area store next spring, its largest ever.
Goodwill Industries is one of a half-dozen discount retailers that have recently moved or plan to move to the mall area in the coming months, taking advantage of more attractive rents.
"It's a win-win because the mall wouldn't normally go for stores like us," said Nathan Gobeil, president of Gobeil's Furniture Galleries in Gray, which opened its first discount store at the mall this summer.
Gobeil said when he looked for space to locate the new Gobeil's Furniture Warehouse Outlet – to sell the glut of inventory flooding the national market – he searched for warehouses and other inexpensive spaces in Portland before stumbling on the mall, which is in South Portland, and the space left vacant by Linens 'n Things, which went out of business last fall.
Gobeil said he managed to work out a month-to-month arrangement with the mall's owner, General Growth Properties. He declined to provide details.
He said the cash-and-carry discount operation, a departure from Gobeil's special-order store in Gray, has been a big success since it opened in July. He has opened another discount warehouse at a former Linens 'n Things store in Augusta and is looking for other locations in New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts.
"People are looking for deals," he said.
Olympia Sports, a chain of 183 sporting goods stores headquartered in Westbrook, had recession-weary shoppers in mind when it decided to convert its year-old store at 448 Payne Road in Scarborough, just a short jog from its full-price store at the Maine Mall, into a discount operation, said Bob Boland, director of stores. The outlet store opened Oct. 29.
"The reception has been outstanding," Boland said.
He said the company had planned to open a discount operation for a while, and the down economy seemed like good timing. "People like the idea that if we don't have what they want (at the discount store) they can jump over to the mall," Boland said.
Goodwill Industries of Northern New England has just leased the former Circuit City building on Payne Road, vacant since the national retailer liquidated last winter, and plans a flagship store in the 27,620-square-foot space this spring. On the other side of the Maine Mall, the Salvation Army opened a thrift store at the Shops at Clark's Pond mall in May.
"The retail environment has offered us some advantages, in terms of real estate, that were not available two years ago," said Finamore, the Goodwill manager.
Goodwill of Northern New England saw sales grow by 4 percent in the past year at stores that have existed for a year or more, and 9 percent overall at a time when national retailers are seeing double-digit slumps.
Goodwill will also open a store in Ellsworth Nov. 20 and South Burlington, Vt., in December.
Marden's, a chain of 14 surplus-and-salvage stores based in Waterville, is venturing into the Maine Mall area for the first time. Marden's plans to open a store next year at the former 119,000-square-foot Walmart building on Payne Road left vacant when the Walmart Supercenter opened in the adjacent Scarborough Gallery earlier this year.
Craig Gorris, Maine Mall general manager, said while the mall continues to focus on attracting national chains, it welcomes temporary stores, such as Gobeil's, that are known in the industry as pop-ups. He said they breathe new life into a mall and generate income for the owners.
"The mall is constantly reinventing itself, and these pop-up uses allow us to try a new category or product," Gorris said.
He said the mall has also been on the lookout for other new uses, such as Maine-based museums or other arts and cultural organizations that would benefit from a mall presence.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:
bquimby@pressherald.com
