For at least two business owners with stores inside Steeplegate Mall, the eviction notices they received from the property owners in February have come with some silver linings.
Blue Sky Hair Studio and The Jeweler’s Workbench, two of the five interior mall tenants told to leave the mall last month, have already found new digs in Concord. The other businesses leaving the mall are Mt. Everest Goods, The Arch Threading and Spa, and Wireless Zone.
“Management did recently ultimately make the decision to close its interiors in pursuit of an exciting potential project that would include the space currently leased to in-line tenants,” Jelson Santos, director of operations at Namdar Realty Group, the New York-based firm that owns the mall, said in a statement. “Those with public access will continue to operate as usual while we explore the future of Steeplegate Mall from within.”
Blue Sky is moving just across the street to Carrier Place, a complex owned by Christian Poyant and Patrick O’Connell at 270 Loudon Road that includes stores like a Chipotle, Wrap City Sandwich Company and dental offices. Poyant said he read about Blue Sky’s situation in a Monitor story and reached out to owner Carrie Foote.
Although the mall has limped along in recent years, neighboring businesses along Loudon Road are thriving, Carrier Place’s tenants among them. “Our tenants have been doing pretty well, better than expected,” Poyant said.
Although the space is currently serving as a temporary COVID vaccination site, Blue Sky’s new location used to hold a hair salon. That means fewer changes need to happen before Foote can relocate.
When Foote received the news that she would have to leave the mall despite the years remaining on her lease, it was a blow. “At first we were like, ‘oh, this is terrible,’ but now it’s for the better,” Foote said. “We’re so excited.” She plans to open in the new location on April 5.
“It has a beautiful energy, it’s a nice space,” she said.
Foote was struggling to recruit booth-renting stylists when her salon was inside the mall but she hopes that in the new space, it will be easier to staff two extra salon chairs. Customers will also be able to walk directly from their cars into the salon, instead of trekking through the mall’s last remaining anchor store, JCPenney.
Gregg Mezzapelle, owner of the Jeweler’s Workbench, will be moving out of the mall in the coming weeks and into a new spot downtown at 251 South Main Street.
Mezzapelle said leaving the mall where he has worked at his jewelry repair kiosk for 15 years is “bittersweet,” and he will miss the relationships he has fostered with the mall walkers and disabled people who visit the mall with caretakers. “This is kind of like a small community,” he said.
Still, the move has its upsides. In the new space, Mezzappelle be able to control his own heat instead of being subject to the mall’s climate control. He plans to paint the new store and replace the carpeting with the help of his fiancée, who has an interior design background.
“It’s nice because I can add my own touches to it,” he said.
Most importantly, his new landlord has assured him that the mall’s unofficial mascot, Mezzappelle’s one-eyed dog Olivia, will be able to accompany him in his new store. Olivia has spent seven years in the mall at his side.
“It’s gotten odder and odder walking in throughout the years,” Mezzapelle said, as he’s watched businesses leave and customers trickle away from the mall. “It’s going to be unbelievable the last day walking out of this mall.”