The number of people coming for testing has stayed roughly around the thousand mark for weeks.įorward had been in the queue for a test before she went back to work after the holiday and noticed the way a staff member from the Eastfield Mall, who was directing traffic, showed good nature by joking with drivers as they waited in the long lines that spiraled around the parking lot. Operations Manager for AMR Patrick Leonardo told MassLive on Monday that the numbers of people that required testing had grown from roughly 400 when they had opened the site for free testing as part of the state’s Stop the Spread initiative in August, to over 1,500 after Thanksgiving. An East Longmeadow High School Music Teacher, Carol Forward, took to Facebook to raise money to make donations after seeing firsthand the professionalism shown by the American Medical Response personnel at the COVID testing site in Springfield shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday. A drive-through COVID testing site was located in the mall’s parking lot.SPRINGFIELD, Mass. It thrived until the beginning of this century when shopping habits changed and enclosed malls fell out of favor.Īs anchor retailers including JC Penney, Macy’s, and Sears closed in the last decade, plans were floated to redevelop the property into housing and even cannabis cultivation, but those all fell through.ĭuring the COVID pandemic, the former Macy’s was turned into a mass vaccination clinic. The Eastfield Mall opened in 1967 – more than a decade before the Holyoke Mall and Hampshire Mall. By early August, the last of the remaining retailers – many of them operating out of kiosks and pushcarts – had moved out. The mall closed its doors to shoppers for good on July 15 th. It’s estimated the demolition of the old mall and construction of the new shopping center will take at least two years to complete. “We are also looking at the possibility of a dedicated trail that can be safely accessed for walking.” “There will be sidewalks around the entire property,” he said. Kaplan said there will be more open space and landscaping than what exists at the property now. The new shopping center would be roughly two-thirds the size of the old mall. “There’s going to be a pet store, there’s a few restaurants that have been floated out there, Old Navy is planning to come back,” he said. It is premature to identify the tenants, said Brian Kaplan, vice president of development for Onyx. Plans for the new shopping center on file with the city show 17 separate buildings of various sizes that would contain retailers, casual dining restaurants, and office space. “We think it is very meaningful for the community.” “It’s a huge investment for us, as you can imagine,” he said. Onyx Partners Limited purchased the mall earlier this year and in April received a special permit from the Springfield City Council for the redevelopment project.Īt a City Council hearing, Anton Melchionda, the CEO of Onyx, said the project will cost $65 million-$80 million, create hundreds of new full- and part-time jobs, and increase the real estate tax on the property by $1.7 million. The first section of the now-closed mall to be targeted by the wrecking crew is the 16-screen movie theater located at the rear of the 46-acre property on Boston Road near the Springfield-Wilbraham line. Work is underway to raze the Eastfield Mall to make way for the construction of a modern and much smaller open-air shopping center that the developers have named “Springfield Crossing.” One of the first enclosed shopping malls in the region is being demolished.
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