|
|
|
Letters
|
Business New Haven
4/3/2000
By: BNH
|
Defending Chapel Square
Regarding the part of the “Downtown Doings” article (BNH, March 6) dealing with Chapel Square Mall, I take umbrage with a portion of the first paragraph, namely that “the mall has been allowed to languish (that's putting it nicely)” and especially the parenthetical opinion expressed by author Susan Beck.
If having several tenants whose gross sales exceed $400 and $500 per square foot can be construed as “languishing,” we should all be so languishing. At least one retail tenant of the mall launched his business here in February 1996. Not only is his store exceeding $350 per square foot in sales (nearly $100 per foot above his expectations), he has just completed opening his ninth store (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts), as well as opening a second store with an expanded line of merchandise here at the mall, twice the size of his first store. We should all be so “unfortunate.”
Since 1995 the mall has been kept open, maintaining most of its 1995 tenants, attracting new temporary tenants and maintaining a high level of occupancy over the past five years - this in the face of predictions among nay-sayers that the mall wouldn't last six months following the departure of the former owners.
The innuendo of this segment of the article implies that, except at the Yale Co-Op, there is nothing worth purchasing, nor are there good enough retail establishments here to serve downtown customers. Before we get lulled to sleep and write off the hard-working merchants of our 38-plus stores and the thousands of customers who do shop here, consider that they are responsible for annual sales of at least $22 million. Someone is shopping here!
Yes, we look forward to a day when this block is upgraded, redeveloped and made more attractive to a wider range of patrons. And yes, brain trusts much greater than mine are working on such a future for this important piece of downtown.
Hopefully, this does not have to come at the cost of, and will include, these wonderful people who have kept Chapel Square alive these recent years: our indefatigable retail merchants and, most importantly, our faithful and loyal patrons - all of them!a
- Archie D'Amato
Vice President/Development
Chapel Square Downtown
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
