End of an era — Taunton Silver City Galleria mall to be demolished

Susannah Sudborough 

The Taunton Daily Gazette

Jan 25, 2021

TAUNTON — After nearly 30 years of existence, the Silver City Galleria mall off Route 24 in Taunton will be no more.

Mayor Shaunna O'Connell has confirmed a plan for it to be demolished next month. 

The owner, Bill Thibeault, is undecided as to what will replace the mall, but O'Connell said he is considering light industrial buildings such as warehousing and distribution.

O'Connell said she is encouraging the owner to choose something that will bring more jobs to Taunton, and that although there is not a set timeline for a new use for the property, she believes it will move forward quickly. 

"I do believe it will not be a drawn-out process," she said. "They want to get the property developed, and we want to help them accomplish that as quickly as possible."

While Taunton is losing a decades-old staple, O'Connell said she sees a lot of potential in the property's revitalization. 

"It is sad to see the mall go away, but that's the unfortunate reality across the country in the past several years. Malls have been kind of a dying breed," she said.

"And I think we have to put a positive spin on it and look at the new opportunity for the future, and that will be creating economic opportunity and creating jobs." 

The Galleria has been on a steady downward slide since its heyday in the 1990s — as online shopping has increasingly killed malls across the country.

The Galleria, which opened in 1992, started bleeding anchor stores half a dozen years ago, when JCPenney closed its doors in 2015. That was followed by Macy’s and Best Buy in 2017 and Sears in 2018.

Some of those retail stores were replaced with less traditional mall tenants. In 2015, a Round 1 amusement center opened, and the mall’s movie theater underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation. And Bristol Community College opened a Taunton campus in the Galleria in 2016.

But apparently the shift wasn’t enough to save the mall.

In 2002, the Galleria’s assessed value, based on income and expenses, was $120 million.

The mall’s most recent previous owners bought the property in 2013 for $22.1 million and included The MGHerring Group, Tricom Real Estate Group LLC and Contrarian Capital Management LLC.

Then in 2019 Thibeault Development bought the two-story, 1.1 million-square-foot mall building and surrounding property at foreclosure for $7.5 million.

At that point, it had around 40 tenants.

In February 2020, Ed Latessa, at the time a consultant to Thibeault for the Galleria property, estimated that when the mall was in its prime it had as many as 100 tenants, including kiosk businesses.

By early 2020, the mall’s main entrance was locked and just a handful of tenants remained, some having been evicted and others leaving of their own accord.

Longtime tenant Hannoush Jewelers was among those to leave the mall in February 2020, relocating to Raynham.

At the time, Hannoush store manager Ali Abouzeid told the Gazette that back in the late 1990s the mall was so busy during the Christmas season that store employees were shuttled back and forth to an auxiliary lot so every other available parking space would be available to customers.