Taunton Galleria tenants evicted, mall’s main entrance locked
By Charles Winokoor / Taunton Daily Gazette
Posted Feb 4, 2020
TAUNTON – Don’t tell the owners of Giselle Hair Studio and VIPet Grooming they aren’t being evicted from the Silver City Galleria.
Silva and the owner of the dog-and-cat grooming business each received a “notice of termination” last week from a lawyer representing the mall’s owner.
The legal notices informed them that their license-at-will agreements — which had been in effect since last spring when the mall property was purchased for $7.5 million at foreclosure auction — are being terminated.
Those tenants have until the end of this month to vacate the premises.
In a story that ran in the Taunton Daily Gazette just over a week ago, property owner William Thibeault said that at-will tenants with month-to-month agreements were leaving the mall of their own accord.
“If 70 percent of the tenants are gone and there’s no traffic, then why would they want to stay?” the president of Everett-based Thibeault Development said.
Some tenants, including Victoria’s Secret, which is closing Feb. 19, said they were leaving because they’re convinced the East Taunton shopping mall is effectively closing down at the end of February.
Among remaining tenants would be those with dedicated entrances at the rear end, or west side, section of the two-story mall’s 1.1 million-square-foot building.
The larger tenants in that group include Dick’s Sporting Goods; Round 1 arcade game and bowling alley entertainment center; Work Out World health club; and the Regal Cinemas and Taunton Bristol Community College’s Taunton learning center, both of which share the same entrance.
Latessa, who acts as a consultant to Thibeault for the Galleria property, said four of them are being evicted because of back rent and “other factors.”
He said he offered an alternative, temporary location to VIPet but that the owner declined.
As for the hair salon, which sits across from Victoria’s Secret on the first floor, Latessa says it would be “cost-prohibitive” for its owner to move all her equipment to another spot.
And if the salon did stay, he said, it would be “the only one (business) left in the corridor.”
Latessa acknowledged that a process of physical consolidation is underway at the mall, which opened for business in 1992.
He said the goal is to direct all traffic to the rear of the building, where what now passes for anchor tenants have their own entrances. Latessa says there are as many as 1,000 parking spaces there, including in a parking garage.
One sign of that plan was the closure on Monday of the main, front entrance to the Galleria. A sign placed in front of the electronic, sliding doors advises customers to instead use the Regal Cinemas entrance.
Latessa said when the mall was in its prime it had as many as 100 tenants, including kiosk businesses. He said when Thibeault bid and bought the site last May there were nearly 40 tenants.
He predicts that number will have shrunk to eight or nine by the end of February.
“The primary reason is just a lack of business,” he said in describing what has been a domino effect of tenants leaving the mall.
He also says contrary to speculation, rents have not been raised and that the only added expense for tenants has been the inclusion of paying their own electric bills — which he said is not a significant expense but has been costing mall owners hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
Latessa says in addition to steadily dropping retail sales numbers, it’s been difficult for mall stores to hire workers in an environment where fewer and fewer customers show up.
“They can’t get the employees who want to work and don’t want to just stand around,” he said.
Latessa says he’s also aware of speculation that the mall site eventually might be used as some sort of transfer station for the disposal of recyclable waste.
He declined to comment other than to say that if such a facility were to be established it would be specialized, would not be all inclusive and would utilize only a small portion of the site’s nearly 150 acres.
Marcio Mendes, owner of VIPet Grooming, says he’s been in business 11 years and five years ago moved from Route 44 at the Taunton/Raynham line into the first floor of the mall underneath the now nearly deserted food court.
He said he’s struggled to rebuild his client base, which he says dropped 30 percent when he moved to the mall.
Mendes, 54, says he became a Galleria tenant chiefly because of the anticipation of a Mashpee Wampanoag resort casino on the other side of Route 140.
That unrealized project — which was to have created more than 2,500 permanent jobs — was blocked by a group of mostly East Taunton residents, who won a court case objecting to the federal government having placed 151 acres of Taunton land in trust for the tribe.
Mendes said Tuesday that he and his wife, Andreia, are moving their pet-centric business to Raynham into the Village South Plaza at South Street West.
“They (the mall) only offered us another 30 days. Why would I want to move all my stuff and do that?” he said.
Giselle Silva says she’ll be out of the Galleria in less than two weeks. She said she’s scheduled for surgery in her native Brazil and cannot stay in Taunton until the end of the month.
Silva says she’s cut hair in the mall for a total of 19 years and opened Giselle Hair Studio nearly five years ago.
While recuperating in Brazil, Silva said she’ll rent a chair for her co-worker Jennifer Love to take care of Silva’s customers at a hair salon on Bay Street.
Silva, who said she’s considering moving into a vacant spot in downtown Taunton, says she wasn’t surprised by the notice of termination.
“They don’t care about us,” she said.
The auction sale last May did not include the 10-acre former Sears store.
That parcel was sold in 2003 by Sears Holdings to a bank and sold again in February 2019 to SRC Facilities LLC, which is listed as a foreign limited liability company in Florida.
The mall for years had opened its doors on weekdays as early as 6 a.m. to allow people to get low-aerobic exercise by walking inside the building.
Those hours changed this week: Doors for walkers now open at 8 a.m., one hour before the mall officially opens for business.
Bristol Community College announced last October that the new mall owner would allow it to hold classes in the Galleria until the end of 2020. It had a 10-year lease with the former mall owner preceding Thibeault.
Sources with ties to the college have said that they were not given an assurance that a new lease agreement could be reached providing a long-term site in the mall.
More recently, the Fall River-based community college said that a formal request for proposal will be issued this month by the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, in anticipation of finding a different location in Taunton.
Latessa and Thibeault, however, said negotiations are ongoing with the state community college to keep them on the Galleria property.
Sofa chairs and couches in a lobby area close to the front door of the satellite campus, that had been used by students since 2016, have been removed.
