Original sign visible from Endicott Street and Route 128
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Location | Danvers, Massachusetts, United States |
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Coordinates | 42°33′09″N 70°56′23″W / 42.5524°N 70.9398°WCoordinates: 42°33′09″N 70°56′23″W / 42.5524°N 70.9398°W |
Opening date | 1972 |
Owner | Simon Property Group and two corporate investors |
No. of stores and services | 100 |
No. of anchor tenants | 6 |
Total retail floor area | 821,300 square feet (76,300 m2) |
No. of floors | 1 |
Website | http://www.simon.com/mall/liberty-tree-mall |
The Liberty Tree Mall is a shopping mall in Danvers, Massachusetts, USA that is one-third owned by the Simon Property Group. The Simon Property Group owns the common area of the mall between Kohl's and Best Buy. The right-hand area of the property from Best Buy to Staples is owned by Target, and the property from Kohl's to Dick's Sporting Goods is owned by New England Development.
The mall was built in 1972, and was renovated and expanded in 1993. The mall is less than a mile away from the Northshore Mall, in Peabody, although both malls are primarily owned and operated by Simon. Since the 1980s, this mall has focused more on the discount end, whereas the Northshore Mall has focused on the mainstream/upscale end, thus enabling them to coexist semi-peacefully.
Ann & Hope, one of the former anchor stores of the mall, was opened in 1969 before the mall was completed. Lechmere was the mall's other anchor. The name Liberty Tree derives from the local version of Boston's Liberty Tree, which stood less than a half mile east of the current location of the mall. In the early years of the mall, a large metal tree stood at the center court to commemorate the Liberty Tree. The Liberty Tree sculpture was a featured exhibit in the New England Pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and was designed by Albert Surman.
In 1980, a food court was added that included restaurants such as The Roast House and The Fairgrounds, that served traditional carnival snacks. A Marshalls was added during the 1980s, and has been in the mall since then. Marshalls is the only remaining original anchor store. Filene's Basement, which subleased a portion of the Lechmere space in 1983, moved to the Northshore Mall in the 1990s. Sports Authority and Old Navy were added after the 1993 food court-hallway expansion. Sports Authority closed in 2016, after the company filed for bankruptcy.
Lechmere and Filene's Basement were anchor stores of the mall until 1997 when they were demolished and rebuilt into Target, Staples, Dollar Tree and Best Buy in 1998/1999. An f.y.e. replaced part of an area of smaller stores, converting them into a music store/video arcade (formerly Dream Machine), both of which have since closed. Another group of stores was converted to Bed Bath & Beyond.