Rhode Island Mall
| Location | Warwick, Rhode Island, US |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 41°43′12″N 71°28′52″W / 41.7199°N 71.4811°WCoordinates: 41°43′12″N 71°28′52″W / 41.7199°N 71.4811°W |
| Opening date | October 1967 |
| Closing date | April 30, 2011 |
| Developer | Homart Development Company |
| Owner | Eastern Development |
| No. of stores and services | 60 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4 (3 open, 1 vacant) |
| Total retail floor area | 579,499 square feet (53,837.2 m2) |
| No. of floors | 2 |
Rhode Island Mall is an outdoor power center under redevelopment in the building of a former two-story, enclosed shopping mall in Warwick, Rhode Island. The property opened as the Midland Mall in October 1967; for several years, it co-existed with the nearby Warwick Mall that opened in 1970. The mall was renamed the Rhode Island Mall in March 1985, and experienced rapid decline as tenants relocated to the Warwick Mall in the 1990s. It was considered a dead mall by the 2000s, and the interior of the mall was closed permanently in April 2011. The property was sold in 2012 and has been under redevelopment into its current configuration as a power center since 2016.
The mall was originally anchored by Sears and Shepards. The latter eventually became G. Fox, and later Filene's, before being divided into Kohl's and Walmart. The former is currently being converted into At Home and Raymour & Flanigan. The interior of the mall was turned into Burlington, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Planet Fitness.
The land on which the mall sits was pasture land when Homart Development Company (the mall building subsidiary of Sears) purchased it in 1963. To accommodate the mall, a hill was leveled and the course of the Pawtuxet River was altered. The Rhode Island Mall opened in October 1967 as the Midland Mall that included 60 shops. Its anchors were Sears and Providence based Shepards department store. Homart sold the mall to MetLife in 1981 for $20 million. It was officially renamed the "Rhode Island Mall" in March 1985.
In 1988, May Department Stores acquired Boston-based department store chain Filene's. May merged its previously owned G. Fox division into Filene's in 1993, and converted all of its stores, including the Rhode Island Mall location, to the Filene's name. Filene's closed their Rhode Island Mall location four years later, in favor of the existing store at Warwick Mall. After the closure of Filene's, nearly one-third of the mall (including both the former Filene's and the food court) was demolished for a two-level anchor, featuring Kohl's on one level and Wal-Mart on the other. When it became clear that neither store would open into the mall concourse, most of the remaining shops vacated, turning Rhode Island Mall into a dead mall.
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