Goodbye to the mall?

Before the daffodils start dancing in the spring breeze, the downtown mall will likely be demolished.
“The mall will be down,” said Mayor William Stortz.
He said that knocking the city-owned mall could begin by mid-December and will be completely done within a couple more months.
Roger Rousseau, the city’s purchasing agent, said that razing the decrepit old mall will be done “by the end of February.”
He said the work “will span the end of the year” and the beginning of 2008.
Razing the mall to clear the way for redevelopment of the 17-acre site at the city center has long been a goal of city leaders, but they could make little progress until a recent court victory upheld the city’s efforts to oust the last remaining tenant, Ocean State Job Lot.
With Ocean State slated to be out early in October, Rousseau is taking steps to solicit bids from contractors to knock down the mall as quickly as possible.
Stortz said that proposals to handle the demolition could be due by early November, allowing the city to choose a contractor for the job before Thanksgiving.
He said that if officials stay on track, the firm hired to do the job could begin it work in December and finish early in 2008.
“We’re really talking sometime in January” to complete the demolition of the mall, the mayor said.
Stortz said that other buildings on the mall site, including the grocery store and the former theater at the corner of Riverside Avenue and Main Street won’t be torn down at the same time. McDonald’s, which is privately owned, would also remain.
The mayor said, though, that once the mall is out of the way, developers will be willing to begin making serious plans for the property. They can easily deal with the remaining buildings, Stortz said, because they’re not in the way.
The nonprofit Bristol Downtown Development Corp., formed last winter, is responsible for working with developers to come up with a suitable revitalization plan for the site that would likely include stores, offices and housing in some type of public-private partnership.
Stortz said the demolition schedule shouldn’t create any problems for the development company’s efforts to come up with a plan that city councilors can support next year.
The mayor said it’s important to move fast mostly because it projects the right image for Bristol, showing that downtown efforts are bearing fruit.Stortz said the city should be able “to do something” with the mall property next year.

*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com