Successor may be upscale store

BURLINGTON -- Real estate analysts expect an upscale department store. Town officials fear a discounter. But don't rule out a nontraditional mall business to fill the 182,000-square-foot store to be vacated next year by Filene's at the Burlington Mall, according to a leading retail analyst.

Retailing has changed since the Burlington Mall was built in 1968, said Paco Underhill, a New York-based retail analyst and authority on mall culture. The era of malls anchored by two or three traditional department stores is closing, as the generation of shoppers that have come of age since the Burlington Mall opened is demanding not just products to buy, but things to do.

''I wouldn't be surprised to see an alternative use move into that space, like an L.L. Bean or even a movie theater or a series of high-end restaurants," Underhill said.

Federated Department Stores Inc., which last week completed its $17 billion merger with Filene's parent, May Department Stores Co., took over a number of leases from May. But in the case of Burlington Mall, they bought the Filene's property itself, according to Burlington Planning Director Tony Fields.

Unlike most malls, which are owned by a single entity, three of the four anchors in Burlington own the store space, as well as the adjoining parking lot. The anchors are Filene's, Sears, and Macy's; Lord & Taylor is a tenant, said the mall's general manager, Rick Tonzi.

Federated also owns Macy's. And because Macy's and Filene's are so similar, a Federated spokesman said, the company's immediate plan will be to close the Filene's store and sell the space.

''It's set for divestment," said Jim Sluzewski, a spokesman for Federated. What goes in there next will be determined by the market. ''It's going to be someone else's decision."

While pressure to create a more diversified shopping experience has pushed malls into offering a broader array of ways to spend time and money, there are two factors working against a nontraditional use going into the Burlington Mall. The first, said Underhill, is that New England is a decade behind this trend, so the pressure to try something different will be less acute.

The second, said James M. Koury, a senior vice president at the real estate services firm Spaulding & Slye Colliers, is that the area the mall draws from ''is grossly understored in retail. . . . The demand for any space that opens up there would be enormous. I think most likely you'll see a Nordstrom, because the demographic profile is strong, or maybe a Dillard's, which is more in line with Filene's."

Minneapolis-based Nordstrom Inc. has a store in Providence and is scheduled to open one at the Natick Mall in spring 2007. The closest stores for Arkansas-based Dillard's Inc., a clothing and home-furnishings retailer, are in Ohio and Virginia.

A top leasing agent in Boston, who asked not to be identified, said Nieman Marcus, the Dallas-based retailer of luxury goods, would also a be a good fit for the space.

Tonzi said he expected Bloomingdale's (which is operated by Federated), Nordstrom, or Nieman Marcus to move in.

Steve Rice -- a principal developer of Wayside Commons, a lifestyle center slated to open 190,500 square feet of retail space near Burlington Mall at the end of next year -- said the area is ripe for more retail.

''We told the town we could lease twice the space, and so far that's turned out to be true," Rice said. Of the 32 shops in Wayside Commons, Rice said, 20 leases are in various stages of negotiations. He declined to name any.

While the town has no sway over what moves into the space, unless the buyer needs to change the exterior of the store, Fields said officials are keeping a close eye on the process and hope that an upscale, brand-name retailer takes over.

''What we don't want to see is a Target or a Wal-Mart," Fields said. ''It's a status thing. There's a perceived status to this mall; it's a cut above most malls in New England."

To that end, the town rejected a video arcade in the mall a few years ago, and today is encouraging something like a Nordstrom.

''The Burlington Mall is a step above," Fields said. ''We'd like it to remain that way."

Douglas Belkin can be reached at dbelkin@globe.com.