Plans for movie, new wing have mall buzzing
Nordstrom gets ready for opening
As Seattle-based Nordstrom prepares to open a department store in the Burlington Mall at the end of this month, two dozen smaller businesses also are flocking to space in a new wing.
But the grand opening is only one reason for the buzz circulating at the popular shopping plaza.
Starting March 24, the mall will be transformed temporarily into a Hollywood movie set as crews begin work on a comedy film titled "Mall Cop." Produced by Adam Sandler and starring Kevin James, the film is about a mall security guard played by James who attempts to thwart a group of burglars. The movie is to be released in January.
Sony Pictures Entertainment, the film's producer, is decking out the entire shopping plaza with Christmas decorations for the filming, since the movie is set during the holiday season, said Tony Fields, the town's planning director.
Film producers looked at three or four shopping malls across the state before selecting the Burlington Mall for the movie set, Fields said. Most of the filming will occur at night, so it shouldn't interfere with daily business at the mall, he said.
"We don't know why they chose us, but we're happy that they did," he said.
Meanwhile, Nordstrom, a high-end chain that has been successful on the West Coast, will hold a public opening of its 138,000-square-foot, two-level store on March 28, said John Bailey, a Nordstrom spokesman.
The store, which will include a restaurant called Blue Stove, is the second of four Nordstrom outlets that will open in Massachusetts by 2010, Bailey said. The company opened its first local store in Natick last year. After Burlington, it will open stores in Peabody at the Northshore Mall and in Braintree at the South Shore Plaza.
Bailey said Nordstrom, which began as a shoe company in 1901, has been seeking to enter the Boston-area market for 25 years but had not found the right place and time until now. "Boston was one of the last major metropolitan areas, outside of New York, where we didn't have stores," he said.
Nordstrom will serve as the anchor store for the rebuilt wing of the Burlington Mall formerly occupied by the now-defunct Filene's, which closed after
The Burlington Mall already had a Macy's, which prompted Federated to vacate the space and its lease with
When shoppers head to that end of the mall now, they will be greeted with some major changes. In the rebuilt wing, a strip of two dozen new stores, many already in business, will lead the way into the Nordstrom outlet, Fields said. The new stores include a potpourri of "hip"-style vendors, including Dellaria Day Spa; Everything But Water, a swimwear company; Kiehl's, a cosmetics vendor; and Metropark, which sells trendy urban-style clothing for young adults.
Rick Tonzi, the mall's general manager, said the new wing is the largest transformation the complex has experienced since the mid-1980s, when it became a two-level plaza. In addition to the new wing, he said, "tens of millions of dollars" are being injected by Simon Property into landscaping and interior renovation of the mall, which opened in 1969.
As part of the beautification project, which is to begin in May, the company will plant 450 trees and 750 shrubs outside the mall, and renovate its food-court area, Tonzi said. A stone wall will be added along the road leading into the mall to enhance its appearance, he said.
"We felt strongly that we needed to mirror the inside with the outside," Tonzi said of the improvements.
One of the mall's tenants, Alpha Omega Jewelers, is going through bankruptcy liquidation and is vacating its space, but, besides that, Tonzi said, mall officials remain unfazed by talk of a recession.
A new tenant, whose name Tonzi would not disclose, has stepped up to fill the vacancy left by Alpha Omega, and he expects the mall to be fully occupied by Nov. 1.
"There's still good demand for the Burlington Mall."
