page_title: Worcester Center Galleria
section_title: 1971–1993: Beginnings
hierarchical_section_title: Worcester Center Galleria / History / 1971–1993: Beginnings
caption_attribution_description: English: Jordan Marsh ad from the July 25, 1971 Worcester Sunday Telegram announcing the opening of their 10th store at the Worcester Center Galleria
context_page_description: The Worcester Center Galleria, located in Downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, was a two level shopping mall which originally opened on July 29, 1971 as a part of the Worcester Center urban renewal project. The mall, which connected the 100 Front Street and 120 Front Street office towers, was successful for 20 years until it closed following a series of store vacancies. The mall re-opened in 1994 as a short-lived outlet center called Worcester Common Fashion Outlets, finally closing in 2006. The mall is currently undergoing demolition and re-development into a project called CitySquare.
context_section_description: The Worcester Center Galleria opened on July 29, 1971. To be built, a large swath of Worcester's downtown was demolished to make room for the 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m²) mall and two connected skyscrapers (100 Front Street and 120 Front Street). The Galleria had a large open area with an arched roof that was supposedly modeled after the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy. The design for the mall also included a 4,300-space parking garage, which, at the time, was the largest parking structure in the world. Two construction experts from New York and California had called the original mall "the finest shopping center they had ever seen in the United States." The original anchor stores included Filene's, Jordan Marsh, and Kennedy's. By the late 1980s, two of the major anchors, Filene's and Jordan Marsh, had moved out, while other area malls such as the Auburn Mall and Greendale Mall began drawing away customers.
caption: Advertisement for Jordan Marsh, 1971
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