BRUNSWICK-TOPSHAM

If you talk to those who seek it, chase it and try to make it stay, you’d find that the retail industry is a fickle creature whose patterns are difficult to predict.

That might be doubly true in Maine, the nation’s last stop on the East Coast. The state’s location makes it that much more difficult to draw national chains and businesses, especially beyond the more-heavily populated Portland area.

But local commercial property owners and developers argue Maine’s Midcoast market has a lot to offer. Several of them spoke recently about what seems to be working at the vibrant and predominately full Topsham Fair Mall. They also spoke of the challenges that face Brunswick’s oncevibrant malls that have recently lost a number of stores that have moved to Topsham, gone out of business or left Maine altogether.

A shared concern is whether there are enough retailers remaining to support both retail centers and whether there be a volleying of stores between the two communities.

The entire side of Cook’s Corner Mall nearest Bath Road is a dearth of activity where empty parking spaces only serve as easy transit to the traffic light by Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which in July 2013 filled the space left vacant by the financially troubled Friendly’s chain in April 2012.

A walk down the old strip mall end reveals the faint reminders in the bubblelight signs that still hang from above. Radio Shack, FYE Music and Movies and Lamey Wellehan still bear their mark above darkened fronts. The largest hole, the former Bookland, is temporarily filled by the Halloween store, Spirit.

Still, stores such as Staples, T.J. Maxx, Big Lots and anchor store Sears manage to hang on. Another mainstay, however, G.M. Pollack, has vanished. The mall is up for auction, Brunswick officials say.

Over in Merrymeeting Plaza, visitors are greeted on the Bath Road entrance by empty sign spaces and signs turned around — a sort of international language for “out of business.”

Here, Zack’s Holiday Gifts and Toys and Pet Quarters are separated by a large swath of emptiness. GNC sits as an oasis for any foot traffic between the two and spaces where Old Navy, Borders, Coldwater Creek and Day’s Jewelers used to sit. CVS and AAA still sit together in this eclectic lineup and Shaw’s still offers groceries at the busiest portion of the parking lot.

Contrast that with the 30- year-old Topsham Fair Mall, a traditional strip mall anchored with a successful Hannaford Supermarket at one end, and originally a Bradlees department store at the other. Over three decades. the mall certainly suffered losses and the future was uncertain when Bradlees closed, leaving a looming space for a number of years. The town agreed to put in the infrastructure for an adjacent business park to help spur growth, and the department store space became home to Village Candle from 1998 until 2011. The space is now occupied by family-owned and Mainebased Renys, Lamey Wellehan and, most recently, a Smitty’s Cinema at the end of the shopping center.

Following the opening of big box stores Home Depot in 2004 and Target in 2006, more national retail chains came to Topsham Fair Mall: Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Petco and smaller chain stores and restaurants like Ruby Tuesday, 99 Restaurant and Pub, Firehouse Subs, Panera Bread and Town Fair Tire.

Room for more

The mall area is spacious with room for additional development. That leaves Topsham’s planners with the task of making sure the town and mall developers wisely manage this growth. Tonight, the Topsham Planning Board is holding public hearings for a 11,000-squarefoot restaurant or retail building next to Woody’s Performance Center and an 8,000-square-foot multi-tenant restaurant building proposed Topsham Fair Mall Road. Developer Dan Catlin, who is proposing the first of those two projects, also has an 18,000-square-foot medical building planned for the corner of Mallett Woods and Park Drive. Juliet’s Clothing opened most recently in the mall at the end of August.

As the Midcoast region rises from the closure of Brunswick Naval Air Station and an economic recession, work is being done to redevelop Brunswick Landing and increase traffic volume to the Cook’s Corner area. Economic development resources are limited and investments must be deliberated and calculated. Local developers, mall owners and municipal leaders, one who said Brunswick is at a crossroads, discuss in this fourpart series the challenges and successes at Brunswick and Topsham malls and how to breathe life back into Cook’s Corner.

About the series

THE TIMES RECORD is presenting a four-part series taking a closer look at activity at two malls at Cook’s Corner in Brunswick and the Topsham Fair Mall, and discussing the successes and challenges each face and what the future may hold in an ever-changing retail market.

TODAY: An overview of Brunswick’s two malls and Topsham Fair Mall

Wednesday: The recent success of Topsham Fair Mall

Thursday: The challenges facing the Cook’s Corner and Merrymeeting Plaza malls

Friday: An eye to the future and discussing potential opportunities that await Brunswick’s malls