Posted by FluffyRumia My friend wanted to take an inflatable air mattress down it but I was afraid where the end would drop is in the connecticut river and convinced him not to.
Bad idea. I'd be less worried about the Connecticut River and more about sharp metal in the river.
And yeah, that mall is wicked ghetto. The one place I ever used to go in Waterbury other than my grandparents' house was Phoenix Records, and now even that is gone.
I grew up 5 minutes from that mall. It's one of the most ghetto places in one of the most ghetto areas in the northeast. Allow me to throw a little smarts on this for you: The area the mall is in? It was declared blight, and taken by eminent domain, but they didn't clear up the entire surrounding neighborhood, just enough to plunk down a mall.
That mall has places for 4 anchor stores, and there have only ever been 3 in the mall. That's something like 100,000 plus sq/ft of retail space that has NEVER been able to be filled in over 15 years. This mall has a lot of non-chain, local stores, like dollar stores. This is because they can't find enough retail chain stores to rent out space. It's so bad, that they've taken to shuttering some of the stores, and using just the storefront area to put little kiosk areas in, with soda machines and ice cream machines, candy machines etc.
At one point, this mall had *4* Cash for Gold locations at one time.
The problem is that Waterbury is, and has been for decades, a dump. The Naugatuck Valley mall was a small, dying mall, and the developers saw it as a chance to revitalize the area. In Meriden CT there was Meriden Square, another mall that was a lot smaller than the Brass Mill was projected to be, and it's only like 12 or 13 miles away. The Brass Mill developers assumed that building a great new spectacle of a mall would bring in enough shoppers that it would boost the entire economy of Waterbury and bring the city back into prosperity. That's the way they sold the project anyway. What they didn't count on was Meriden Square being able to easily raise the money and permits to expand, and become far larger. Meriden Square is still smaller, but it's in a **FAR** nicer area of the state. Even though Meriden is pretty dumpy too, the part that the mall is in is relatively removed from that, and is closer to the highway than it is to the hood.
The newly expanded Meriden Square has better stores, better foot traffic, it HAS to have more revenue generated per sq/ft rented, and it's just a far less depressing place to be.
So, yeah. I know the mall, I've just never heard anybody call it nice.
It's been a while since I've been around there, I'm sad to hear it's in such a bad state, but maybe this means we may have an abandoned mall some day I'll be sure to check out the Meriden mall next time I'm down there!
Bad idea. I'd be less worried about the Connecticut River and more about sharp metal in the river.
And yeah, that mall is wicked ghetto. The one place I ever used to go in Waterbury other than my grandparents' house was Phoenix Records, and now even that is gone.
[/random CT thread]
Man, I *LOVED* pheonix, I was hoping they just changed locations, I moved out and saw it was gone last time I drove by. That place was on par man, they don't exist like that anymore.
Posted by FluffyRumia It's been a while since I've been around there, I'm sad to hear it's in such a bad state, but maybe this means we may have an abandoned mall some day I'll be sure to check out the Meriden mall next time I'm down there!
But... you live near Buckland Hills, no?
And seriously, judging a place by the quality of its malls makes every place the same. You really won't find one mall to be radically different from another, other than having more stores ...
Ethics
I'll be sure to check out the Meriden mall next time I'm down there! 
