The vacant retail space at Danbury Square Mall that once housed Barnes & Noble is slated to open as a new pub from Elicit Brewing Company as early as late 2024. Elicit is part of a retail revival in Danbury’s Bucks Avenue neighborhood. Photo: Danbury, Connecticut, March 8, 2024.
Rob Reiser/Hearst Connecticut Media
The Danbury Square Christmas Tree Shop is one of several vacant storefronts in the area, Friday, July 21, 2023. Danbury, Connecticut.
H. John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media
Michaels will open in the space formerly occupied by Kohl’s at Copp’s Hill Plaza. It is scheduled to open in October and will be next to Marshalls, which opened last November. Friday, April 19, 2024, Ridgefield, Connecticut.
H. John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media
After saying goodbye to several big-box stores that closed last year, Danbury-area shopping centers continue to search for new tenants to fill vacant retail space in the area and help create jobs.
“Our job is to work with property and business owners and entrepreneurs to help develop the retail, professional and commercial businesses that our residents want, growing our community and increasing job opportunities,” said Greg Dembowski, Brookfield economic development specialist.
While local shopping plazas like Copp’s Hill Plaza and Danbury Square have been successful in retaining new businesses to fill vacant spaces, others like Candlewood Lake Plaza have yet to solidify future plans for their vacant spaces.
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In Ridgefield, Copp’s Hill Plaza has found three retailers to take over the space formerly occupied by Kohl’s, including arts and crafts retailer Michaels, which is scheduled to open in mid-October. Michaels will occupy about 12,500 square feet of the old Kohl’s space at 125 Danbury Road and will hire dozens of part-time and full-time people, said Rebecca Talley, external communications specialist for Michaels.
Kohl’s closed in January 2022 after more than 20 years of operation in its Copp’s Hill Plaza store, leaving about 172,500 square feet of vacant space in the shopping plaza. Furniture store chain HomeGoods is working with Regency Centers, the owner of Copp’s Hill Plaza, to open a store in about 25,000 square feet of the former Kohl’s space in September 2022. Another 25,000 square feet of the former Kohl’s space found a new tenant when department store Marshalls began operating in November of last year.
In Brookfield, retail space at Candlewood Lake Plaza, formerly home to Bed Bath & Beyond, has attracted interest from new tenants, but Dembowski said “nothing is set in stone at this point.”
After Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy last April, the company held closing-out sales at 360 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 120 Buy Buy Baby stores across the U.S. The Bed Bath & Beyond stores in Simsbury and Brookfield’s Candlewood Lake Plaza (14 Candlewood Lake Road) were the last two in Connecticut to close, closing last spring.
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And at Candlewood Lake Plaza, Big Y Foods Inc. opened a new grocery store this spring in the space originally slated for an Amazon Fresh store. Brookfield’s new Big Y store had a tentative opening in May and officially opened June 3, employing between 85 and 90 people.
Danbury Square
Meanwhile, in Danbury, Danbury Square is using its connections to “aggressively reach out” to potential business owners to attract new businesses to the shopping plaza at 19 Bucks Ave., said Farley Santos, Danbury’s economic development and community relations counsel.
“The mayor [Roberto] “Alves has made it very clear that Danbury is open for business,” Santos said. “We are looking for businesses that can create jobs in Danbury, so we are in contact with the Economic Development Office to discuss grants and funding that would be attractive to new businesses. We are also looking at business incentives that would make sense for Danbury and also help grow jobs. Job growth is a top priority.”
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Among the big box stores leaving Danbury Square, Barnes & Noble is relocating from its Plaza location to the former Ahaus store in Danbury Fair Mall. The bookstore announced plans to relocate in December 2022 and celebrated the opening of a new two-story Barnes & Noble store on the southwest side of the mall last April.
Santos said beer brewer Elicit Brewing Co. is considering relocating to the 13,740-square-foot space formerly occupied by Barnes & Noble, but as of now no opening date has been set.
The Christmas Tree Shops in Danbury Square also closed last year as part of a plan to close all of its stores after filing for bankruptcy. The Christmas Tree Shops in Danbury Square was one of four stores in Connecticut that closed.
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Santos said “national retailers” have expressed interest in opening stores at the former Christmas Tree Shop site in Danbury Square, but declined to identify the retailers.
Santos said the shopping plaza also plans to open a Boost Bowls store to fill a vacant storefront near Legends Barbershop, but an opening date has not yet been set.
