Water-stained ceiling tiles line the hallways of the dimly lit Bangor Mall, and dozens of tiles are missing altogether. Paint is peeling inside, potholes large enough to swallow cars are scattered throughout the parking lot and pigeons are nesting in the spaces that once held the letters “B” and “N” in the mall’s sign on Hogan Road.
The entrance closest to Angel Connection, a spiritual-based gift shop that offers psychic readings and spa services, appears abandoned, owner Melissa Gabriel said. One door is out of order, and two more have signs with delivery instructions that from a distance make them appear to be closed.
Sales at Gabriel’s small business have plummeted this year compared with last year, she said.
“I’ve got to the point where I don’t know whether I should close or sell,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel is among the business owners who are desperate for the Bangor Mall to fix the deteriorating conditions that they fear are driving away customers. Otherwise, they may have no choice but to move their stores or close for good.
The interviews with multiple small business owners add a new perspective to the deepening troubles of the Bangor Mall that has seen the number of occupied stores and customers rapidly decline over the years. Now, a recent lawsuit from the city has reignited discussions about the mall’s future.
Bangor accused the three LLCs that represent the mall owner, Namdar Realty Group, of ignoring letters detailing code violations for months before finally filing a lawsuit on Oct. 24. Those code violations include the roof not being water tight, potholes in the parking lot and the deterioration of the mall’s sign.
When Gabriel moved into the mall about two years ago, there were 10 other new businesses moving in around that time. Today, she’s the only one of those left. When Bangor Daily News reporters visited the mall mid-day Thursday around 20 people were walking around and roughly 50 percent of the storefronts appeared empty.
That first year Angel Connection did well because there were other businesses, and her store relies on foot traffic.
“Now that people walk in and go, ‘Wow, this mall is so dead,’ they’re not likely to come back any time soon,” Gabriel said.
She’s dealt with water leaking from the ceiling and a lack of heat in her store. The massage area never gets warmer than 64 degrees, and the temperature in Gabriel’s office can get as low as 50 degrees.
Mall management has done nothing to fix the heating system problem despite her multiple complaints, Gabriel said.
Problems at Ten Bucks Theatre Co. also haven’t been fixed despite numerous complaints, co-founder and Treasurer Julie Arnold Lisnet said.
The theater space hasn’t had air conditioning for three years, which means the company has had to cancel performances and movie nights because it’s too hot to have people safely inside, she said. Large ceiling leaks have destroyed props and costumes.
The company is looking for a new space and has no plans to renew its lease that expires in the spring, Lisnet said. The rent would triple if the business did sign a new lease, she added.
Next year is the group’s 25th anniversary, a milestone it never expected, she said. But the company’s future is in jeopardy. It hasn’t been able to find a new space and it may have to return to storing equipment and being a nomadic company.
“I don’t want this thing to go away,” she said. “It would be very sad to lose Ten Bucks Theatre company after all of this.”
At least one additional business, Maine Micro Artisans, left the mall over its poor conditions this summer. The store had an “obstacle course of buckets” to catch water from the leaky roof and conditions were horrendous, owner Mary Plummer previously told the BDN. They were lucky to get out of the mall, but Plummer said she feels bad for people stuck there.
Namdar Realty Group bought the mall in 2019 for $12.6 million, a little more than half the city’s assessed value of $24.7 million. The mall’s former owners had defaulted on an $80 million loan, forcing the sale. The Great Neck, New York-based company bills itself as “the biggest buyer of malls and shopping centers in the U.S.”
The company has invested millions to survive the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Namdar Realty Group told the BDN.
“We understand how important Bangor Mall is to the city,” mall management said. “Our company’s mission is to provide first-class shopping options to the people of Bangor.”
The company is “dedicated” to working with the city to resolve the violations, it said. Namdar did not answer specific questions about what, if any, fixes it has made related to the code violations.
The city is unaware of any violations that have been fixed since it filed the lawsuit and there is no indication the mall owners intend to do them, spokesperson David Warren said Friday. Lawyers in the lawsuit have had preliminary discussions but the city does not want to disclose the nature of those conversations.
The mall’s sign on Hogan Road is missing several letters and pigeons have made nests inside. One pothole near the sheds outside Furniture, Mattresses and More was roughly 2 feet deep and 8 feet wide when a BDN reporter measured it Thursday.
Members of the Ten Bucks Theatre Co. group have damaged their cars driving through potholes, Lisnet said. She said she drives through the parking lot frequently enough to know which potholes to avoid.
“God forbid anybody else [drives] who does not know, especially at night,” Arnold Lisnet said. “There is a pothole there that when it rains it looks like a pond.”
Gabriel thinks that if the mall owners made the necessary repairs, it would increase foot traffic and sales. But the status of the lawsuit raises uncertainty.
A land use violation hearing for the lawsuit was scheduled for Wednesday. It was canceled, with no new court date scheduled as of Friday.
Shoppers don’t seem as convinced that repairing the ongoing violations would be enough to salvage the shopping center. Several people told the BDN that while they’re concerned about where the businesses will go if the mall closes, they also rarely shop there anymore.
A New Brunswick resident said he used to come to the mall during weekend trips to Bangor but he hadn’t been back since Thanksgiving 2023. He questioned if there was any hope to restore the mall to even a fraction of its glory days.
Multiple people said tearing it down and starting over seems to be the best path forward.
A mixed-use development with a two-story building, walking paths and a water feature, similar to what Namdar manages in Maumee, Ohio, seems like the best path forward to Reese Perkins. Perkins is the city’s planning board director but provided his own personal thoughts, not as a representative of the city, he said.
“I just don’t see that existing building staying as it is and somehow us convincing stores to come in there, or other stuff to come in there, whether it’s churches or some sort of loft style apartments or whatever,” Perkins said. “I don’t see it happening.”
The city of Bangor rezoned the mall in previous years to allow mixed use developments in hopes of bringing changes, but it couldn’t get in touch with mall management this spring.
“The mall is private property and thus not owned by the city,” Bangor Economic Development Director Anne Krieg said. “Our department is happy to continue to work with the owners for a possible re-development of the property.”
Gabriel hopes the upcoming holiday season will bring more shoppers into her store. The Bangor Mall Craft Fair, organized by the owner of Furniture, Mattress and More, will be held over the next two weekends, Nov. 9 and 10 and Nov. 16 and 17.
She hopes the event can help overcome her business’ deficit because she isn’t ready to fully give up on her space.
“I would love to see [Namdar] put the money into it,” Gabriel said.
