History
The mall was first in planning stages in 1984. The mall was originally going to have anchors Hahne's (current J. C. Penney), Stern's (was Macy's, now Kohl's), and Sears. Due to Hahne's financial troubles, a JCPenney store was planned instead. In 1989, Filene's Basement opened on the first level, as a mall expansion. In 2000, the Filene's Basement was converted into Pay/Half. In 2001, Federated Department stores closed it Stern's division and the Newport Center location was re-branded as Macy's, Inc. The mall was originally planning on building the current Macy*s, instead of using the converted store. The ex-Sterns/Macy's building was a small store called Fashion Liquidators for 3 months in 2005. Then in November 2005, the mall announced plans to add more upscale elements to the mall. It was announced that Kohl's would occupy the old Stern's/Macy's building. The mall also announced the openings of several new, upscale retailers. Kohl's opened in October 2006. In 2007, the mall celebrated its 20th Anniversary. Since then, the mall has been heavily renovated with new flooring, new paint, new lighting structures, new scenery, and new upscale stores Armani Exchange, a new Bath & Body Works, Bebe Sport, Brookstone, Carol's Daughter, Coach, Hollister, Swarovski, and Sephora, The mall also celebrated 20 years by having performances by Deborah Gibson and Cheyenne Kimball.
In July 2010, the former Forever 21 was closed with plans to expand the store to the right side of the JCPenney wing. The stores in the area, f.y.e and Super A Dollar were moved to other parts of the mall. The other spots in the side of the wing were vacancies. Forever 21 moved to a temporary store until the new store opened in November. The new store is 21,632 sq. feet, over four times the size of the original, which was only 5,215 square feet (484.5 m2). The new store carries the original Forever 21 brand, the Heritage 1981 brand, the Twelve by Twelve brand, the love21 brand, an extended selection of jewelry and accessories, and a men's line in the 21Men brand.
Read more about this topic: Newport Centre (shopping Mall)
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