The St. Lawrence Centre is a shopping mall

Shopping mall

A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

 in Massena

Massena (town), New York

Massena is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The town is on the northern border of the county and is nicknamed "The Gateway to the Fourth Coast". The population was 13,121 at the 2000 census. The town of Massena contains a village also called Massena...

. It includes scores of stores, a post office, and an ice rink

Ice rink

An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can skate or play winter sports. Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, figure skating and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows...

.

History

The mall was built in 1990 by the Heritage Company. The cost of construction was $50 million. In 1995 it was sold to AP Massena Partners. During this, time the mall went through serious financial troubles, falling to just a 75% occupying rate. In September 2003, it was sold for $3.6 million to the Carlyle Development Group, who hired General Growth Properties

General Growth Properties

General Growth Properties, Inc. is a publicly traded real estate investment trust in the United States. It is based in Chicago, Illinois at 110 North Wacker Drive, a historic building designed by architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White...

 to manage it beginning in February 2004.

Anchor stores include The Bon-Ton

The Bon-Ton

The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. is a regional department store company based in York, Pennsylvania, chiefly operating 275 stores, including 11 furniture galleries, in 23 states throughout the northern United States. Stores carrying its namesake nameplate serve the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions of...

, J.C. Penney

J.C. Penney

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. is a chain of American mid-range department stores based in Plano, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas. The company operates 1,107 department stores in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. JCPenney also operates catalog sales merchant offices nationwide in many...

, Sears and TJ Maxx. One anchor, originally occupied by Ames until 2002 and Steve & Barry's

Steve & Barry's

Steve & Barry's was an American retail clothing chain, featuring casual apparel. By mid-2008, the chain operated 276 stores in 39 states. The company was headquartered in Port Washington, New York. The company liquidated all of its stores throughout 2008....

 from 2007 to 2008, is vacant. Before Steve & Barry's opened, the town of Massena had attempted to use eminent domain

Eminent domain

Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...

 to replace the Ames with a Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

 in 2006. In 2009, the mall owners circulated a petition to replace the former Ames building with a Target

Target Corporation

Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...

.