Where the Latham Circle Mall now stands was once the place to go for corn.
Before the mall became the closed-air facility it is today, it was an open-air strip mall, built in the 1950s and known as the Latham Corners Shopping Center. Before that, it was a vegetable stand.
In a 1977 article in The Sunday Record about the history of the plaza, the cost of the original development, which opened in October 1957 on a 32-acre plot of land, was listed at $10 million. It was sold to Fabian Simon and Samuel Rosen for $5.8 million and then to the Latham Circle Realty Corporation in 1960 for $6 million, before being passed on to Eugene Weiss, according to the Town of Colonie Assessor’s office.
In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the place to go, said town historian Kevin Frank.
The driving force behind the shopping center’s development was Robert Cummings, a partner with Maxwell Cummings and Son of Montreal, Canada.
At the time Latham Corners opened, it had four well-known anchor stores: the 80,000-square-foot Interstate Department Stores, the 25,000-square-foot Grand Union, and F.W. Woolworth Co. and W.T. Grant Co., both 25,000 square feet.
An Aug. 14, 1955, newspaper article said the development would include `a supervised children’s playground and music in the parking lot and inside and outside the stores.`
The article goes on: `Mr. Cummings said the center will bring in many national chains not already represented in the Tri-City area. It will have 34 air-conditioned stores, including seven ladies’ specialty shops, two men’s shops, three shoe stores, a children’s wear shop, a fabric shop, a hardware store, restaurant, beauty parlor, barber shop, a dry cleaner, book store, toy shop and children’s furniture store.`
The shopping center was intended to serve 500,000 people within a 20-minute drive and an additional 100,000 residents north toward Saratoga.
An Aug. 18, 1955, advertisement touted the center’s 350,000 square feet and free parking for 2,400 cars. The slogan read: `Yesterday an idea. Today a plan. Tomorrow a fact.`
Sometime in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s the name was changed from the Latham Shopping Center to the Latham Circle Mall, according to the assessor’s office.
John DeLap, a lifelong resident in Colonie and owner of the All-Star Driving School located at the Latham Circle Mall, said he recalls the shopping destination in its prime.
`It was quite successful when it was built,` he said. `We used to do all of our shopping there.`
DeLap said it continued to improve when it become a closed-in mall under new ownership in the ’70s, but he said he began to notice a decline about eight years ago with multiple vacancies at the center.
Franklin said there was some competition from a Menands Montgomery Ward store, Stuyvesant Plaza and stores between Route 55 and the Latham Circle known as `The Miracle Mile,` but for the most part the Latham open air shopping plaza remained a popular destination.
`When I was a kid, Sears and Macy’s malls had not been built yet,` Franklin said.
He said traffic from Route 9 before the Northway was built in 1967 helped the mall, but after the Northway opened up channels to other shopping outlets, the mall started to see a decline.
According to Eugene Weiss, who purchased the shopping center in 1973, the development that opened to such fanfare in the ’50s was `a dilapidated little strip center` nearly 20 years later. At the time of the purchase, rent for a shop there was between $1.50 and $5 per square foot, he said.
Weiss said he promptly began making improvements to the tune of $30 million, eventually closing in the mall in 1977.
`I threw in a fortune to rebuild it,` he said.
Rent went up to $12 to $15 per square foot.
`It was a power house,` he said. `It was a very successful mall.`
A longtime resident of the Colonie, Weiss said he felt he owed it to the area to build up the mall.
`I wanted to make sure Latham is protected and Colonie is protected,` said Weiss. `It would be a very nice improvement for Latham, for Colonie to do something there.`
Check next week’s issue of The Spotlight for the history of the mall as a closed-air facility, featuring more from Eugene Weiss, Kevin Franklin and storeowners who inhabited the mall over the years.
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