Retail on the Thames: Exploring Retail of Eastern Connecticut: Franklin Plaza

Welcome to another edition of Retail on the Thames! Today we're crossing the state border to Westerly, Rhode Island to check out one of the more interesting plazas in town. I don't have too much background information about this plaza, so we'll be diving straight into the pictures, and I'll be explaining them as we go

PICTURES:

Here's T.J.Maxx and Pier1 Imports. Pier1 probably won't be here for much longer, as the company is struggling in general. I am aware that my photo of T.J.Maxx is blurry but it happens occasionally, and it also occurred on another photo of the plaza.

Entering the hallway, you can see a lot of cool signs indicating the stores located in the plaza. I always enjoy seeing nice little touches like this.

Here's an abandoned Payless ShoeSource. There are a few abandoned tenants here, including an abandoned Dressbarn, but I only photographed one.

Aldi, which was formerly a Shaw's. For those who don't know, Shaw's is a grocery store chain popular in most of New England. I say most of New England because Shaw's left Connecticut in 2010 when they closed their CT locations. Shaw's is still present in Rhode Island, so I'm unsure why this location closed, Maybe it was a bit too close to CT for Shaw's liking. This specific location was replaced by Aldi sometime after 2012 and before 2017. Aldi recently did some minor renovations on the facade, which formerly had two large windows.

JCPenney, which is the plaza's main anchor along with Aldi. This is one of the few JCP's in the area to be located in a plaza instead of an indoor mall. The next closest JCP in a plaza is the location at the Torrington Commons, which it Connecticut's only JCPenney on the long current closing list.