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Waterford – Uncertainties remain over the future of the Crystal Mall – will it be foreclosed, sold or repurposed? – but the operators of small stores and kiosks in the mall are sure of one thing.
They are open for business.
The Day spoke to several small business owners, who said they push back against the ambiguity of the mall’s future and the lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Things are not the same after the pandemic,” said Jackie Hernandez, owner of Ebony and Ivory, a hair and beauty product store that offers wigs and products for all hair types. “It’s not the same mall.”
Hernandez opened the store with her husband, Edwin, in 2013, when the mall was at its peak. On her wall, she still hung an article from The Day when it first opened.
The mall was closed due to the pandemic from March to June 2020, leaving Hernandez with no source of income. She also retired around this time, having worked 23 years as an assistant manager at Walmart in Groton. Hernandez said she was grateful her husband still had work to do.
When the store reopened, Hernandez found herself juggling COVID-19 restrictions and reduced hours.
Aside from the pandemic, the drop in pedestrian traffic at the mall can be attributed to many factors. Sears and Macy’s, two of the major brands that have occupied the mall since it opened in 1984, have pulled their stores from the mall in recent years.
Other stores quickly followed.
After learning that Simon Property Group was transferring its stake in the mall to the lender, Hernandez said many business owners got nervous and left.
Simon has yet to release an official statement on the future of Crystal Mall. Marketing director Kathleen Mones said she had no such information.
Seeing herself as a “walk of faith,” Hernandez stayed at the mall, where she said loyal and loyal customers kept the store open.
“If something happens with the mall, we’ll look for a new location,” she said.
Hernandez said there was no desire for a lockdown on the part of management. She recently renewed her lease for another year and last week a new small business was setting up shop at the Hartford Turnpike location.
On Wednesday, Timeia Lockhart was sweeping and cleaning with her daughter in the space where she hopes to open a boutique in late September or early October. His business, called Carnival Craze, will sell carnival favorites such as fried dough, candy apples, chicken fingers and Philadelphia ice cream, which Lockhart says is better than Italian ice cream.
Lockhart said she started with a kiosk at Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester in 2019 after being fired from another job. Two years later, she was approached by the Crystal Mall rental department to bring her business to Waterford.
“Being able to grow after the pandemic is a blessing,” she said.
She plans to keep the kiosk in Manchester for as long as she can keep both locations. Lockhart said she wanted, as a black woman and an entrepreneur, to someday grow her business into a chain.
In addition to Lockhart, a Spirit Halloween store is slated to open this fall.
Jason Kal, a Turk, owns Mr. Fix It and Mr. Fix It Too, electronics repair shops, at Crystal Mall. He said business was down 60% since the pandemic.
And then there are the labor shortages. Returning after the three-month pandemic had closed, Sangeetha Gabriel thought she would go for her four-hour shift at BrowArt23 – an eyebrow, face and body threading company – and ended up working the rest of it. the day. She’s been alone ever since.
“I am the only one who returned after the pandemic,” said Gabriel, who believes it is because the eyebrow threaders work near customers.
National channels like BrowArt23 are also struggling. Gabriel said BrowArt23 had about 10 locations in Connecticut and now only has three stores open in the state.
Gabriel struggles to keep up with the workload on busy days, especially when customers start to line up for service.
“It’s a stressful job,” said Gabriel. “There are clients who understand and don’t understand the situation I find myself in.”
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