The old Macy's building at Kingston Collection has been vacant since early 2025. The store first opened as Filene's in 1989 and stayed through a brand change, two ownership changes, and more than 35 years of the mall's history before finally closing.
Now its 150,000-square-foot shell sits on a 15.2-acre parcel while the town works out what to do with it.
Kingston Collection opened as Independence Mall near Route 3 in Kingston, Massachusetts, as the first regional enclosed mall in the South Shore town. For years, it was Kingston's largest taxpayer.
The mall stayed open by changing. Big department stores were replaced by entertainment spots. One anchor spot turned into a four-story apartment building.
A movie theater and a Target store stayed. The indoor hallways that used to have national retail stores now have a mix of specialty shops, gyms, and family activity areas.
The next phase depends on a town meeting vote, a land swap, a lifted water moratorium, and a prospective tenant whose name the town has not officially confirmed.
How Independence Mall Came to Kingston in 1989
Before Independence Mall opened, shoppers heading to a regional mall either drove north to Hanover Mall or south to Cape Cod Mall. Kingston did not have one.
Independence Mall Group was incorporated in New York in 1987, registered in Massachusetts in 1989, and opened the mall that year at what is now 101 Kingston Collection Way, near Route 3, the main highway between Greater Boston and Cape Cod.
The anchor plan was precise. JCPenney, Sears, and Filene's opened with the mall.
Bradlees arrived in November 1990 as a fourth anchor, and its opening triggered a rent-escalation clause in the Pizzeria Uno lease that tied a 10 percent increase to the arrival of a fourth department store over 60,000 square feet.
The provision later became the subject of litigation, which was resolved in 1999.
The mall opened with 100 to 120 stores and restaurants, a count that varied depending on whether kiosks, temporary tenants, and food-court vendors were included.
Hoyts Cinema was the entertainment anchor.
The enclosed, climate-controlled interior followed the standard 1980s regional mall layout: department stores at the endpoints, specialty stores in the corridors between them, surface parking on all sides.
Kingston had not had a mall of this kind before. The property quickly became the town's largest taxpayer.
The 1990s: A Regional Draw With a Consistent Crowd
Filene's Basement ran its below-grade discount operation until it closed in 1999.
The store occupied a below-grade space within an otherwise flat building, reached by an escalator that connected the main level to the basement.
When the store closed, the escalator remained, a vertical element in a horizontal building tied to nothing shoppers still used.
It became part of the mall's local memory, a detail that showed the place had been more layered than its exterior suggested.
JCPenney anchored one end of the building. Sears held its corner for more than two decades.
The food court and Hoyts Cinema provided what people came for on a given afternoon: errands, lunch, a movie, and a place to be indoors on the South Shore.
The mall served Kingston, Plymouth, and the communities between them under Pyramid-related management.
Later additions included Target and Borders, neither of which opened with the original mall in 1989. Borders added a large-format bookstore during the chain's national expansion years.
JCPenney left in the early 2000s, and its former space was later occupied by Best Buy before being repurposed for family entertainment uses.
Through most of the decade, the property ran at the kind of occupancy that makes an enclosed mall feel permanent.
The assessed value reached $98.3 million in 2008, and the property generated $1.17 million in annual property taxes for the town.
Colony Place Opens, and Independence Mall Starts to Slip
Colony Place opened in Plymouth in 2005, close enough to draw both tenants and shoppers away from the Kingston mall.
The new property was an open-air lifestyle center on Route 44, the kind of format that was pulling national retailers out of enclosed malls across the country in the mid-2000s.
For Independence Mall, it meant a direct competitor a few miles away offering the format tenants were beginning to prefer.
By 2008, Old Navy still had lease time remaining at Independence Mall but was opening at Colony Place. Bass and Van Heusen were making the same move.
That same year, the Linens 'n Things at Independence Mall appeared among 120 underperforming stores selected for closure during the chain's bankruptcy restructuring.
The mall was 92 percent occupied. Management rejected the closure rumors. The occupancy figure was defensible. The direction was not.
The 2008 recession deepened the pressure. By fiscal 2015, the assessed value had dropped from $98.3 million to $15.1 million. Property tax revenue had fallen from $1.17 million to $256,000.
The mall had been Kingston's largest taxpayer since it opened; those numbers showed what the tenant departures had done to the town budget, not just the building.
Independence Mall Becomes Kingston Collection
In 2013, Regal Cinemas, which had replaced Hoyts by then, was remodeled and expanded. The updated theater became one of the strongest arguments for bringing more entertainment tenants into the building.
In April 2014, a contractor completed major interior and exterior renovation work, including a redesign of five entrances.
The work reused the original entrance infrastructure but gave the exterior a New England-style presentation.
The renovation was intended to make the property appear less dated while allowing the owner to remain within budget.
Independence Mall was rebranded as Kingston Collection that same year.
The repositioning plan described the property as 837,000 square feet in transition toward a mix of outlet retail, traditional retail, fine dining, and entertainment.
The name "Collection" followed a pattern of retail properties using that word to signal a more curated environment.
Sears closed in January 2015, one year into the rebrand.
When Entertainment Tenants Replaced the Department Stores
Latitude 360, a Florida-based entertainment company, planned a 36,000-square-foot venue with bowling, game rooms, sports bars, karaoke, and live-entertainment stages.
Kingston selectmen approved a liquor license for the concept in November 2014.
K1 Speed, a go-kart operation, and Billy Beez, a large indoor playground, were also announced as part of the shift toward activity-based uses.
K1 Speed later left. Latitude 360 did not open as planned. Billy Beez stayed and remains today.
The strategy produced some active family-entertainment tenants in the building, but the vacancy in the smaller stores between the anchors was harder to solve.
National retailers willing to fill a struggling enclosed mall's interior stores were scarce. By the early 2020s, parts of the building had active entertainment uses alongside short-term or vacant storefronts.
A New Owner, a Demolished Anchor, and 282 Apartments
In 2018, Kingston received a $3 million MassWorks award for wastewater and water improvements supporting development at the mall and surrounding sites.
That same year, Pyramid proposed a $44 million mixed-use project: a 150-room hotel and 300 apartments with affordable units.
The hotel did not materialize. The apartment concept did, in a different form.
In January 2021, Trammell Crow Residential closed on land and construction financing for 1 Kingston Collection Way, the site of the former Sears store.
A four-story, 282-unit apartment community went up in place of the old anchor box.
Floor plans ranged from studios to three-bedroom apartments, from 620 to 1,500 square feet. The project was completed in 2023 and opened as The Point at Kingston.
In July 2023, Second Horizon Capital acquired the 473,000-square-foot retail property from Pyramid for $9 million. Spinoso Real Estate Group took over management and leasing.
The acquisition was part of a strategy of transforming challenged commercial real estate into community-oriented commercial hubs.
Macy's Closes in 2025, Kingston Moves to Replace It
In October 2024, Second Horizon acquired the 150,000-square-foot Macy's building through a sale-leaseback transaction on a 15.2-acre parcel.
The same space had operated as Filene's from the mall's 1989 opening until 2006, and as Macy's from 2006 onward.
In January 2025, Macy's listed the Kingston store among 66 closures. It closed in early 2025. Target was the only traditional anchor left.
At its April 2025 annual town meeting, Kingston authorized a land swap that would allow a gas station to be sited outside the Water Resource Protection Boundary, clearing the way for a large-format retailer at the former Macy's space.
Voters also amended the Mixed-Use Redevelopment Overlay District to permit gasoline service stations by special permit.
Supporters cited the mall's reduced assessment and the town's budget pressure; opponents raised hydrogeological concerns about the town wells.
Water access was the last barrier. Kingston had imposed a moratorium on new water connections in 2023.
The Kingston Water Commission lifted it on July 31, 2025, with the potential mall redevelopment among the central reasons cited.
Kingston Collection in 2026: Target, Cinema, and an Empty Anchor Building
Target occupies one end of the building. Regal Cinemas draws evening and weekend traffic. Billy Beez, Ascend Obstacle Training, All in Adventures, and Maziply serve families.
Newbury Comics, LensCrafters, T-Mobile, Fit Factory, and specialty retailers, including Mother Crewe Naturals, Cowabunga Collectibles, and 4GoodVibes, fill other spaces.
Setting The Space operates in part of the former JCPenney area.
The former Macy's building stands empty on its 15.2-acre parcel. Town officials expected a formal redevelopment application in fall 2025.
Public discussion pointed toward a warehouse-club-style retailer and a gas station, though no official tenant name had been released.
A competing site in Plymouth, half a mile away, was also under consideration.
Kingston Collection was assessed at $98.3 million in 2008. It sold in 2023 for $9 million. Filene's Basement is more than two decades gone. Sears is apartments now. Macy's is empty.
What remains is a cinema, a Target, family activity spaces, specialty retailers, a fitness center, and a 150,000-square-foot building that is still waiting to find out what it becomes next.
