{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Use American English|date=February 2025}} The '''LaFayette Place Mall''' is an urban [[shopping mall]] and mixed-use complex in downtown [[Boston]]. It is now named '''Lafayette City Center'''.
==Creation and failure== The complex was built in 1984<ref name=Amerimar/> on a site which had included the old [[R. H. White]] department store. R. H. White had occupied an ornate six-floor emporium there from 1876 until going out of business in 1957, after which the building was occupied by the Citymart department store (1962–1966) and [[Raymond's]] department store (1966–1972), after which the building was torn down and replaced with a parking lot and then LaFayette Place Mall in 1984.
The original developer was Mondev (Montreal Development).{{citation needed|date=January 2017}} Lafayette Place originally had a 500-room [[hotel]] (originally Hotel Lafayette, later a [[Swissôtel]] and then a [[Hyatt]]) with {{convert|300000|sqft|m2}} of retail space. The project to build the mall also included an adjacent new downtown flagship store for [[Jordan Marsh]] (now a [[Macy's]] store). Located at the less desirable, more [[Urban decay|decayed]] end of the downtown shopping district (the same factor that had helped doom R. H. White, Citymart, and Raymond's, along with the continued flight of customers to suburban shopping malls), it never achieved greater than 60 percent occupancy. The interior mall had an unusual circular hallway arrangement which never became popular with shoppers. The long solid-brick facade presented a foreboding, lifeless aspect to pedestrians. It closed as a mall in 1989, ownership devolved to [[Chemical Bank]],<ref name=Globe3/> and the retail space remained empty for some years.<ref name=BBJ/><ref name=Globe/><ref name=Amerimar/>
{{blockquote|One doesn't know quite where to begin in castigating this lemon. From the outside it is ashen and depressing almost beyond credibility ... Layfayette Place turns a gray shoulder to the street, looking more like a prison than a row of storefronts.|author=[[Robert Campbell (journalist)|Robert Campbell]] |source=''Boston Globe''<ref name=Campbell/>}}
{{blockquote|Lafayette Place, born in distress, made a kind of sense. Around a safe, clean interior Mitchell/Giurgola architects mounted a brutal gray bunker, its ashen-gray walls serving as an unadorned defensive perimeter against dangerous [[Combat Zone, Boston|Combat Zone]] streets. But Boston's recovery would soon help alter an entire city's view of its streets ... Lafayette Place proves how a building with about the worst approach to its street fronts in the city will be punished by a citizenry that has come to expect more.|author=Mark Muro |source=''Boston Globe''<ref name=Globe4/>}}
==Later developments== [[Homart Development Company]] worked on redeveloping the property and reopening the mall in 1990s.<ref name=Globe3/><ref name=Globe6/><ref name=Globe5/> Patriot Games LLC, a consortium of three companies, bought the property in 1997. Two stories were added and the complex was redeveloped as primarily office space, under the name '''Lafayette Corporate Center'''. [[State Street Corporation]] was an anchor tenant, leasing {{convert|435000|sqft|m2}}. Patriot Games sold the property in 2002 to The Abbey Group.<ref name=BBJ/><ref name=Amerimar/>
State Street Corporation left in the 2010s for offices in the [[Fort Point Channel]] area. With the downtown shopping area showing new signs of vitality and a burgeoning resident population nearby, Abbey Group in 2014 redeveloped the complex, revived the retail space, and rebranded the complex as '''Lafayette City Center'''.<ref name=Globe/><ref name=Globe2/><ref name=Abbey/>
==References== <references>
<ref name=BBJ>{{cite web |url=http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/05/27/story3.html |title=LaFayette Center sold for $133.5M |author=Bill Archambeault |date=May 27, 2002 |work=Boston Business Journal |accessdate=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe>{{cite web |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/11/13/fall-and-rise-lafayette-place-mall/ayc3sy5gGPfkOaXOUVXC8N/story.html |title=The fall and rise of Lafayette Place mall |author=Paul McMorrow |date=November 13, 2012 |work=Boston Globe |accessdate=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe2>{{cite web |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/11/06/downtown-crossing-get-another-building-makeover/MbgiGtcLuTENBevBrbkSJM/story.html |title=Lafayette Center set to get major makeover |author=Casey Ross |date=November 6, 2012 |work=Boston Globe |accessdate=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Amerimar>{{cite web |title=Layfayette Corporate Center, Boston MA |publisher=Amerimar Realty Corporation |url=http://amerimarrealty.com/wp-content/uploads/ARC_Lafayette_PDF.pdf}}</ref>
<ref name=Campbell>Architectural critic Robert Campbell, ''Boston Globe'', September 3, 1986, cited in {{cite book |last=Whyte |first=William H. |title=City: Rediscovering the Center |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OH6y2QdcUqkC&pg=PA362 |accessdate=January 10, 2017 |year=2009 |orig-year=1988 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press [Doubleday] |edition=Reprint |isbn=978-0812220742 |page=362}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe3>{{cite web |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/294799122 |title=Homart Bids for Vacant Boston Mall Talks Could Revive Lafayette Place |author=Jerry Ackerman |date=August 21, 1993 |work=Boston Globe |access-date=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe4>{{cite web |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/294400267 |title=LAFAYETTE FINDS ITS PROPER PLACE WRECKER'S BALL IS NEEDED TO HALT FORTRESS MENTALITY |author=Mark Munro |date=October 9, 1988 |work=Boston Globe |access-date=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe5>{{cite web |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/403685627 |title=Lafayette Place Wins New Lease on Life |author=Mary Sit |date=February 10, 1995 |work=Boston Globe |access-date=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
<ref name=Globe6>{{cite web |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8294404.html |title=Lafayette Place stuck Renovation delayed as developer seeks tenants |author=Richard Kindleberger |date=September 1, 1994 |work=Boston Globe |accessdate=January 10, 2017}}{{dead link|date=February 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>
<ref name=Abbey>{{cite web |url=https://www.theabbeygroup.com/abbeyproperty/lafayette-city-center/ |title=Lafayette City Center |publisher=The Abbey Group |accessdate=January 10, 2017}}</ref>
</references>
==External links== *[http://lafayetteccboston.com/ Layfette City Center website]
{{Shopping malls in Massachusetts}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lafayette Center}} [[Category:1984 establishments in Massachusetts]] [[Category:Landmarks in Boston]] [[Category:Shopping malls in Massachusetts]] [[Category:Commercial buildings in Boston]] [[Category:Shopping malls developed by the Homart Development Company]]