Target slated to open at Danbury Fair mall April 14
DANBURY — Target plans to open its newest Connecticut store in the Danbury Fair mall on April 14, the retailer confirmed Friday.
The grand opening date of the 126,000square-foot store in the anchor location abandoned by Sears was teased by Target earlier in week by hanging a fabric sign on an exterior wall containing the company’s bullseye logo and the text, “Opens April 14.”
Target’s opening follows the debut last week at the Danbury Fair mall of a major entertainment store called Round 1 Bowling and Amusements, which took over a football field-sized retail location abandoned by Forever 21. The addition of the two stores and a recent rezoning of the mall property to allow apartments within the 1.3-million-square-foot structure come at a time of rebranding for the 38-yearold shopping center.
In turn, two smaller outdoor shopping centers that bookend the Danbury Fair mall on Backus Avenue are seeing a resurgence of retail investments with the advent of new tenants.
The retail surge in the Backus Avenue corridor comes at a time when instore retail is in decline due to competition from online shopping. The new stores not only mean more choices for Danbury residents but they also help the city’s bottom line, because when retail properties thrive, property values climb and taxes increase.
An example of how a major new tenant at Danbury Fair brings more tax revenue to the city treasury is the settlement reached in August between the city and the owner of the anchor store space vacated by Sears.
In that settlement, the city agreed to reduce the full fair-market value of the Sears space from $16 million to $11.9 million on the 2022 tax rolls. The agreement also says that with Target moving into part of the Sears space, the full fair-market value will be set at $18 million for the 2023 tax year and at $24 million for the 2024 tax year.Target’s Danbury Fair opening is part of a wave of new store locations that includes Norwalk, where Target is renovating a former Walmart. Target opened 21 stores in 10 states in 2023.