🔒There’s Something Fishy About Trumbull Mall

When is the last time you went to the mall to feed sharks? Or snuggled with stingrays? Or perched with feathered friends in an aviary?

Taking visitors on virtual adventures such as through an Icelandic fishing village, the Great Wall of China, the Amazon River and beyond, SeaQuest is an interactive aquarium promising to live up to the company’s namesake.

And for all the exotic destinations it serves up to the visitor’s senses, it’s notable for one other geographic reality: It all takes place in a mall. In this case, Westfield Trumbull Mall.

“SeaQuest is a great partner for the mall landscape, bringing the entertainment component to the shop/eat/play [consumer] model,” says Trumbull SeaQuest General Manager Robert Poney.

The for-profit aquarium opened its 17,000-square-foot Trumbull location (between JCPenney and Target) in July 2019 following six months of construction. And, like other SeaQuest locations, guests are encouraged to feed and interact with the 1,200-plus animals and exhibits spanning five continents throughout the aquarium.

“SeaQuest provides an added component of interaction, so guests can go beyond the glass and touch and feed many of the animals,” Poney says.

SeaQuest launched in 2016 with the construction of a facility in Layton, Ut., followed a year later by one in Las Vegas, Nev. Not long after, SeaQuest expanded to Fort Worth, Tex., Littleton, Colo. and Folsom, Calif.. The company currently operates nine locations.

The new Trumbull SeaQuest offers exhibits featuring sharks and stingrays among more than 300 species. Guests at other SeaQuest facilities are able to take part in 30-minute snorkeling sessions among rays and fish for an up-close-and-personal experience.

SeaQuest traces its origins to CEO Vince Covino’s childhood, when he and his brother Ammon set up a touch-tank on their front lawn and charged neighbors and passersby a fee to interact with the aquatic creatures.

Staff members are stationed outside of exhibits throughout the facility supervising interactions and educating visitors about the creatures great and small. SeaQuest employs roughly 50 people in different positions including husbandry and “animal whisper” teams.

The aquarium also features virtual reality concepts such as an interactive sand table where a holographic image is projected onto the sand illustrating environmental impact.

By encouraging and guiding guests to connect with animals and learn about their ecosystems, the mall-based aquarium offers a myriad of hands-on activities from hand-feeding sharks and stingrays to coming face to face with crocodilians to walk-in aviaries.

Malls, like Westfield Trumbull, are experiencing a new wave of enthusiasm in the form of interactive draws such as arcades, aquariums and other attractions.

It’s a sign of the times as retailers struggle to breathe new life into destination malls. With retail vacancies continuing to grow in freestanding malls and the numbers of in-store shoppers thinning, the nation’s 1,200 shopping malls are looking for creative ways to engage consumers and lure them off of their laptops and mobile phones.

Nationwide, while many fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21, Payless and David’s Bridal have declared bankruptcy, and longstanding mass-market chains like Sears and Toys R’ Us have closed their doors, the days of brick-and-mortar retail are seemingly numbered. Yet some malls are thriving.

Many of those that have transformed themselves into engaging, interactive gathering spaces that offer more than just a place to spend hard-earned dollars.

SeaQuest fits into that interactive, multigenerational mold. And while the company is still only three-plus years old, the signs are encouraging: Each SeaQuest location welcomes about 250,000 to 300,000 visitors each year on average, the company says. And SeaQuest says it plans to open an additional three U.S. facilities this year.