Springer’s Jewelers plans immersive Old Port flagship for next-gen shoppers

Springer’s Jewelers is leaving Congress Street for 455 Fore Street, betting that a new Old Port flagship built around experience, connection and personalized service will resonate with younger luxury shoppers. The Portland store is slated to open in spring 2027, giving the 155-year-old jeweler a fresh stage in one of the city’s busiest retail corridors.

The move gives new shape to a business that traces its roots to 1870, when George T. Springer opened in Saccarappa, now Westbrook, Maine. Edmund Beaulieu bought the store in 1925, then the family moved it to Congress Street in 1947 and narrowed its focus to jewelry. Richard Beaulieu took over in 1988. Springer’s says Lilly Mullen is the first female family owner in the company’s history, and that the business is now run by women for the first time in its long run.

That heritage matters because Springer’s is not building from scratch. It already operates in Bath, Maine, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and it has spent generations translating family ownership into a Maine retail identity. The new Fore Street address places the jeweler in Old Port, where Old Port Square, a four-acre redevelopment, mixes residences, retail, restaurants, offices, hotels and public spaces. The neighborhood has been drawing fresh attention from retailers, with Warby Parker among the recent arrivals.

For a jewelry house, the store itself is part of the product. Younger luxury customers tend to want more than locked cases and transactional counters; they want a place where they can try, compare, customize and talk through a purchase without feeling rushed. Springer’s is pitching its new flagship as an answer to that shift, promising a more immersive luxury experience while preserving the legacy that has kept the name visible in Portland for more than a century and a half.

Mullen’s role gives that strategy added weight. Her rise marks a change in who is steering the family business, and in how the next chapter is being written. A retailer that once centered its identity on succession and continuity is now using a prime Old Port address to signal something else as well: that heritage jewelry can still feel current when the service model is personal, the setting is walkable, and the store is designed for the way new buyers actually shop.