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Bergen Town Center
Bergen Town Center (formerly known as The Outlets at Bergen Town Center and the Bergen Mall) is a shopping center located in Bergen County, New Jersey, USA. The center consists of both an indoor mall and exterior outlying stores and occupies over 105 acres split between the municipalities of Paramus and Maywood.
The center, which was built as the Bergen Mall, opened in 1957 as one of several regional large-scale outdoor shopping centers rolled out nationwide, and was the largest of its kind at the time of its opening. It is the second-oldest mall in New Jersey. The mall offers a gross leasable area (GLA) of 917,129 sq ft (85,204.1 m2). The mall is located at the junction of Route 4 and Forest Avenue, and includes a separate shopping strip, south of Route 4 connected to the rest of the property via a pedestrian bridge. The mall has over the years included community spaces, including a chapel, theater for live dramas, post office, auditorium, ice rink, bowling alley, a children's amusement ride area, and the Bergen Museum of Art & Science. The Bergen Mall was designed by John Graham of New York City. The mall is subject to Bergen County's blue laws, which requires the mall to be closed on Sundays, except for some restaurants and other non-clothing establishments.
The mall was first planned in 1955 by Allied Stores to have 100 stores and 8,600 parking spaces in a 1.5 million ft2 mall that would include a 300,000 sq ft (28,000 m2) Stern's store and two other 150,000 sq ft (14,000 m2) department stores as part of the initial design. Allied's chairman B. Earl Puckett announced The Bergen Mall as the largest of ten proposed centers, stating that there were 25 cities that could support such centers and that no more than 50 malls of this type would be built nationwide. The mall opened on November 14, 1957 with great fanfare, as Dave Garroway, host of The Today Show served as master of ceremonies. Bergen Mall got its second anchor when a 135,000 sq ft (12,500 m2) Ohrbach's location opened on August 17, 1967.
In July 1972, the owners of the Bergen Mall announced that they would begin converting the facility from an outdoor shopping plaza with a vast number of stores to an enclosed structure with all of these stores operating under one roof; the new mall would be anchored by Stern's at one end of the enclosed structure and Ohrbach's at the other. This was part of a general trend underway at the time where large-scale outdoor centers, like the Bergen Mall, had been for its first fifteen years and Garden State Plaza, which had been commissioned by R.H. Macy and Company and opened in 1957, was at the time, were no longer as popular while massive indoor facilities, like the Fashion Center (which opened in 1967) in Paramus and Willowbrook Mall (which opened in 1968) in Wayne, were becoming more and more popular. On September 15, 1973, the renovated mall held its grand reopening. Unlike its other regional counterparts, however, the Bergen Mall did not make attempts to modernize its look as the years wore on and proceeded to look dated.
In January 1987, the Bergen Mall lost one of its two anchors when Ohrbach's closed its doors. Amcena reconfigured the store, as well as the other Ohrbach's stores it opted to keep, and it reopened in March as part of the company's Steinbach chain. The store was converted to Value City in 1997 and later closed and demolished in the mid-2000s.
In the early 1990s the mall was repositioned as a value-oriented center that included a Marshalls, Gap Outlet, and a Saks Off 5th outlet. Across the street from the main mall is a little strip mall that was part of the mall property. It is located across from Forest Avenue and was connected with an auto and a pedestrian bridge. Chuck E. Cheese's opened in the mini strip mall across the street in 1993. It closed in November 2010 due to the redevelopment plans of that area including the old former Health Spa 2 The Chuck E. Cheese relocated to the Shoppes at IV in 2011. The site of the former Chuck E. Cheese's later became a Red Robin restaurant. Other tenants in the strip mall were Spa 2 (closed 2004; replaced by REI) and Shop Rite. The Shop Rite store closed in 1998 and was moved to its current location on Route 4 near the mall. Kirkland's Furniture occupied the former Shop Rite space in the strip mall until 2020.
Another major change came to the mall in 2001, and this involved the store it had been built around. In 1992, Stern's owner Allied Stores merged with Federated Department Stores. Two years later, Federated acquired R.H. Macy and Company out of bankruptcy. This gave Federated the position of having three different properties being anchors at the three major Paramus malls. In addition to Stern's and the A&S store co-anchoring Paramus Park, the acquisition gave Federated control of the Macy's store at Garden State Plaza.
In 1995, the year after acquiring Macy's, Federated decided to discontinue their A&S brand and converted the Paramus Park location to a Macy's to give them a second location in Paramus. Six years later, they made a similar decision to retire the Stern's brand and the Bergen Mall flagship joined most of its other sibling stores and was rebranded as Macy's. Federated did not keep the store open much longer, however, electing to liquidate it in 2005 and focus on their other two Paramus locations. Shortly after, the Macy's was converted into a Century 21 store.
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Bergen Town Center
Bergen Town Center (formerly known as The Outlets at Bergen Town Center and the Bergen Mall) is a shopping center located in Bergen County, New Jersey, USA. The center consists of both an indoor mall and exterior outlying stores and occupies over 105 acres split between the municipalities of Paramus and Maywood.
The center, which was built as the Bergen Mall, opened in 1957 as one of several regional large-scale outdoor shopping centers rolled out nationwide, and was the largest of its kind at the time of its opening. It is the second-oldest mall in New Jersey. The mall offers a gross leasable area (GLA) of 917,129 sq ft (85,204.1 m2). The mall is located at the junction of Route 4 and Forest Avenue, and includes a separate shopping strip, south of Route 4 connected to the rest of the property via a pedestrian bridge. The mall has over the years included community spaces, including a chapel, theater for live dramas, post office, auditorium, ice rink, bowling alley, a children's amusement ride area, and the Bergen Museum of Art & Science. The Bergen Mall was designed by John Graham of New York City. The mall is subject to Bergen County's blue laws, which requires the mall to be closed on Sundays, except for some restaurants and other non-clothing establishments.
The mall was first planned in 1955 by Allied Stores to have 100 stores and 8,600 parking spaces in a 1.5 million ft2 mall that would include a 300,000 sq ft (28,000 m2) Stern's store and two other 150,000 sq ft (14,000 m2) department stores as part of the initial design. Allied's chairman B. Earl Puckett announced The Bergen Mall as the largest of ten proposed centers, stating that there were 25 cities that could support such centers and that no more than 50 malls of this type would be built nationwide. The mall opened on November 14, 1957 with great fanfare, as Dave Garroway, host of The Today Show served as master of ceremonies. Bergen Mall got its second anchor when a 135,000 sq ft (12,500 m2) Ohrbach's location opened on August 17, 1967.
In July 1972, the owners of the Bergen Mall announced that they would begin converting the facility from an outdoor shopping plaza with a vast number of stores to an enclosed structure with all of these stores operating under one roof; the new mall would be anchored by Stern's at one end of the enclosed structure and Ohrbach's at the other. This was part of a general trend underway at the time where large-scale outdoor centers, like the Bergen Mall, had been for its first fifteen years and Garden State Plaza, which had been commissioned by R.H. Macy and Company and opened in 1957, was at the time, were no longer as popular while massive indoor facilities, like the Fashion Center (which opened in 1967) in Paramus and Willowbrook Mall (which opened in 1968) in Wayne, were becoming more and more popular. On September 15, 1973, the renovated mall held its grand reopening. Unlike its other regional counterparts, however, the Bergen Mall did not make attempts to modernize its look as the years wore on and proceeded to look dated.
In January 1987, the Bergen Mall lost one of its two anchors when Ohrbach's closed its doors. Amcena reconfigured the store, as well as the other Ohrbach's stores it opted to keep, and it reopened in March as part of the company's Steinbach chain. The store was converted to Value City in 1997 and later closed and demolished in the mid-2000s.
In the early 1990s the mall was repositioned as a value-oriented center that included a Marshalls, Gap Outlet, and a Saks Off 5th outlet. Across the street from the main mall is a little strip mall that was part of the mall property. It is located across from Forest Avenue and was connected with an auto and a pedestrian bridge. Chuck E. Cheese's opened in the mini strip mall across the street in 1993. It closed in November 2010 due to the redevelopment plans of that area including the old former Health Spa 2 The Chuck E. Cheese relocated to the Shoppes at IV in 2011. The site of the former Chuck E. Cheese's later became a Red Robin restaurant. Other tenants in the strip mall were Spa 2 (closed 2004; replaced by REI) and Shop Rite. The Shop Rite store closed in 1998 and was moved to its current location on Route 4 near the mall. Kirkland's Furniture occupied the former Shop Rite space in the strip mall until 2020.
Another major change came to the mall in 2001, and this involved the store it had been built around. In 1992, Stern's owner Allied Stores merged with Federated Department Stores. Two years later, Federated acquired R.H. Macy and Company out of bankruptcy. This gave Federated the position of having three different properties being anchors at the three major Paramus malls. In addition to Stern's and the A&S store co-anchoring Paramus Park, the acquisition gave Federated control of the Macy's store at Garden State Plaza.
In 1995, the year after acquiring Macy's, Federated decided to discontinue their A&S brand and converted the Paramus Park location to a Macy's to give them a second location in Paramus. Six years later, they made a similar decision to retire the Stern's brand and the Bergen Mall flagship joined most of its other sibling stores and was rebranded as Macy's. Federated did not keep the store open much longer, however, electing to liquidate it in 2005 and focus on their other two Paramus locations. Shortly after, the Macy's was converted into a Century 21 store.