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Garden State Plaza
Garden State Plaza (officially Westfield Garden State Plaza) is a shopping mall located in Paramus, in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Owned and managed by Paris-based real estate management company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the mall is situated at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 17 near the Garden State Parkway, about 15 miles (24 km) west of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Opened in 1957 as the first suburban shopping mall in New Jersey, it has 300 stores and 2,118,718 sq ft (196,835.3 m2) of leasable space, ranked in 2022 as the 16th-largest shopping mall in the United States and qualifying it as a super-regional mall according to the standards of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
The mall had sales of $775 per square foot in 2013, almost 75% above the national average. In a study of malls in the United States performed on behalf of CNBC, published in 2018, Garden State Plaza ranked ninth in the nation, based on sales of $950 per square foot. Most of the mall, especially retail outlets, is closed on Sunday in accordance with state and local blue laws. Since April 2023, minors under the age of 18 are required to have an adult over 21 supervise them on Friday and Saturday nights.
In a borough where half of the property tax revenue comes from retail properties, Garden State Plaza accounts for 10% of the property taxes collected in Paramus.
As of August 2022, its anchors are Macy's, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and AMC Theatres.
The site at the southwest corner of Route 4 and Route 17 that would become Garden State Plaza was next to a drive-in theater dating back to the 1930s. Allied Stores and Macy's had discussed a shared project at the site that was abandoned in August 1953, after which Allied Stores pursued development of the Bergen Mall (since renamed as Bergen Town Center), that would be located a mile away on Route 4 and which was scheduled to open in September 1957 with Stern's as its anchor store.
R.H. Macy announced the creation of Garden State Plaza in May 1954, establishing a subsidiary that would own and operate the mall. JC Penney announced in June 1955 that the company would construct an 83,000-square-foot (7,700 m2) standalone three-story building as part of the project, with the infrastructure to add a fourth floor, as needs grew. Constructed by the Muscarelle Construction Company for owner/developer R.H. Macy & Co. as an open-air shopping "plaza", total construction costs for the mall were $26 million (equivalent to $291,000,000 in 2024).
Garden State Plaza opened on May 1, 1957, as the first suburban mall in New Jersey, with plans to be "the largest in the state". On opening day, Garden State Plaza had 75,000 shoppers at a mall that was anchored by a 340,000-square-foot (32,000 m2) Bamberger's store on three floors and included 60 retail stores and 5,500 parking spaces on a site that covered 110 acres (45 ha). The formal ribbon cutting ceremony included the mayor of Paramus Fred C. Galda and a local eight-year-old who cut a ribbon with one thousand dimes as a fundraiser for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (since renamed as the March of Dimes), part of an awareness campaign to encourage people to get the polio vaccine.
Its original anchor store was Bamberger's. In September 1957, the Fifth Avenue women's clothing store Russeks opened a women's wear store in the Shopping Center. Gimbels and JCPenney were both added the following year in 1958. In September 1958, long-time Macy's rival Gimbel's announced that it was acquiring access to a building site in the mall for a facility that would include 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2) of retail space on three floors, with completion expected in 1960. It was called "the largest shopping center in the world."
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Garden State Plaza
Garden State Plaza (officially Westfield Garden State Plaza) is a shopping mall located in Paramus, in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Owned and managed by Paris-based real estate management company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the mall is situated at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 17 near the Garden State Parkway, about 15 miles (24 km) west of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Opened in 1957 as the first suburban shopping mall in New Jersey, it has 300 stores and 2,118,718 sq ft (196,835.3 m2) of leasable space, ranked in 2022 as the 16th-largest shopping mall in the United States and qualifying it as a super-regional mall according to the standards of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
The mall had sales of $775 per square foot in 2013, almost 75% above the national average. In a study of malls in the United States performed on behalf of CNBC, published in 2018, Garden State Plaza ranked ninth in the nation, based on sales of $950 per square foot. Most of the mall, especially retail outlets, is closed on Sunday in accordance with state and local blue laws. Since April 2023, minors under the age of 18 are required to have an adult over 21 supervise them on Friday and Saturday nights.
In a borough where half of the property tax revenue comes from retail properties, Garden State Plaza accounts for 10% of the property taxes collected in Paramus.
As of August 2022, its anchors are Macy's, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and AMC Theatres.
The site at the southwest corner of Route 4 and Route 17 that would become Garden State Plaza was next to a drive-in theater dating back to the 1930s. Allied Stores and Macy's had discussed a shared project at the site that was abandoned in August 1953, after which Allied Stores pursued development of the Bergen Mall (since renamed as Bergen Town Center), that would be located a mile away on Route 4 and which was scheduled to open in September 1957 with Stern's as its anchor store.
R.H. Macy announced the creation of Garden State Plaza in May 1954, establishing a subsidiary that would own and operate the mall. JC Penney announced in June 1955 that the company would construct an 83,000-square-foot (7,700 m2) standalone three-story building as part of the project, with the infrastructure to add a fourth floor, as needs grew. Constructed by the Muscarelle Construction Company for owner/developer R.H. Macy & Co. as an open-air shopping "plaza", total construction costs for the mall were $26 million (equivalent to $291,000,000 in 2024).
Garden State Plaza opened on May 1, 1957, as the first suburban mall in New Jersey, with plans to be "the largest in the state". On opening day, Garden State Plaza had 75,000 shoppers at a mall that was anchored by a 340,000-square-foot (32,000 m2) Bamberger's store on three floors and included 60 retail stores and 5,500 parking spaces on a site that covered 110 acres (45 ha). The formal ribbon cutting ceremony included the mayor of Paramus Fred C. Galda and a local eight-year-old who cut a ribbon with one thousand dimes as a fundraiser for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (since renamed as the March of Dimes), part of an awareness campaign to encourage people to get the polio vaccine.
Its original anchor store was Bamberger's. In September 1957, the Fifth Avenue women's clothing store Russeks opened a women's wear store in the Shopping Center. Gimbels and JCPenney were both added the following year in 1958. In September 1958, long-time Macy's rival Gimbel's announced that it was acquiring access to a building site in the mall for a facility that would include 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2) of retail space on three floors, with completion expected in 1960. It was called "the largest shopping center in the world."
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