Menlo Park Mall

Menlo Park Mall

Location	Edison, New Jersey, USA
Coordinates	40°32′18″N 74°22′43″W / 40.53833°N 74.37861°W / 40.53833; -74.37861Coordinates: 40°32′18″N 74°22′43″W / 40.53833°N 74.37861°W / 40.53833; -74.37861
Opening date	1959 (renovated/enclosed in 1966-1967 and expanded in 1990-1991)
Owner	Simon Property Group
No. of stores and services	175
No. of anchor tenants	5: Macy's, Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, AMC Theaters, and The Cheesecake Factory
Total retail floor area	1,232,000 ft² (114,000 m²)[1]
Parking	2 parking decks and lighted surface lots
No. of floors	2 (department stores have 3)
Website	Menlo Park Mall

Menlo Park Mall is a two-level super regional shopping mall, located on U.S. Route 1 and Parsonage Road in Edison, New Jersey, United States. The mall has a gross leasable area of 1,232,000 ft² (114,000 m²).^[1] Menlo Park Mall is currently owned by the Simon Property Group.

History

Menlo Park Shopping Center opened in September 1959, as an open-air complex. It was named after the Menlo Park area of Edison, where Thomas Edison had his famous laboratory, the site of which is about two miles (3 km) from the shopping venue. The structure was fully enclosed between June 1966 and December 1967. After the remodeling, it was renamed Menlo Park Mall.

The original center was anchored by Bamberger's, Montgomery Ward (opened May 1960), a small, dry goods only, JCPenney, a two-level Woolworth, as well as two grocery stores: ShopRite (later a Pathmark), and Pantry Pride(?), later a Big Buy.

Originally a one level structure, the fully enclosed mall (post-1967) had a lack of skylights, with only shaded windows along the sides of the ceiling. The low lighting made the interior quite dark, as was customary with interior malls of the time. The flooring was quite unique in that there were patterns of orange, black, yellow and white throughout the mall.

The Montgomery Ward space was taken over by Alexander's in 1972. J.C. Penney moved to Woodbridge Center in 1981. Bamberger's was rebranded by Macy's in October 1986. When Alexander's went out of business, the mall was able to secure the 2nd Nordstrom in the state of New Jersey, but changes had to be made to prepare for the opening.

Most of the mall was closed from 1990-1991, when it underwent a significant renovation and expansion that converted it from a single-story structure into its current two-story form. In expanding and fitting into the space, the new Menlo Park Mall was built on an angle with the vertex occurring at center court. The new Menlo Park Mall was also changed to have galleria style skylights, domed fountain courts, marble flooring, dramatic lighting, sculptures and a large, skylit food court. Two parking decks were also added, as was a 12 Screen Cineplex Odeon movie theatre, which replaced the smaller Menlo Park Cinema on Route 1 (which was later replaced by Romano's Macaroni Grill). Macy's was the only store to remain open during the primary expansion.

In the media

While not featured, the mall's name was mentioned in Kevin Smith's films Mallrats and Chasing Amy, both of which take place in Central Jersey areas. An episode of Comedy Central's Upright Citizen's Brigade was filmed in the Menlo Park Mall. The Scott and Todd Big Show on radio station WPLJ sponsored a contest in April 2007, in which five contestants had to live in a makeshift prison in the mall for five days with the winner receiving a $5,000 shopping spree and a vacation to Aruba.^[2]

Following the shooting of an employee on September 7, 2007, the Gymboree store temporarily closed, but reopened shortly thereafter.^[3]

Anchors & majors

• Macy's (337,591 ft²)
• Nordstrom (190,000 ft²)
• Barnes & Noble Booksellers
• The Cheesecake Factory
• AMC Theaters

Tenants

The mall's original anchor store was Bamberger's, now Macy's (occupying 337,591 sq ft) and a more recent addition to the mall is Nordstrom (occupying 190,000 sq ft.). Over the years, Menlo Park Mall has sought tenants that market to upscale shoppers like Club Monaco, Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Kenneth Cole, Lucky Brand Jeans, Swarovski, Zara, Guess, Armani Exchange, H&M, and Hollister. Menlo Park has also brought in various entertainment and dining options to keep the mall populated after regular hours such as Barnes & Noble Booksellers, The Cheesecake Factory, the Rainforest Cafe, a 12-screen AMC/Cineplex Odeon Dine-In Theatre, Fox & Hound, Romano's Macaroni Grill and Benihana.

Expansion and renovation

The mall has been extensively expanded and renovated starting in 1999, when a new wing was remerchandised, the lower level west wing. The wing had previously contained a Linens 'N Things and Herman's World of Sporting Goods. Both had eventually closed and as a result of the remerchandising, Rainforest Cafe opened at the end of the wing and is one of the mall's largest and most successful restaurants. After the closure of a furniture store in the former Linens 'N Things, Steve & Barry's opened in 2006. Now that the Steve & Barry's franchise is out of business, that spot is now again a Fortunoff furniture store. Additional stores located in this wing consist of Radio Shack, a now closed pretzel shop called Pretzel Time, a unisex hair salon, a dollar store, a smoothie shop, and a small art gallery.

In 2002, construction began on the entrance near Nordstrom facing Parsonage Road. This entrance was temporarily closed for the construction of Barnes & Noble and Cheesecake Factory, both of which opened in early 2003. The front parking lot was also expanded.

Between 2002 and 2004, many stores were opened and closed in the mall. Popular stores Zany Brainy and Nobody Beats the Wiz closed in 2003. In 2003 and 2004, several eateries in the food court were closed and replaced, including Burger King (which is now Wendy's), Arby's (now a sushi eatery), and a specialty Mexican eatery (now Taco Bell). The Animal Shop was also replaced with Cold Stone Creamery, My Favorite Muffin was replaced with a Mr. Smoothie, and Compact Disc World was replaced with Jos. A Bank. The mall's food court also includes one of the few Chick-fil-A's in New Jersey. Build-A-Bear Workshop also opened in 2002 and is now one of the mall's most popular attractions. FAO Schwartz, a popular toy store, was closed and replaced with various stores, including Bailey Banks and Biddle. In early 2004. Apple opened its first mall store in New Jersey, and Sharper Image also opened that year. Sony Style then opened its second mall store in New Jersey in 2005.

In 2007, the mall began to go in the direction of fewer but larger stores, as opposed to its previous "numerous small stores" image. Because of this, several small, specialty stores were closed and popular stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch. Victoria's Secret, Express, Arie, The Gap, and New York and Company were expanded in their places in the spring and summer of 2007, and Sephora was opened in early spring 2007. In the fall of 2007, large stores of H&M and Hollister were added to the mall. The new, extended stores are extremely large, in particular the Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch stores, which take up large sections of the Macy's wing. Also, an arcade, called Game World, opened ajacent to the movie theater at this time, too. It closed in early 2010.

The mall continued to revamp itself, such as the expanded food court dining area in the fall of 2005, an interactive floor game in the spring of 2006, and several new carpeted soft seating areas in 2006, only which are only on the lower level. The mall also revamped its decor in 2005 and 2006, along with adding soft, carpeted seating areas, and moved several of its stores in 2006 and 2007, including Payless ShoeSource and The Gap. Twisters Pretzels, which was part of the mall's landscape for 10 years under the staircase, closed in 2007 and was never replaced. Also, in Fall 2009, the Old Navy, in the upper Macy's wing, underwent massive renovations where new fitting rooms and restrooms were added, along with a reconfigured checkout area. An Auntie Anne's opened in Fall 2009 underneath the staircase. Recently, Cineplex Odeon has closed for renovations to convert to AMC Fork And Screen. The 12 theatres will also be converted to stadium seating.

New stores

• Chipotle Mexican Grille
• Newly Renovated: American Eagle
• Pandora
• Forever 21

Coming soon

• Arden B

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Menlo Park Mall, International Council of Shopping Centers. Accessed September 21, 2006.
2. ^ Contest turns Menlo Park mall into 'prison', Edison-Metuchen Sentinel, Apr. 18, 2007
3. ^ Authorities: Man shoots woman, kills himself in shopping mall, Associated Press, September 8, 2007

External links

• Menlo Park Mall
• Menlo Park Mall, International Council of Shopping Centers