Menlo Park Mall

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Menlo Park Mall
Facts and statistics
Location Edison, New Jersey, USA
Owner Simon Property Group
No. of anchor tenants 2
Total retail floor area 1,232,000 ft²[1]
No. of floors 2
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, USA. 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.

Contents

[edit] History

The mall opened in the late 1950s. The mall is named after the Menlo Park area of Edison, where Thomas Edison had his famous laboratory. The site of the laboratory is about two miles from the mall. 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. During this renovation period, Macy's remained open as the southern anchor tenant and Nordstrom replaced the financially-troubled Alexander's as the northern anchor tenant. Menlo Park Mall security is equipped with state of the art segways.

[edit] 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]

On February 4th, 2008 a man set himself and his car on fire in the parking lot outside of the movie theater.

[edit] Anchors & Majors

Anchors:

Other major stores/restaurants:

Previous anchors/majors:

[edit] 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.). Other notable tenants include Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, The Cheesecake Factory, the Rainforest Cafe, a 12-screen AMC Theatres, and a variety of specialty food vendors at the Food Court. Its newest stores include Club Monaco, Dormia, Kenneth Cole, Lucky Brand Jeans, Swarovski, Zara, Toll Brothers, Armani Exchange, H & M, and Hollister. Following the shooting of an employee on September 7, 2007, the Gymboree store temporarily closed, but reopened shortly thereafter.[3]

[edit] Expansion and renovation

The mall has been extensively expanded and renovated starting in 1999, when a new wing was added to the mall, the lower level west wing (now known as the Steve & Barry's wing.) The wing began construction in late 1999 and finished in mid-2000. The main attraction to the new wing was the Rainforest Cafe, which is located at the end of the wing and is one of the mall's largest and most successful restaurants. Radio Shack was also a popular addition to the mall that was located in the new wing, along with a pretzel shop, a uni-sex hair salon, and a sports collectors shop. In 2006, a new major store was added to the wing, Steve & Barry's, which is located at the very end of the wing and now serves as the wing's main attraction.

In 2002, construction began on the front entrance of the mall. The main entrance was temporarily closed for the construction of Barnes & Noble and The 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 were 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 specialty Sushi eatery), and a specialty Mexican eatery (now Taco Bell). The Animal Shop was also replaced with Coldstone Creamery, a Muffin stand My Favorite Muffin was replaced with a Smoothie stand, and Music World was replaced with Jos. A Bank. 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 Things Remembered and a clothing store, in early 2004. The Apple Store and Sharper Image were opened in mid-2004 and are now two of the mall's most popular locations. The Sony Store was then opened in early 2005 to compete with them.

In 2007, the mall began to go in the direction of fewer but larger stores, as composed 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, 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 nearly take up entire wings.

In addition, the mall continues to revamp itself, such as the food court dining area being expanded in the fall of 2005, and an interactive floor game was added in the spring of 2006. The mall also re-vamped it's scenery in 2005 and 2006 and revamped several of it's stores in 2006 and 2007, including Payless ShoeSource and The Gap. The mall currently has no plans for further renovation.

Abercrombie & Fitch's Ruehl No.925 is coming this fall, so is a Metropark upstairs.

[edit] 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, Sept. 8, 2007

[edit] Future Stores

[edit] External links