Wayne Hills Mall Redevelopment Plan Approved

WAYNE, NJ – After years of dying a slow death, new life has been breathed into the Wayne Hills Mall property.

The Planning Board unanimously approved a redevelopment plan for the 39-acre site Monday. The plan includes knocking down the mall structure and building multiple stand-alone retail spaces.

“The redevelopment will be 100 percent retail and we look forward to this long awaited project being completed,” said Mayor Chris Vergano, who cast one of the approving votes. “We have worked closely with the property owners over the years in order to finally bring this redevelopment to fruition.”

Town officials have been looking for ways to improve the aging mall, which was built in the 1970s. Attendance began declining in the 1990s and several retailers moved out one by one. Burlington Coat Factory is the only store still operating on the property’s main footprint. Several retailers already exist on the outer part of the property, including Kmart, LA Fitness, and Dunkin’ Donuts. The redevelopment will not affect those retailers.

The 103,000 square-foot main mall will be demolished, but Burlington Coat Factory, which is located in a separate building next to it, will remain. Three separate retail spaces will be built close together on the property and part of the parking lot will be reconstructed.

A 67,000-square-foot grocery store will occupy the biggest building. The two other buildings will be 14,000 and 9,000 square feet in size. The number of parking spaces will be reduced by 3 percent to less than 2,200 and the lot will be reconfigured to allow people to park close to the new retailers.

“We have not opted to make an 80,000-square-foot building, said Jerome A. Vogel, who represented the applicant and owner Levco Associates. “You have a unique opportunity to create more by having less.”

Such a configuration has revitalized the Wayne Town Center near the Willowbrook Mall. That property suffered a similar fate to the Wayne Hills Mall until a few years ago when the main building was torn down. Several retailers and restaurants, including Costco, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Olive Garden, opened.

Levco Associates purchased the Wayne Hills Mall property in 1993. The land and buildings had an assessed value of $18 million and Levco paid nearly $950,000 in property taxes last year.

A traffic study of the property was prepared for Inserra Supermarkets, owners of ShopRite. ShopRite already has a store on Hamburg Turnpike.

Karen O’Shea, a spokesperson for ShopRite, said she could not confirm whether the company would be opening a store as part of the project or if the current store would close.

“We love our current ShopRite in Wayne,” O’Shea said. “We’re very happy there.”

The outside of the Wayne Hills Mall/Patch file photo