December, 2006 - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Wayne Hills Mall; Wayne, New Jersey

If you’ve been following along, you know that about three weeks ago I took a big trip down to New Jersey for the weekend to try and see the last of the malls that I hadn’t yet visited. The last one I grabbed before coming home was this one, and it was somewhat on a hunch: I didn’t even know for sure that it was enclosed.

Hidden in the hills northwest of Paterson, the Wayne Hills Mall is a small enclosed shopping center in a shopping district located amidst a densely populated and largely residential section of suburban Wayne, New Jersey. Unlike Wayne’s other malls, the Wayne Hills Mall is far from major highways and was clearly always intended as a smaller, more convenient mall to serve residents in the immediate surrounding area. Together with the neighboring Preakness Shopping Center–which hosts a standalone Macy’s (former Stern’s), amongst much else–it provides a decent amount of retail space to residents of the area without trekking to the larger malls to the south.

This little, T-shaped mall was anchored by Meyer Brothers, a small local chain department store described as being like Stern’s (and which is now occupied by a Burlington Coat Factory), and a Kmart that is accessible only via an external promenade across the parking lot. The mall also counted Child World (closed 1992) and a Pathmark Supermarket (closed 2001) as anchors in the past. The floorplan at Wayne Hills Mall is strange, essentially there is a small enclosed mall that, at the center’s eastern end, leads to an outdoor promenade that crosses to a strip mall with a Kmart and a gym. It’s very strange (you can see it in the pictures) but pretty neat, and a good example of how to integrate strip-center uses and an enclosed mall.

…or at least it would be, if the mall had any stores. As you can tell from these photos, there isn’t much going on at the Wayne Hills Mall anymore (I’d say it qualifies as a “dead mall“). While the mall is in good shape, due to a (seemingly recent) renovation, there are very few stores still operating in the mall’s interior, and almost no patrons walking around. See these photos? They weren’t taken at 10 at night; it was seven, and during the Christmas shopping season. Ouch.

One of our readers, who often posts here with the moniker “DayGlo!,” was helpful in piecing together some of the history of the Wayne Hills Mall, and sent me some great stories about the way it used to be. I want to include some of her email below:

DayGlo!:

The weird thing about Wayne Hills Mall, to me, was that the dead mall aura hung over it long before it actually died. Neighboring Preakness Shopping Center, a leviathan in the days before big box centers came into vogue, always seemed much busier despite being open-air. Still, the mall was well-situated enough that it did okay. I don’t remember the names of a lot of the smaller stores simply because it’s been a looooooooong time since I’ve been to that mall, but even when businesses left, they were replaced pretty quickly. At one point, there was a sit-down restaurant/coffee shop whose name evades me, but one of my mom’s friends worked there as a waitress, so trips there usually meant free ice cream. Pretty sure it was gone by the time I started high school. There was a store called Peacock Fashions, which was like Hot Topic before there was a Hot Topic. It was the place to go for band shirts, posters, and other “head shop”-type stuff the chain music stores wouldn’t touch. That closed when I was in high school. There was also a Select-a-Ticket outlet, which got my patronage in high school; there were no Ticketron or (later) TicketMaster outlets where I lived, and Select-a-Ticket always scored the good seats anyway, albeit at a price. Other than that, lots of mall basics. I’m nearly positive that the Foxmoor where I got my Michael Jackson jacket back in the day was in that mall. I remember a Sam Goody moving in at some point when I was in late grade school or high school, and I’m pretty sure there was a Kinney Shoes. Meyer Brothers was the anchor. A small local chain, it was comparable to Stern’s (which was in the Preakness Shopping Center before the rebranding) or Hahne’s (which Rockaway’s Lord and Taylor was in its previous incarnation) — not quite on the same level as Macy’s, but more upscale than Sears and J.C. Penney. At one point, there were three stores listed on the bags — Wayne Hills, Paterson, and somewhere else I don’t remember. The downtown Paterson store remained the flagship even after the Wayne Hills store opened. It stayed open long past the point where the other big department stores pulled out of the inner cities, but was destroyed in a fire in 1991. The Wayne Hills store closed maybe a couple years after that. I was kinda surprised that none of the retail juggernauts offered to buy out the store, as the surrounding area is very well-off and has the purchasing power to support more upscale retail, but that didn’t happen. The outlot stores included Fayva Shoes, KMart (which the store locator indicates is still there), and Child World (which is a Toys R Us now, even though the Totowa store is only 5 or 6 miles away and huge in comparison). What always struck me as odd was that there was a Kmart by Wayne Hills and a comparably sized S.S. Kresge in Preakness well into the ’80s, if not the ’90s. I thought all of the latter stores were rebranded to the former long before.

Northbridge Mall; Albert Lea, Minnesota

Opened in 1987, Northbridge Mall was the second enclosed mall for Albert Lea, luring shoppers away from then-20-year-old Skyline Mall across town. Its anchors are ShopKo, a Green Bay, Wis. based discount retailer similar to Target and Wal-Mart, and Herberger’s, a Minnesota-based mid-tier department store now owned by the Bon-Ton Stores Inc. Northbridge Mall has about 250,000 square feet of retail space and contains room for approximately 30 stores, services, and restaurants including a food court. There’s also a 7-screen movie theatre. Also, I suspect it was built as a complement to Southbridge Mall in Mason City, Ia., which is about 40 miles south of Albert Lea. Could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.

But why was Northbridge built anyway? Skyline Mall was only about 20 years old at the time Northbridge was built in 1987. Plenty of malls last longer than 20 years, but here are some reasons Skyline was outmoded then. First, Skyline had already lost anchor Montgomery Ward, IGA, and several other stores during the mid-1980s. Instead of renovating and repositioning Skyline to be the modern mall everyone in the 1980s wanted, the residents of Albert Lea elected to build an entirely new mall closer to the growth corridor along I-90 and I-35 completely across town from Skyline. In doing so, Northbridge Mall and the nearby Interstates provided a magnet for other retail growth in the area. In fact, most recently, Wal-Mart left its post at Skyline Mall, leaving it anchorless, as it built a brand-new Supercenter along I-35 not far from Northbridge Mall. Although it is small at 250,000 square feet, Northbridge Mall was what Albert Lea wanted and needed when it opened, a bright, modern palace of retail located close to transportation and growth. Skyline mall was the opposite of this, so it was left in the dust.

The decor of Northbridge Mall, at least as of 2001, reeks of the 1980s. Huge walls of circular bulbs, blue and pink neon on the ceiling, and geometric pastel designs original to Northbridge Mall paint a picture of days gone by, certainly not representative of the designs today. If Northbridge Mall was in a larger or busier area it would have been renovated years ago. Personally I find Northbridge’s style endearing and a call back to my youth and the times I spent shopping in malls with similar decors, only they’re all renovated now. There’s nothing wrong with it, either. The carpet looked like it could use a replacement and that’s about all.

Ironically, Northbridge is about the same age now as Skyline was when it was outmoded. The dated decor is far from modern by today’s standard, but the mall is also utilized to capacity. But will Albert Lea residents elect to build another, brighter mall now? Probably not.

The pictures featured with this post were taken in September 2001. As always feel free to comment.

Skyline Mall; Albert Lea, Minnesota

We like to root for the retail underdog. Don’t get us wrong, we love all things retail, but we appreciate older, outmoded, and visibly dated centers and hold them with special regards. Perhaps it’s our appreciation of retail history, a throwback to our youths, our dislike for retail homogenization, or even something entirely different altogether. Either way, as a result of this appreciation, our next two posts take us to a very typical midwestern town in southern Minnesota.

Strategically located at the intersection of two major interstates, 90 and 35, Albert Lea is home to about 18,000 people. This may seem small, Albert Lea’s retail arm extends into a larger trade area encompassing many smaller communities in south central Minnesota and north central Iowa, which is less than 10 miles south of Albert Lea. With that said, however, many people in Albert Lea and the surrounding areas also travel to areas with a wider variety of retail offerings such as the Twin Cities, about 90 miles away, or to closer shopping areas in Austin, Rochester, and Mason City, Iowa.

As a result of the relatively large distances to other cities, Albert Lea has above average retail offerings for a city its size, including two enclosed malls on opposing sides of town, Skyline Mall and Northbridge Mall. Yes, there are two enclosed malls for 18,000 people. Skyline Mall opened in 1966 on the west side of Albert Lea along Main St. near the intersection with Highways 13 and 69. During Skyline Mall’s heyday, it was anchored by JCPenney on the east side, Montgomery Ward on the west, and an IGA grocery store anchored the north end of the mall.

During the 1980s, however, Skyline Mall fell out of favor, possibly as a combined result of increasing competition from distant cities, its age, and changing trends in shopping in general. In 1983, the first blow came as Montgomery Ward closed. A couple years later, the IGA also closed, leaving two anchors vacant at Skyline Mall. As if that weren’t enough, in 1987 an entirely new mall, Northbridge Mall, was constructed across town. The new mall was modern, larger, and had more features shoppers were beginning to demand such as a food court. In addition, Northbridge is adjacent to an exit from Interstate 90, whereas Skyline Mall is not. Northbridge is also closer to where much of the growth is occurring in Albert Lea, on the east and north edges of town.

After Northbridge opened, Skyline continued on and attempted to reposition itself as an ancillary to Northbridge, featuring many local or discount retailers to complement Northbridge’s higher-end and national chain offerings. Indicative of this repositioning was the placement of one of the area’s first Wal-Marts in Skyline Mall, replacing Montgomery Ward as the west anchor. However, it was not enough to sustain the mall and many stores continued to leave. Ben Franklin, Stevenson’s clothing store, and several more stores closed in the early 1990s and finally JCPenney closed in 1993 or 1994, leaving Skyline with just one anchor.

The past decade or so has seen Skyline evolve from a retail center into a hybrid enclosed community/office/retail center. The hardware store and several other small shops are still open, but there are also a Senior Center and offices. Wal-Mart has recently left Skyline Mall to build a standalone Supercenter across town, on the east side near Interstate 35. As Skyline Mall continues to soldier on anchorless, it completes the transition from retail to community center and your guess is as good as ours what the future will bring.

We visited Skyline Mall in Albert Lea in September 2001 and took the photos featured herein. JCPenney had been replaced by Rainbow Foods, but that has since closed. Jo-Ann Fabrics and Hardware Hank are still open as of December 2006. Leave some comments and let us know what you think, and don’t forget to check out the vintage sign.

Wayne Towne Center; Wayne, New Jersey

Say goodbye to the Wayne Towne Center.

A few days ago, I posted about the mammoth Willowbrook Mall at the junction of US46 and route 23 in Wayne, New Jersey. The mall is so large that it has an annex mall in its parking lot–the younger Wayne Towne Center, which had been known as the West Belt Mall until sometime in the late 1980s. The 653,000 square-foot enclosed mall is anchored by large JCPenney and Fortunoff stores, as well as junior anchors such as Borders, Old Navy, Daffy’s, and Loehmann’s. Unfortunately, as of my visit two weeks ago, there was quite little else. The food court, in particular, had emptied out completely and was boarded up and isolated from the remainder of the mall.

As you’ll see from the pictures, Wayne Towne Center isn’t an unattractive mall, but its interior space is quite small, with most of its square footage belonging to one of its two behemoth anchor stores. Similarly, unlike some successful annex malls like the Court at King of Prussia in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, Wayne Towne Center was not designed in such a way that it’s easy to walk between it and Willowbrook. There are no adjacent entrances and no pedestrian promenade, so it’s necessary to drive between the two centers. This undoubtedly hurt Wayne Towne Center, and I would say they should change it by connecting the two with an outdoor “lifestyle” promenade, if…

…It wasn’t for the fact that the mall is going to be torn down to be turned into a lifestyle center.

Before:

After:

That is, if you’d call these plans a lifestyle center. It seems that developer RKF’s plan, according to this PDF, is really just to demolish the interior portion of the mall and replace it with parking, and add little else beyond a small decor refresh. The place doesn’t really need more parking, to be honest, and the plans seem to involve tearing down the vacant yet immaculate (and salvageable) interior space in favor of an unnecessary parking expansion. It is, of course, a national trend to disenclose struggling, smaller centers like this one, but Wayne Towne Center could’ve been revived through an improved connection to its neighbor. A pedestrian connection also could’ve delivered a far trendier and more marketable lifestyle component, while positioning the two malls even more strongly against their siblings in the crowded North Jersey market. The big-boxing planned for Wayne Towne Center seems disappointingly uninspired.

Still, there’s no denying that this little mall isn’t pulling its weight. Even during my first visit in 2000, it seemed surprisingly sleepy, though given the size of its neighbor it wasn’t all that shocking. Fast forward to 2006, however, and there’s little to draw patrons beyond the anchor stores. If you’re in the area, visit both malls–before it’s too late for this one.

As an aside, Fortunoff is a retail artifact that’s unique to the New York area. The large department store seems to traffic in some of the same goods that Service Merchandise once did–heavy on housewares and jewelry, no apparel–yet unlike Service Merchandise Fortunoff employs the look and feel of a full-line, classic department store. Their Wayne Towne Center store is quite large, possibly in excess of 200,000 square feet. Sadly, it’s a rare treat nowadays to visit a mall and find a unique department store that’s not available everywhere, and Fortunoff’s presence is part of what makes Wayne Towne Center interesting.