I've wondered and tried to research but could never come up with an answer.
Our local Sears in Mays Landing NJ closed a few weeks ago. I know Seritage doesn't own the property. Did Sears own it or the mall? Looking at the tax map it said Sears and Roebuck.
I wanted to see any information about it.
@qkh "There was plans to get Federal grants a few years ago to revamp the place and add an apartment complex in the back but still nothing has been done."
I don't know about what happened there, but I wonder if part of the problem might have been like something that happened in my area... a developer has been trying to build an apartment complex with low-income housing grants for years, but the potential neighbors always get huffy and refuse to allow it in the area, same thing keeps happening in one area after another. Meanwhile there is a massive waiting list of people who need the housing.
South Jersey still is a unique place I've lived here my entire life and no matter where I travel it still has a unique feel to it that is no where else in the world.
I think the problem with the Shore Mall for starters was the traffic patterns that were there. There has been rumor after rumor about reconfiguring it but nothing was ever done. Another problem thing I wonder would stuff have shifted down the Black Horse Pike IF the Hamilton Mall wasn't built. It was as if the farther you could get from Pleasantville the better for many businesses.
Shore Mall certainly had the acreage to expand and it is a shame they hadn't. I know there was rumors that in the 90's they planned too but I think the plazas that popped up around the Hamilton Mall killed that movement. Towards the end of the Shore Mall it was still very crowded, it was dead to an extent but in a unique South Jersey way. Obviously the teenagers weren't hitting it on a Friday night and it wasn't as busy as Hamilton Mall however it was unique because of all the third rate businesses/services that moved in people still went there but it wasn't a walk around and look around type place but instead a go in and get what you need place and leave or go to Boscov's. I think had they been able to secure a tenant for Value City it may have prolonged it some, the interior was in great shape but the roof needed to be redone and that cost was insane. In the end they were able to keep tenants although the rent was very cheap but it helped pay some expenses. Its a shame a lot of businesses had to move when they decided to demolish the mall part of it and many did not relocate and any that went to vacated space in the Hamilton Mall all failed there.
There was plans to get Federal grants a few years ago to revamp the place and add an apartment complex in the back but still nothing has been done. Obviously time has moved on, part of the mall is gone, and Bennett Chevrolet next door has newer models but that whole area is still a time warp to some extent. Especially the Cardiff Shopping Center across the street.
The big mistake was that the Shore Mall was not redeveloped and expanded instead of building the Hamilton Mall in the first place. Southeastern New Jersey is a completely different landscape on every single demographic than the rest of the state. The region both malls covered is from Tuckerton to Cape May down the GSP and west to Hammonton and Vineland. When the Hamilton Mall was built the Shore mall was already THE entrenched retail destination for almost everyone in that area. That still hasn't changed as the Boscovs at the SM is still the busiest in the chain. The owners HAD to kill the Shore mall themselves because it simply refused to die. There was always a decent mix of national and local retail and it REALLY was the center of the greater community. Adding a Macy's and expanding would not have been a bad idea. -shrugs- I have long left South Jersey , I hope it hasn't changed much because it was truly one of the best places I have ever lived. Miami, San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia, Pottstown, Central Florida, Annapolis MD , none can compare. It was one of the few places where life was truly good.
Thanks for the info so far guys and gals!
Also thank goodness the Hamilton Mall didn't do the extension that they were going to a few years ago. Adding all those stores to the front of the mall in front of Ruby Tuesday area and all that would be accessible from the outside. That would have ruined them financially not to mention the stagnant economy of the area with the c-sino closures and all.
They did revise areas and add on Forever 21 and H&M on which I've heard have not turned a profit yet. I have a feeling they'll be gone in the next few years.
Construction on the $100 million Hamilton Mall began in November 1985 by Kravco Company (now Kravco Company LLC) and JCP Realty Inc., the development arm of JCPenney, just south of the Atlantic City Racetrack.[2] The mall, which was built on a 104-acre (0.42 km2) tract that were former entrance roads and overflow parking for the race course, eventually opened in September 1987.[3] Mall entitlements included provisions for four department stores, one of which was built.[4] The Macy's was originally supposed to be a Bamberger's until Macy's renamed the stores in 1986. JCPenney and Sears moved from the nearby Shore Mall.
In my teen years, I spent a fair amount of time at Hamilton mall using it as a meeting place to start a trip to Philly with friends or to go somewhere else as a group. I preferred shopping and working in the Shore Mall , there was more of a family environment there and everyone knew each other. The Macy's and the Benetton were the exceptions to that rule as 90% of my wardrobe at the time was Esprit, the other 10 was Benetton. In 1993 I worked at Northern Reflections in the Hamilton Mall and that seemed to be the exception for the overall ridiculously evident superiority complex and overtly snooty attitude that seemed to be the pervasive problem with the place. Sans NR, that mall was just not a "comfortable" place to shop. When I worked there Simon was the management company in control, however not the owner. The partnership that built the mall was JC Penney and Kravco. The original owner of the Shore mall was Sears and it was originally known as Searstown. The Hamilton Mall has been through many property managers over the years, including PREIT , no one ever seemed interested in purchasing it after their management contract was done. The management companies would spend a year on site and then vacate faster than they moved in. PREIT being the most memorable one , who ran in around 8 months. I know people who worked in security, physical plant and HVAC at the mall and I never heard any talk of an actual sale to a new owner, only changes in management companies that might have been interested in buying the place. Now the strategy they are using to keep the place from looking empty is that when a store closes they offer the stores on either side of the inline the space at a reduced rate or sometimes free to expand to prevent the "dead mall" look.
Appears Kravco owns mall