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The Hamilton Mall is a major shopping destination in Mays Landing, in Hamilton Township,
Atlantic County Atlantic County is a County (United States), county located along the southern coast of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the county had a population of 274,534.
,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, United States. Opened in 1987, the two-story enclosed mall is anchored by
Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
. The former
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
and
JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...
are closed. (Sears and JCPenney were at the Shore Mall (now Harbor Square) prior to 1987). The mall is adjacent to the
Black Horse Pike The Black Horse Pike is a designation used for a number of different roadways that had been part of a historic route connecting the Camden area to the area of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Roadways now bearing the Black Horse Pike designation include ...
(
U.S. Route 322 U.S. Route 322 (US 322) is a long, east–west United States Highway, traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The road is a spur of U.S. Route 22 and one of the original highways from 1926. A portion of it at one time was concurrent with ...
) and U.S. Route 40, and is close to the
Atlantic City Expressway The Atlantic City Expressway, officially numbered, but unsigned, as Route 446 and abbreviated A.C. Expressway, ACE, or ACX, and known locally as the Expressway, is a long toll road in the U.S. state of New Jersey, managed and operated by ...
and Atlantic City, making it a high tourist destination for vacationers there. The mall has a
gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...
of . The mall has over 140 stores, making it the largest mall in southeastern New Jersey. An Olive Garden,
Red Lobster Red Lobster Hospitality LLC is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company has operations across most of the United States (including Puerto Rico, Guam) and Canada, as well as in China, Ecuador, Ho ...
,
Longhorn Steakhouse LongHorn Steakhouse is an American casual dining restaurant chain owned and operated by Darden Restaurants, Inc., headquartered in Orlando, Florida. As of 2016, LongHorn Steakhouse generated $1.6 billion in sales in its 559 locations. History ...
, and
Buffalo Wild Wings Buffalo Wild Wings (originally Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck, hence the nickname BDubs, or BW3) is an American casual dining restaurant and sports bar franchise in the United States, Canada, India, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, a ...
are all located on pad sites on the outskirts of the parking lot. In 2017, the mall had a value of $90.78 million, which was reduced to $75 million in 2018.


History

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 Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...
, just south of the Atlantic City Racetrack. The mall, which was built on a tract that were former entrance roads and overflow parking for the race course, eventually opened in September 1987. The Macy's store opened shortly after, marked by a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by
Miss America 1984 Miss America 1984, the 57th Miss America pageant, was held at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 17, 1983 on NBC Network. Debra Maffett (Miss California 1982) crowned her successor, Miss New York 1983, Vanessa Williams a ...
, Suzette Charles and television personality
Robin Leach Robin Douglas Leach (29 August 1941 – 24 August 2018) was a British entertainment reporter and writer from London. After beginning his career as a print journalist, first in England and then in the United States, he became best known fo ...
. Mall entitlements included provisions for four department stores, one of which was never built. The
Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
was originally supposed to be a Bamberger's until Macy's renamed the stores in 1986. JCPenney and
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
moved from the nearby
Shore Mall Harbor Square, formerly Shore Mall, is a shopping plaza (formerly a shopping mall) in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey in the United States on U.S. Route 40/U.S. Route 322 originally known as "Searstown". The plaza is accessible from Exit 36 off t ...
. In August 1989, a small strip mall, dubbed the "Convenience Center", opened on the north side of the mall property adjacent to the racetrack. In 1991,
Red Lobster Red Lobster Hospitality LLC is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company has operations across most of the United States (including Puerto Rico, Guam) and Canada, as well as in China, Ecuador, Ho ...
opened on the outskirts of the mall parking lot. Olive Garden opened on a pad site in the parking lot in 1995.


Renovations

In 2004, the Hamilton Mall received an $8 million common area renovation. The renovation included the removal of several fountains, trees and planters, and a carousel located near the mall's main entrance. These changes allowed room for more kiosks and new lounge areas featuring soft seating and TVs. The large elevated seating area and planters in the food court were removed to make way for more seating and spaces for tenants in the center. The renovation also included new flooring, lighting, signage, and color scheme. Between 2004 and 2009, the Hamilton Mall and its stores embarked on an extensive energy conservation program to reduce electrical consumption. Nearly every store changed its overhead lighting to new energy conserving fixtures. In 2009, a new carousel and a new children's play area opened on the first floor of Hamilton Mall. In early 2013, Buffalo Wild Wings and Longhorn Steakhouse opened at Hamilton Mall on pad sites facing Black Horse Pike. A two-story expansion incorporating H&M and Forever 21 opened on the north side of the mall in mid-2013, in the location of the former "ghost" anchor. Also in 2013, the food court underwent a renovation, which included removal of the center kiosk (built as part of the mall's 2003 renovation) to provide visibility to surrounding stores, raising the ceiling height, and installing new paint, seating, flatscreen TVs and a
boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of brid ...
-inspired floor design. The mall's central plant chillers and cooling tower were replaced with newer highly efficient technology. The redevelopment also included the construction of a new public transit hub serving 169 buses per day, over one mile of new pedestrian sidewalks on site, extensive new landscaping, site-wide repaving, and improvements to five stormwater basins.


Store closures

On August 22, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 46 stores nationwide. The store closed on November 25, 2018. On February 28, 2019, it was announced that JCPenney would also be closing on July 5, 2019 as part of a plan to close 27 stores nationwide which left Macy's as the sole anchor. In November 2019, discount department store Shoppers World opened in the first floor of the shuttered JCPenney. In 2019, the Hamilton Township Office of Economic Development designated the Hamilton Mall as an area in need of redevelopment; the mall lost over $40 million in value since 2017. Despite losing two anchors and some chain stores, the mall has largely survived the
retail apocalypse A retail apocalypse is the closing of numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains worldwide. It began around 2010, and was severely exacerbated by the mandatory closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, over ...
, due in part to the mall's increasing number of independently-owned specialty businesses and non-retail tenants, as well as being the only enclosed mall in both Atlantic and Cape May Counties. In July 2019, Kravco sold the mall to
Namdar Realty Group Namdar Realty Group is an American shopping mall investment company based in Great Neck, New York. They primarily purchase shopping malls with partner Mason Asset Management. Namdar and Mason are both family owned, and as of 2021, own over 400 p ...
, a
Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincorpo ...
-based commercial real estate firm that specializes in distressed shopping malls. On August 27, 2021 it was announced that Shoppers World would close in Fall 2021 after two years in operation. Shoppers World cited a decline in foot traffic as well as the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. This will leave Macy's as the sole anchor in the mall.Shoppers World at Hamilton Mall to close
/ref>


Anchors

*
Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
(original anchor) * H&M (junior anchor) opened in 2013 * Forever 21 (junior anchor) opened in 2013


Former anchors

*
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
(original anchor) closed in November 2018. Currently vacant. *
JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...
(original anchor) closed in July 2019. * Shoppers World (junior anchor) opened in 2019; closed in Fall 2021.


References


External links

*
International Council of Shopping Centers: Hamilton Mall
{{Philadelphia Malls Buildings and structures in Atlantic County, New Jersey Hamilton Township, Atlantic County, New Jersey Shopping malls in New Jersey Shopping malls established in 1987 Tourist attractions in Atlantic County, New Jersey 1987 establishments in New Jersey Namdar Realty Group