Look inside this New Jersey’s mall’s sad, dead stores before they get demolished

The automatic doors to the 150,000 square foot Lord & Taylor at Monmouth Mall have been locked shut since 2018. Behind newspaper-covered windows is a dimly lit, empty space.

The long jewelry counter once filled with diamonds and expensive watches sits bare. Behind the dusty counter is a torn shopping bag and a cardboard box of perfume samples. Nearby is a stack of paper plates, cups and napkins, probably left behind after a closing pizza party. The store is dark, aside from slivers of daylight peeking through the exit.

It wasn’t always like this. The Lord & Taylor and its defunct neighbor JCPenney at Monmouth Mall used to be bustling department stores filled with perfume clouds, clothing racks and, most importantly, shoppers. But, after sales suffered from the rise of online shopping and declines in mall traffic, both locations closed.

New York-based real estate developer Kushner Companies, owner of the Eatontown site, is beginning demolition of the vacant department stores this month to make room for the construction of 1,000 new apartments. The mall’s remaining retail outlets will undergo a “de-malling” that involves changing the enclosed space to an open-air configuration.

“I think we found what we think in our opinion is the best use,” said Brayan Silva, vice president of development and construction at Kushner Companies.

“It’s something you see a lot in the D.C, Virginia area and you see how well it plays, turning the suburban into a little bit of an urban city. I think it’s a great concept that’s going to revitalize the area,” said Silva.

Demolition at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown is expected to start by the end of April or mid-May, said Silva.

Silva said the developer plans to tear down the department stores one at a time, beginning with the Lord & Taylor. The company is expecting to start construction of apartments at that location by summer or early fall, Silva said.

More developers are reviving languishing malls by transforming them into mixed-use developments with housing. An analysis of 153 mall redevelopments in the U.S. found 53.6% of mall redevelopment projects in 2022 included housing, according to global real estate company JLL.

The trend has caught on in New Jersey. Later this year, the owners of Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus are expected to begin the construction of 550 luxury apartments that will be connected to the mall across a 1-acre town green.

Along with the empty JCPenney and Lord & Taylor, there’s an entire stretch of the Monmouth Mall slated for demolition that is vacant today, in anticipation of that work commencing. It has become a popular location for power-walkers seeking a low-traffic, indoor route.

The mall will remain open throughout the demolition process. There are still attractions, including a Buffalo Wild Wings, Victoria’s Secret, the Pandora jewelry store and AMC Theatres.

“We’re going to make our best effort to keep it all safe and accessible and show that it’s open,” said Silva.

The demolition will reduce the Monmouth Mall’s current 1.5 million square feet space of retail space to about 900,000 square feet. The shopping center will be redesigned as “Monmouth Square,” an open-air destination with a mix of stores, restaurants, apartments, and 115,000 square feet of medical office space. Interior hallways will be replaced by outdoor walking paths with greenery, according to site plans.

Open-air shopping centers are having a major comeback, according to retail experts. National chains including Bath & Body Works, Foot Locker, and Signet Jewelers are among a number of stores shifting openings to outdoor, non-mall locations after finding they perform better and are more cost-efficient, the Wall Street Journal reported in January.

Meanwhile, enclosed malls are struggling. Foot traffic at U.S. malls was down 4% on average in 2023 from the prior year, and about 12% lower than 2019 levels, according to real-estate data firm Green Street.

The Woodbridge Center mall recently sold for $70.4 million in a huge loss for investors after years of declining foot traffic and the closure of several anchor stores, including Lord & Taylor in 2019 and Sears in 2020.

Monmouth Mall, located near Routes 35 and 36, opened in 1960 as an outdoor shopping center containing approximately 650,000 square feet of store space, according to newspaper articles. Later, a roof was added.

The “expanded and enclosed Monmouth Shopping Center” opened in 1975, taking the mall from 50 stores to 150 and bringing the shopping center’s total size to about 1.5 million square feet of space, according to a Newark Star-Ledger article.

It was one of the 10 largest enclosed shopping centers in the country and employed more than 1,500 people, according to news reports from the time.

The mall was such a big attraction that politicians made it a regular campaign stop. Richard Nixon visited the shopping center in 1968 as a Republican presidential candidate, according to newspapers at the time. First Lady Betty Ford and Chip Carter, son of Jimmy Carter, made separate appearances of their own at the mall during the 1976 presidential campaign.

A lot has changed since then. About 40% of the mall’s retail space is empty. The Lord & Taylor locked its doors in 2018 and the JCPenney followed in 2022. The vacant stores are so creepy they were used as filming locations for “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.”

Kushner Companies said it wants to make the mall a destination again.

The redevelopment plan for the Monmouth Mall does include a tax deal, or payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, which provides tax exemptions to the developer in lieu of payments directly to the town.

Last year, the borough council approved a 30-year tax exemption for Kushner, according to meeting minutes.

Kushner Companies is a New York-based real estate developer with several big projects in New Jersey, including multifamily developments in East Hanover and Fair Lawn, as well as a planned oceanfront hotel in Long Branch. The real estate company is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.