All three are in “strong affluent market areas,” said James Hughes, a professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
“So all locations have high market potential for repurposing — demonstrated strong consumer purchasing power,” Hughes wrote in an email.
“The town — if it’s a redevelopment area — is in the driver’s seat,” said James Hughes, a professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. “They could acquire the land and totally control it.”
Urban centers like Newark and Jersey City, as well as downtowns like Ridgewood and Westfield, rebounded in the past decade and drew back dollars that had gone to malls, Hughes said.
By themselves, any one of those factors could have caused malls to struggle, other than the top-tier ones in New Jersey like Garden State Plaza and American Dream…
“Sort of the perfect storm hit,” Hughes said of Livingston Mall.
For young people at the time, malls weren’t just retail spaces but social hubs. Baby boomers treated mall trips as scheduled weekend activities, using malls to discover new styles, browse new merchandise and hang out with friends, according to James W. Hughes, a Rutgers University economist and professor.
Twenty-eight so-called enclosed malls dot New Jersey, and except for high-end enclaves like The Mall at Short Hills, many struggle to stay profitable. “That’s the other dimension of retooling malldom in New Jersey, shifting activities to experience, health, wellness...
It’s widely believed that online shopping poses the greatest threat to New Jersey’s malls. Retail forecaster Forrester predicts that Web sales will constitute 11 percent of total U.S. retail this year, up from 8 percent in 2013. That doesn’t seem like a huge chunk, so...