Seaview Square Mall

Seaview Square Mall was a shopping mall located in Ocean Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. It has been repurposed as a power center and was renamed Seaview Square Shopping Center in 2012.[1] The 856,000-square-foot (79,500 m2) mall,[2] located at the intersection of Route 35 and Route 66, was originally constructed in 1977 as an indoor mall.[1][3] It faced stiff competition from the more upscale Monmouth Mall, located five miles (8 km) further north on Route 35 in Eatontown.[1] One of its four anchors never opened,[1] and several smaller stores, and Stern's and Steinbach, two of its anchors, were victims of the then-indoor mall's then-state of decline.[4] The mall was later redeveloped into a shopping center with Target, Costco, Burlington, Home Sense, Siera Trading, Marshalls, Home Goods, Petsmart, Starbucks, and others.

Seaview Square Shopping Center
Aerial view of the Seaview Square Mall on March 29, 1995
LocationOcean Township, New Jersey, United States
Address1000 Route 66
Opening dateNovember 2, 1977
Closing dateDecember 31, 2000
DeveloperGoodman Company
No. of anchor tenants3
Total retail floor area929,620 square feet (86,365 m2)
No. of floors2
Public transit accessBus transport NJ Transit NJ Transit bus: 832, 837

History

The mall's past history can be traced back to the 1950s, when Sears relocated its Downtown Asbury Park store to a more suburban site on Route 66 at the site of the present-day Neptune World Class Shoprite, just west of the Asbury Circle.

Following the 1970 Asbury Park riots, many businesses left Asbury Park's Downtown. Thus, planning for Seaview Square began at the site across the street from the Sears, behind a small cinema, which was later renamed the "Seaview Square Cinema" and absorbed as part of the mall's property. The site was originally a landfill from 1941 to 1975 and was considered a Superfund site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until 1991.[5] The 856,000-square-foot (79,500 m2) mall would be anchored by Steinbach at the west end, and a newer and much larger Sears at the other end, which also housed Sears' regional credit office. The mall also had room for about 150 stores and two extra anchors.

The mall was developed by The Goodman Company [6] and opened on November 2, 1977. At this point, the mall was about 40% occupied. Steinbach operated its Seaview Square store as an upscale, fashion-oriented store, and their Asbury Park store more towards housewares and furniture. By 1979, however, the Asbury Park store had closed and the company reevaluated itself as a "value chain". In the same year, Stern's opened along the front side of the mall, after it wasn't able to open at the nearby Ocean County Mall in Toms River. Around the same time, Lord & Taylor was rumored to be the mall's fourth anchor, but never came to fruition.

In the 1990s, Stern's parent company, Federated Department Stores, bought Macy's, and decided to merge the Abraham & Straus chain into Macy's, which left the Monmouth Mall with an empty anchor. Sterns subsequently moved to the vacant space, but continued to operate the Seaview Square store as half-store and half-clearance center until their lease ran out in 1999. Steinbach folded that same year and was replaced with a Value City.

Current

The mall closed on December 31, 2000 (with RadioShack, an original mall tenant, being the final store to close), for reconstruction, and most of the original indoor mall was demolished in 2001, with the exception of its remaining two anchors, Value City and Sears.

In September 2012, Wharton Realty Group purchased the mall and renamed it the Seaview Square Shopping Center. New construction on the Route 66 entrance to the mall created three new restaurants and additional retail stores. A wave of new tenants soon filled most of the empty space of the old mall including Guitar Center, A.C. Moore, Big Lots, Burlington Coat Factory, Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park, Costco, PetSmart and a Target among others.[7]

Value City had since went out of business in 2008 and was demolished in 2016. Today, the space is occupied by Homesense and Sierra Trading Post.[8]

On May 31, 2018, Sears announced plans to close the store in September, as part of a plan to close 63 stores nationwide. Sears was the last of the original anchors to close.[9] An At Home and an Amazon warehouse have since replaced levels 1 & 2 of Sears, respectively.

In 2019 Wharton announced an additional expansion to include Marshalls and Home Goods bringing the center's occupancy to over 98%.

On November 25, 2019, A.C. Moore announced the it would close 145 stores, including the one at Seaview.

References
  1. In the Region/New Jersey; Foundering Ocean Township Mall Is Bulking Up, The New York Times, July 23, 2000
  2. International Council of Shopping Centers: Seaview Square Mall, accessed December 9, 2006
  3. Upscale development fills commercial corridor, Asbury Park Press, October 20, 2005
  4. For a while, plenty of parking at mall, Asbury Park Press, January 18, 2001
  5. Cracks in floor at Lowe's spur shutdown for repairs, Asbury Park Press, February 28, 2004
  6. "The Goodman Company". The Goodman Company. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  7. "Back from the dead? Seaview Square gets new stores". www.app.com. Retrieved May 9, 2016.
  8. "Homesense bringing its stores to New Jersey". www.app.com. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
  9. Halyey Peterson (May 31, 2018). "Sears is closing 63 stores as sales tumble — here's the full list". Business Insider. Retrieved May 31, 2018.

40.232°N 74.045°W / 40.232; -74.045

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