5Qs: Urban Edge’s Jeff Mooallem on the redevelopment of Bergen Town Center
Urban Edge’s Bergen Town Center — a 1 million-sq.-ft. property that’s part mall and part open-air center — is the second most-visited retail destination in the hurly-burly shopping mecca of Paramus, N.J., just a short ride over the George Washington Bridge from New York City.
This year, the New York-based developer embarked on a complete makeover of Bergen Town Center’s look and is in the process beefing up its food and beverage offerings — most of which will be new to Paramus.
Chain Store Age recently toured the property with Urban Edge COO Jeff Mooallem to learn more about BTC’s transformation.
Jeff, what motivated Urban Edge to transform the image of Bergen Town Center?
The intent was to create a pedestrian-friendly environment without shrinking parking or relying on superficial fixes. This was about placemaking, not paint. With such an iconic property, and its rich history in New Jersey mall lore, it was important to maintain that experience as a destination.
What were your main objectives?
To renovate a project like this effectively required a lot of thought. What are we going to do with the buildings? What are we going to do with the pedestrian areas? How do we drive buildings that look like industrial buildings from the highway to a pedestrian level? That was our challenge.
What were some of the things you did to achieve that?
What we really tried to do was make the height of the buildings and the widths of the columns disappear and bring people’s eyes down to the street level. One of the things we did to accomplish that was to use a very simple black, white, and gray color palette so that all the color in the center shined out from the tenant’s signs.
Looks like some new food and beverage brands have joined the tenant list since the last time we visited you here.
Yes, we put a lot of effort into bringing in singular brands that you won’t find on any other property in Paramus. We brought in First Watch — a breakfast, brunch, and lunch place. Tatte, a sit-down bakery and restaurant. And we’ll soon be opening Tommy’s Tap and Tavern, a New Jersey institution that will be its only location in Paramus.
Have you gotten any reaction from regular BTC customers about the renovation? Every time we’ve been here, your parking lots have been jammed.
The consensus from our customers is that they really like the renovation. Many of them come here often. They came in here and saw the construction happening and it was like giving them a renovation of their house. We sweat the details on this, really warmed up the feel of the center. This is a big property and it was a very large undertaking. Given the age of some of the buildings, it was a challenge for us to figure out the right design schemes.
