URW's Geoff Mason on the mall's new manifestation
One of the definitions of the word “manifest,” in the American Heritage Dictionary, is “Clearly apparent to the sight or understanding; obvious.”
For decades, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Garden State Plaza has been the manifestly major mall in Paramus, N.J., the New York Metro’s epicenter of retail. Drive for two miles down its central artery, Rte. 4, and find either side festooned with open-air centers, power centers, and malls. Just seven miles from the George Washington Bridge, Paramus is awash in traffic emanating from New York City and the Hudson River Valley, as well as New Jersey. But while the town provides just about every amenity possible to the 26,000+ people living in the community, there hasn’t been a true downtown where people can come together; where they can socialize and meet their daily needs.
That’s about to change.
URW has embarked on a bold plan to completely reimagine the intersection of retail and urban placemaking. We are forging innovative partnerships to elevate our flagship shopping centers to iconic landmark destinations. This means investing heavily in the best assets, in the best markets, to create new town centers where people come to live, shop, work and play.
We’re very excited to bring our vision of creating landmark destinations to Westfield Garden State Plaza. In August, we partnered with Mill Creek Residential as our co-developer of a re-created GSP that will have 550 luxury apartment homes, a town green, and a “Main Street” outdoor district featuring restaurants and everyday conveniences and services as the first phase of a larger master plan.
To be successful, today’s residential developers (and office developers post-COVID) must build their own amenity bases. People are no longer willing to drive 30 minutes to go to a shopping center or a gym or a restaurant. Ideally, they want to walk to them. And they want it to be a highly social experience, integrated with the lives of others.
That’s why we’re building residences and green spaces within one of the most amenity-packed properties in the nation. Down the road, we will significantly upgrade an existing transit hub to easily allow residents to commute to Manhattan and return home to three acres of open green space on land reclaimed from old parking spaces and converted to plazas, community gardens, and integrated with the restored brook.
In the Chicago area, we’re bringing new residential to Westfield Old Orchard which is a premium outdoor center in Skokie, Ill., that is on the higher income end of the demos in Chicagoland and is close to Northwestern University.
Old Orchard’s gardens were inspired by the nearby Chicago Botanic Garden and are lined with native plants and trees. It’s the site of the annual Uncorked food and wine festival, a Music in the Park summer series, and the incredible North Shore Art Festival featuring works for sale by nearly 100 local artists. These existing gardens and festivals are being further enhanced with the recently opened Louis Vuitton--a first to market—and a Bloomies store that will be just its second location in the United States. We are also in the process of repositioning the former Lord & Taylor building.
As we enhance our vision for iconic landmark destinations, we are going further to create micro-cities, introducing and integrating new uses like office, residential, and entertainment. This consolidates the needs of everyone into our already rich amenity base and ensures we have created true social centers.
It would be very time consuming and expensive for developers to try to recreate the amenity base that we already have. It’s easier for us, with our prime locations, to take some of them and open them up to the outside world. We’ve done the hard part.
Geoff Mason is the Executive VP of development, design, and operating management for Los Angeles-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.