shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...
Bergen County
Bergen County is the List of counties in New Jersey, most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
Hackensack River
The Hackensack River is a river, about 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The watershed of the river includes part of the suburban ar ...
. The mall has a
Gross leasable area
In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured in square metres or square feet) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the bui ...
(GLA) of . The "lavishly appointed" mall opened on March 10, 1977 with of retail space, which included a
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which purchased the Macy's department store chain in 1994, ...
(expanded from an original freestanding site opened in 1959) and a
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain founded in 1867 by Andrew Saks. The first store opened in the F Street and 7th Street shopping districts, F Street shopping distric ...
."Hackensack Gets New Shopping Mall" ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', March 6, 1977, p. 431. Accessed September 12, 2017. Until 2005, the shopping center was known as Riverside Square Mall.
The Shops at Riverside caters to the suburban areas surrounding Hackensack in Bergen,
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
, and
Passaic
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was the state's 16th-most-populous municipality,Rockland County
Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population is 338,329, making it the state's ...
in New York State. The mall has 66 stores. The anchor stores are
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which purchased the Macy's department store chain in 1994, ...
,
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States.
Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...
,
Pottery Barn
Pottery Barn is an American upscale home furnishing store chain and e-commerce company, with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
The company is hea ...
, and
AMC Theatres
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (doing business as AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC) is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri, and now headquartered ...
.
History
Originally a freestanding Bloomingdale's built in 1959, an enclosed mall was opened in 1977, and the shopping center became known as Riverside Square Mall. The original mall had a Southern California feel, with
terra cotta
Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...
tile, red brick, and skylights. In 1995, after years of declining traffic and lost tenants and amidst a major renovation and expansion of nearby
Westfield Garden State Plaza
Garden State Plaza (officially Westfield Garden State Plaza) is a shopping mall located in Paramus, in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Owned and managed by Paris-based real estate management company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, th ...
, The Shops at Riverside was completely renovated with new marble floors, glass railings, and comfortable seating.
From 2005 through 2008, The Shops at Riverside added of retail and dining space, including 30 new stores and three restaurants. Much of the space that was added is in a portion of the mall reclaimed from Bloomingdale's. The original Bloomingdale's Home Store bisected the mall, and was moved to the north end of the existing Bloomingdale's, while the 1977 expansion of Bloomingdale's was renovated in 2005 in preparation for the expansion in 2006. The expansion added three restaurants. It also added a new concourse that linked the north corridor to the south corridor.
In December 2014, Saks closed its Shops at Riverside location, freeing up more than of space that the company had occupied since 1977. Plans for re-purposing the space as a cinema and dining-entertainment complex were announced in May 2015. An AMC Dine-In Theater with nine screening rooms opened in most of the second floor on September 13, 2017.
The second phase of the renovation project include removal of the glass elevator, new flooring, a new set of escalators by Bloomingdale's, a new staircase in the center court, completion of the second floor portion of the mall and a new glass ball near the new movie theater. Most of the construction is expected to be finished by November 2018.
The third phase will include a new mall entrance with valet parking, a luxury lounge, and a coat check and personal shopping service. The Bloomingdales is also expected to be renovated. The third phase will be complete by late 2019.
Blue laws
Due to New Jersey state
blue law
Blue laws (also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws, and Sunday closing laws) are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for Religion, religio ...
NJ Transit
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I ...
New Jersey Transit
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. It ...
. Accessed September 12, 2017.
The NJ Transit New Bridge Landing train station in
River Edge
River Edge is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 12,049, an increase of 709 (+6.3%) from the 2010 census count of 11,340, which in turn reflected an i ...