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, the mall is situated at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 17 near the Garden State Parkway, about west of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Opened in 1957 as the first suburban shopping mall in New Jersey, it has 300 stores and of leasable space, qualifying it as a super-regional mall according to the standards of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
The mall had sales of $500 per square foot in 2013, about $320 above the national average; Garden State Plaza is one of the most profitable malls in the country. In a study of malls in the United States performed on behalf of CNBC, published in 2018, Westfield Garden State Plaza ranked ninth in the nation, based on sales of $950 per square foot. Most of the mall, especially retail outlets, is closed on Sunday in accordance with state and local blue laws. Since April 2023, minors under the age of 18 are required to have an adult over 21 supervise them on Friday and Saturday nights.
In a borough where half of the property tax revenue comes from retail properties, Garden State Plaza accounts for 10% of the property taxes collected in Paramus.
As of August 2023, its anchors are Macy's, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and AMC Theatres.
History
The site at the southwest corner of Route 4 and Route 17 that would become Garden State Plaza was next to a drive-in theater dating back to the 1930s. Allied Stores and Macy's had discussed a shared project at the site that was abandoned in August 1953, after which Allied Stores pursued development of the Bergen Mall (since renamed as Bergen Town Center), that would be located a mile away on Route 4 and which was scheduled to open in September 1957 with Stern's as its anchor store.
R.H. Macy announced the creation of Garden State Plaza in May 1954, establishing a subsidiary that would own and operate the mall. JC Penney announced in June 1955 that the company would construct an standalone three-story building as part of the project, with the infrastructure to add a fourth floor, as needs grew. In September 1958, long-time Macy's rival Gimbel's announced that it was acquiring access to a building site in the mall for a facility that would include of retail space on three floors, with completion expected in 1960.
Garden State Plaza opened on May 1, 1957, as the first suburban mall in New Jersey, with plans to be "the largest in the state". On opening day, Garden State Plaza had 75,000 shoppers at a mall that was anchored by a Bamberger's store on three floors and included 60 retail stores and 5,500 parking spaces on a site that covered . The formal ribbon cutting ceremony included the mayor of Paramus Fred C. Galda and a local eight-year-old who cut a ribbon with one thousand dimes as a fundraiser for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (since renamed as the March of Dimes), part of an awareness campaign to encourage people to get the polio vaccine.
Its original three anchor stores were Bamberger's, Gimbels, and JCPenney, with the rest of the mall consisting of 90 smaller specialty shops. It was called "the largest shopping center in the world." Constructed by the Muscarelle Construction Company for owner/developer R.H. Macy & Co. as an open-air shopping "plaza", total construction costs for the mall were $26 million (equivalent to $ in ).
Garden State Plaza drew much business from nearby New York towns and cities, whose shoppers wandered across state lines to take advantage of New Jersey's lower sales taxes and its policy that exempted clothing purchases from sales tax. By 1961, it was the world's largest mall.
In 1975, the mall began a multi-phased, years-long project that would fully enclose the mall, converting exterior passageways into covered spaces. The project, budgeted at $20 million, would add of retail space, bringing the total to upon completion.
A $21 million construction project in 1981 converted access tunnels into a second level for the mall, added of retail space.
The mall was enclosed between 1981 and 1984 in response to competitive pressure from newer fully enclosed malls such as the Willowbrook Mall in nearby Wayne. Later in the 1980s, a lower level was added by converting a former basement truck tunnel into retail space. The existing JCPenney basement was given a new entrance on the lower level, but since the floors were at slightly different elevations, that entrance features the shortest escalator in North America, at a height of six steps.