The Gallery at Market East

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The Gallery at Market East, or more commonly, The Gallery, is an urban mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a total of 172 stores.

Philadelphia Portal

The underground concourse of the mall runs parallel to the north side of Market Street, from the basement level of the now-closed Strawbridge and Clothier east of 9^th Street, to the concourse for the 12^th Street Market East Station of SEPTA's Regional Rail lines. Above this at street level is an access concourse for the Marriott Philadelphia Downtown hotel, Hard Rock Cafe, and lobby for the Grand Hall of the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 12^th & Market Streets. The former Strawbridge's was 522,000 ft.

On the street level, The Gallery takes up the entire blocks between Market and Filbert Streets. Between 9^th and 10^th Streets, a Big Kmart occupies the first and second floors. At 11^th Street, Burlington Coat Factory holds a portion of the concourse level, and half of the first through third floor levels, in a space originally built for JCPenney. The street level portions of The Gallery do not block or close off any streets; thus, access at the street level must be gained by exiting the facility and crossing the streets. Access across the upper levels can be found only from the second and third levels of Strawbridge's.

The Gallery is actually composed of Gallery I and Gallery II. Gallery I extends underground from the former Strawbridge's at 9^th Street to the eastern side of 10^th Street. Some years after The Gallery opened, the concourse was continued and the Gallery II section opened to the public. The whole complex is simply referred to as "The Gallery." Gallery I was anchored by Strawbridge's until 2006. The Gallery II is anchored by Burlington Coat Factory and currently has 51 tenants including Old Navy, Foot Locker, Bath & Body Works and Limited stores.

The Gallery was originally anchored on its western end at 10^th Street by Gimbel's and its successor Stern's until the department store went out of business. A Clover store eventually took over the space, but it closed along with the rest of the Clover chain in 1996. Big Kmart opened in the late 1990's. The Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) acquired the Gallery I in April 2003 from the Rouse Co. They acquired Gallery II in the third fiscal quarter of 2004 from the state's Public School Employees' Retirement System. The full complex measures approximately 1.1 million square feet (102,000 m²) of retail space. PREIT will currently owns about half of that.

1 Anchors & Majors
2 Public transportation connections
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Anchors & Majors

Big Kmart (150,000 sq. ft.)
Burlington Coat Factory (127,271 sq. ft.)
CVS
Modell's
Old Navy (23,047 sq. ft.)
Pay/Half (31,552 sq. ft.)
Walgreens

[edit] Public transportation connections

11th St Station — SEPTA Market-Frankford Line
Market East Station — SEPTA Regional Rail (all lines)
8th St Station — SEPTA Market-Frankford Line
8th & Market Station — PATCO Hi-Speedline

[edit] Trivia

In the hit single "Parents Just Don’t Understand" from DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Will Smith describes an unhappy shopping trip to the Gallery with his mother.