Wayne Hills Mall
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The Wayne Hills Mall is one of three indoor shopping malls located in Wayne, New Jersey (Willowbrook Mall and Wayne Towne Center being the others). It is located on the corner of Hamburg Turnpike and Berdan Avenue in Wayne, and is served by the New Jersey Transit 744 bus line, which makes two stops in the mall parking lot.
For years, the mall was anchored by the Meyer Brothers department store, with several other retailers (namely Foot Locker, Champs Sports, Sam Goody, Joyce Leslie and Waldenbooks) located inside the mall and a Child World toy store, a Pathmark supermarket, a Chase Manhattan bank, and a Kmart located on the mall's outside. During its heyday, the mall was one of the more popular shopping destinations in northern New Jersey.
Starting in 1992, however, things began to change when the Child World went out of business (replaced by Toys "R" Us). Three years later, the Meyer Brothers anchor store went out of business after being in the mall since it opened and in business since the 1920s (from its original location in downtown Paterson, which remained open until a massive fire destroyed it, along with a full city block, in 1991). The store is now occupied by a Burlington Coat Factory.
Throughout the rest of the decade and into the 2000s, many of the other stores in the mall were vacated. Then in 2001, Pathmark decided to close its Wayne store, leaving a major vacancy.
Today, the Burlington Coat Factory, Foot Locker, and Waldenbooks still are in the mall, along with a hair salon, a nail salon, a Columbia Bank, a GNC, and a Quiznos Sub. The Kmart and Toys "R" Us remain on the outside of the mall, and an LA Fitness Center now occupies the site of the old Pathmark. Most of the other stores, including the Joyce Leslie, Champs Sports, Sam Goody, and Avenue, have since closed.
The mall's future has come into question recently, with two of its major stores (Sam Goody and Champs) closing in the last year. With the closing of the Avenue women's clothing store, there are currently no tenants in the stores in the LA Fitness/Kmart side of the mall other than a small clock and watch stand called Watch Tower.
