Aerial view of the Seaview Square Mall on March 29, 1995. |
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| Location | Ocean Township, New Jersey, United States |
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Seaview Square Mall is a defunct indoor shopping mall located in Ocean Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, that has been repurposed as a power center.[1] The 856,000-square-foot (79,500 m2) mall,[2] located at the intersection of Route 35 and Route 66, was originally constructed in 1977 as an indoor mall.[1][3] It faced stiff competition from the more upscale Monmouth Mall, located five miles (8 km) further north on Route 35.[1] One of its four anchors never opened,[1] and several smaller stores, and Stern's and Steinbach, two of its anchors, were victims of the then-indoor mall's state of decline into a dead mall.[4]
The mall's history can be traced back to the 1950s, when Sears relocated its downtown Asbury Park store to a more suburban site on Route 66 at the site of the present-day Neptune World Class Shoprite, just west of the Asbury Circle.
Following the 1970 Asbury Park riots, many businesses left Asbury Park's downtown. Thus, planning for Seaview Square began at the site across the street from the Sears, behind a small cinema, which was later renamed the "Seaview Square Cinema" and absorbed as part of the mall's property. The site was originally a landfill from 1941 to 1975 and was considered a Superfund site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until 1991.[5] The 856,000-square-foot (79,500 m2) mall would be anchored by Steinbach at the west end,and a newer and much larger Sears at the other end, which also housed Sears' regional credit office. The mall also had room for about 150 stores and two extra anchor.
The mall opened in 1976. At this point, the mall was about 40% occupied. Steinbach operated its Seaview Square store as an upscale, fashion-oriented store, and their Asbury Park store geared more towards housewares and furniture. By 1979, however, the Asbury Park store was closed and the company reevaluated themselves as a "Value Chain". In the same year, Stern's opened along the front side of the mall, after it wasn't able to open at the nearby Ocean County Mall in Toms River. Around the same time, Lord & Taylor was rumored to be the mall's fourth anchor, but never came to fruition.
In the 1990s, Stern's parent company, Federated Department Stores, bought Macy's, and decided to merge the Abraham and Straus chain into Macy's , which left the Monmouth Mall with an empty anchor, so Sterms moved to the vacant space, but continued to operate the Seaview Square store as half-store and half-clearance center until their lease ran out in 1999. Steinbach folded that same year, and was replaced with a Value City.
Film director Kevin Smith wanted to film the 1994 movie Mallrats in Seaview Square. However, the movie was ultimately filmed in Minnesota due to lower production costs.[6]
The mall closed in 2000, and most of the mall was demolished in 2001, with the exception of its remaining two anchors, Value City and Sears, that have been replaced by several other freestanding "big-box stores" including Target, Costco, and a Lowe's, which has since closed due to cracks in the foundation.[4] The cinema that fronted Route 66 was also demolished, and was replaced with a strip mall anchored by Applebees.