The Wayne Towne Center is a regional shopping center located in Wayne, New Jersey, right next to Willowbrook Mall. As of 2008, the mall had a gross leasable area of 653,000 square feet (60,700 m2).[1] The center formerly operated as an indoor shopping mall from the time of its building as the West Belt Mall in the 1970s until 2008, when the last of the mall's secondary tenants closed. By June 2009 the center had only one anchor, JCPenney, following the closing of its other main anchor Fortunoff.
Existing in the shadow of Willowbrook Mall, Wayne Towne Center has had difficulty dating back to 1993, when the Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet headed for Pennsylvania.[2]
In January 2008, the Borders Books and Music, which replaced Last Call, was one of three North Jersey locations closed by the chain.[3] The portion of the mall that housed the Borders store was demolished in Fall 2008.
The mall was currently undergoing an extensive redesign and redevelopment project (often referred to as "de-malling") to better position itself against other malls in the area.[4] The mall's inside was recently completely closed off as secondary anchor Old Navy closed and primary anchors Fortunoff and JCPenney closed their mall entrances. Shortly thereafter the interior section of the mall began to be demolished, with most of the job finished in April 2009 although work continues to be done.
Along the outside of the mall, several new business have opened. An Olive Garden restaurant, a new TGI Friday's (replacing the former in-mall location), a Bahama Breeze, and a DSW Shoe Warehouse have all opened in the north end of the parking lot while a Chipotle Mexican Grill has opened in the south end. A Dick's Sporting Goods is also planned for the mall at some point and has had a marker placed on the center's main signboard, but has yet to be built. With the closure of Fortunoff and the 215,000-square-foot (20,000 m2) vacancy it has created, construction may not be necessary on a new building to house the Dick's store.
In a deal closed on December 28, 2010, the mall was purchased by Vornado Realty Trust for $12.1 million from Wells Fargo, along with annual lease payments of $2.5 million for the land. A Vornado spokesman said that the company planned to revamp the property, as Vornado had previously done at the Bergen Town Center in Paramus, New Jersey.[5]
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