With online sales growing four times faster than in-store sales, how can a mall lure customers? Westfield Garden State Plaza is betting $160 million that the answer is a combination of uncommon stores, added amenities and what mall executives call the “wow factor.”
The Paramus shopping center’s newest addition, a 55,000-square-foot, two-story wing, brings 22 stores to New Jersey’s largest shopping center, as well as expanded concierge services and a first-of-a-kind digital storefront with a 7-foot-high touch-screen that shoppers can swipe to search for products or store locations.
The barricades on the new wing came down on Thursday, with several of the stores opening for business on Friday or scheduled to open today.
The entrance to the lower level of the wing will be next to a valet parking service and will have a concierge desk where visitors can check their coats or shopping bags, search the Internet on iPads, relax in a lounge area and watch TV or ask the concierge to make a reservation at a mall restaurant.
U.S. shopping centers are adding lounges and similar amenities as a way of “creating a sense of place for the consumer,” said Jesse Tron, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers. “The third place is what we call it — it’s not the place where you work, it’s not the place where you live. It’s the place where you go and congregate with friends, and you shop and do all those kinds of things,” he said.
Bryan Gaus, senior general manager of the plaza, said the new wing is intended to give mall customers an “elevated shopping experience.”
The added space has some cutting-edge design features that the mall plans to extend to other parts of the shopping center, including higher storefronts that create more of a presence for each retail space. The storefronts in the new wing are about 22 feet, compared with 14 to 15 feet in most of the mall.
The addition also has multiple seating areas, with charging stations for electronic devices and coffee-shop style tables, and has wider corridors and more open spaces than older sections of the mall have.
The digital storefront display, which is 11 feet wide, is a double-sided device with three touch screens that can be swiped to display pictures of clothes, shoes or other products, or used to access directions to a store. The device was developed by Westfield Labs, the digital innovation division of Westfield, the mall development company that owns the plaza.
Retailers already open in the new wing include the designer apparel brands Maje, Sandro, Vince Camuto and Robin’s Jeans; the cosmetics retailers Lush and Kiko Milano; the sandal shop Havaianas; the food retailers Starbucks and Au Bon Pain; and The Kase, a European company that sells custom cases for smartphones. A Lasaka sushi bar is scheduled to open on Saturday, and a Max Brenner chocolate shop will open in April. A Microsoft store will open in the new wing in May. Several stores in the new wing are their brand’s first locations in New Jersey.
Construction of the wing began in January 2013 with the demolition of the four-story parking garage adjacent to Neiman Marcus. That structure was replaced by a five-story parking deck that allowed the mall to carve out space for the new wing. The L-shaped wing creates a store-lined walkway between the Macy’s and AMC movie theater wings of the mall and a newer section of the mall that houses luxury tenants, including Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.
Email: verdon@northjersey.com
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