close
close

Garden State Plaza Nears Groundbreaking for Massive Housing Project

play

Construction on a transformative new residential and retail expansion at Garden State Plaza isn’t set to begin until next year, but demolition to make way for the mega-project is already about to begin.

Workers have been installing a fence around the former Best Buy and Bank of America locations at the Paramus mall in recent days. The buildings will be demolished in early August to make way for additional parking, said Amy Stern, a spokesperson for Westfield Garden State Plaza.

The demolition will create 180 new spaces for a building, but hundreds of other spaces will be lost to make way for thousands of new residents.

How many homes will Garden State Plaza add?

The expansion will add as many as 1,400 residential units to the site, along with additional shops, a hotel, a nursing home for the elderly and a park-like green area, provided the developers complete all planned phases.

After the Paramus Planning Board approved the first phase in January, the mall is working with development partner Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC to complete design drawings for the proposed buildings and landscaping. Another spokesperson, Megan Redzia, said groundbreaking is expected in early 2025.

The first phase of the project would add two five-story mixed-use buildings with 575 residential units to the mall’s western parking lot and about 50,000 square feet of retail space. The redevelopment would also create a 1-acre urban green space with outdoor markets, restaurants and gatherings — an area developers have promoted as a new “downtown” for Paramus.

According to the developers, the green space would become a place for farmers markets, holiday fairs and art fairs and would be accessible to everyone, not just tenants of the new homes.

More: Shopping mall homes and a $900 million hospital: Major projects in Paramus in 2024

Future phases of the shopping center project

In January, preliminary site plans for future phases of the project were also approved. However, the mall still needs to go back to the Planning Board for final approval for the three remaining phases.

  • The first would add a five-story, 250,000-square-foot building for a 230-unit senior care and memory care facility and more ground-floor retail space. There would also be a two-story medical office building and a six-story parking garage.
  • On a second portion of the site, plans call for a seven-story, 85,000-square-foot hotel and a regional bus terminal. The developer also envisions a 286,000-square-foot, five-story residential building, additional retail space and another six-story parking garage.
  • Finally, a third of the shopping centre would receive two additional residential buildings, each of five floors, with an additional 232 square metres of retail space, surrounded by a third six-storey garage..

Stephanie Noda is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, subscribe or activate your digital account today.

E-mail address: [email protected]

Twitter: @snoda11