One of the area’s biggest shopping malls will have new life given to it by its new owners, they say.
As previously reported, Paramount Realty Group has purchased the 1-million square foot mall which sits at the crossroads of Lincoln Highway, Route 1 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Brookfield Properties.
Opened in 1968, the Neshaminy Mall has hosted stores such as “Boscov’s” and “GameStop”, but over the years, the mall has started to decline in both visitors and renters. Walking through the mall now is like walking through a ghost town. The AMC theater and Boscov’s are still there, but stores like Macy’s, Friendly’s, and even Rita’s water ice are all gone with the mall dying a slow painful death prior to the sale.
The mall will undergo large-scale construction that will see roughly half of the area demolished in the process, the new owners told the Philadelphia Business Journal last week.
The plans, which have not been finalized as of yet, but could include a mix of residential, retail, and medical facilities, according to Paramount Realty Principal Maurice Zekaria, in the report.
Paramount and Edgewater jointly announced that they had closed on the purchase of the 108-acre site from Brookfield Properties for $27.5 million, a far cry from a previous estimated market value of $45.4 million.
Credit: DeZen Graphics
Paramount owns numerous properties in Bucks County, including Marketplace at Neshaminy, which is adjacent to the mall, and Lincoln Plaza in Middletown Township, which they acquired in 2020, according to public records and also purchased Brunswick Square Mall in Middlesex County, New Jersey in 2023.
The former Macy’s was recently purchased by Tony Chowdhurry, who is converting the space to a Fusion Gym in the hopes of giving the mall a “shot in the arm.”
At the Oxford Valley Mall, Boscov’s was torn down to make way for luxury apartments and is expected to be completed soon.
The ability to shop online, experts say, is the single biggest contributor to the demise of shopping malls across America.