Menlo Park Mall

Menlo Park Mall is a two-level super regional shopping mall, located on U.S. Route 1 and Parsonage Road in Edison, New Jersey, United States. The mall has a gross leasable area of 1,232,000 ft² (114,000 m²)., International Council of Shopping Centers. Accessed September 21, 2006. Menlo Park Mall is currently owned by the Simon Property Group.

History

Menlo Park Shopping Center opened in September 1959, as an open-air complex. It was named after the Menlo Park area of Edison, where Thomas Edison had his famous laboratory, the site of which is about two miles (3 km) from the shopping venue. The structure was fully enclosed between June 1966 and December 1967. After the remodeling, it was renamed Menlo Park Mall.

The original center was anchored by Bamberger's, Montgomery Ward (opened May 1960), a small, dry goods only, JCPenney, a two-level Woolworth, as well as two grocery stores: ShopRite (later a Pathmark), and Pantry Pride(?), later a Big Buy.

Originally a one level structure, the fully enclosed mall (post-1967) had a lack of skylights, with only shaded windows along the sides of the ceiling. The low lighting made the interior quite dark, as was customary with interior malls of the time. The flooring was quite unique in that there were patterns of orange, black, yellow and white throughout the mall.

The Montgomery Ward space was taken over by Alexander's in 1972. J.C. Penney moved to Woodbridge Center in 1981. Bamberger's was rebranded by...
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