A plan by Edgewood Properties and Paramount Realty calls for revamping the Brunswick Square Mall in East Brunswick as an open-air lifestyle center with anchors such as Hackensack Meridian Health. — Rendering by OKW Architects / Courtesy: Edgewood/Paramount
By Joshua Burd
For Jack Morris and Maurice Zekaria, the nostalgia is real — as it is for so many other New Jersey natives and longtime residents who grew up going to their local mall.
They hope to see one property in particular return to its former glory. The developers, the respective leaders of Edgewood Properties and Paramount Realty, have unveiled plans to transform the 775,000-square-foot Brunswick Square Mall in East Brunswick into a modern, open-air destination for the community — one that includes not just retail but a complementary mix of heath care, fitness and lifestyle uses that will revitalize the outdated, slumping shopping center on Route 18.
“We think it’s important that people understand that this site will be the next generation and will not just be for East Brunswick but for the surrounding area,” said Morris, who was raised in Middlesex County. “We want people to think of the mall in today’s age and see it differently than they saw it before, because there is no Macy’s, there is no JCPenney.”
The plan is quickly taking shape with interior demolition ongoing and more than 250,000 square feet of preleasing activity. That includes a nearly 37,000-square-foot deal with Hackensack Meridian Health, which will draw traffic to the site’s de-malled, right-sized retail lineup along Route 18, plus commitments from an indoor family entertainment center and a pickleball facility to help anchor a large sports and recreation component.
The project also calls for a residential phase that is in development and will likely accelerate next year, adding to the property’s increasingly diverse mix of uses and filling another vital need for the township.
“We understand that, for many of the people who live in East Brunswick, this wasn’t just the mall — it was part of their routine, their memories, their community, so we don’t take it lightly,” said Zekaria, Paramount’s CEO and president. “And change isn’t easy for some people, so our responsibility is to make sure that what we replace it with adds even more value to the community, more activity, more choices — a place where they can come back again and again.
“So we spent a lot of time listening over the last few years while we were preparing for this and working with our architects, and we’re excited about what we’re about to embark on.”
The Brunswick Square Mall, a fixture at Route 18 South and Rues Lane for more than five decades, had been in decline for several years when Edgewood and Paramount acquired it in late 2023. Many tenants were “hanging on by a thread,” Zekaria said, with month-to-month leases and percentage rent structures that the prior owner put in place after the pandemic, paving the way for the stores to close one by one over the next two years as the developers engaged local officials.
The joint venture announced its plans in December and officially shuttered the enclosed legacy mall about a month later. By then, the firms had already landed key commitments from operators that would help transform it into an open-air destination with a balanced mix of retailers, restaurants and users in the health, fitness and recreation categories.
Chief among them is a 55,000-square-foot lease with Fun City Adventure Park, which will anchor a new sports and entertainment hub on the west side of the property, as will the 40,000-square-foot indoor pickleball facility known as The Picklr. Paramount and Edgewood are also retaining several longtime tenants such as the youth training concept KidStrong, the youth soccer camp known as Kids United and Results Boxing, leveraging a class of tenants that are “not typical traditional retail, but will bring consistent traffic to the shopping center on a daily basis and will help the retailers and restaurants up front,” Zekaria said.
Equally if not more important is the chance to ensure continuity for residents who rely on those businesses, the developers said, even if conventional retail has changed.
“These were existing tenants that were important to the community and important for us to make sure that we didn’t take those from the community, so we made sure that they were part of our plan,” said Morris, CEO and president of Piscataway-based Edgewood.
He added: “There are certain stores … where people just don’t shop anymore — they buy online — and it’s important that people understand we’re not just shutting the mall down because it’s a financial gain. These malls have been a burden on everybody because they’re just extinct, so they need to become an asset to the community and to the taxpayers.”
The new sports and fitness hub will come online starting in the third and fourth quarters, the developers said. They also plan to activate a 19,000-square-foot “dead space” inside the mall with a new township community center that will have basketball courts, batting cages and other facilities. That will set the stage for the mall’s revamped retail lineup fronting Route 18, whose anchors will include the 36,500-square-foot Hackensack Meridian Health facility, a 35,000-square-foot PGA Tour Superstore and a 30,000-square-foot Nordstrom Rack.
The partnership has secured additional leases with Sola Salon Studios and J. Crew, while previous mall tenants such as Old Navy, LensCrafters and Bath & Body Works will have also space at the revamped property. Barnes & Noble, which currently occupies a 25,000-square-foot section of the building, will relocate to a new 19,000-square-foot space, while the existing Panera and Twisted Crab restaurants will remain as is.
When complete, the new highway-facing retail will become “an open vibrant destination that reflects how people live, shop and spend their time today,” Zekaria said. It’s also likely to be more economical to repurpose than a two- or three-story mall, he noted, with the added benefit of a structure that is both wide and highly visible from Route 18.
“You have a lot of frontage there,” said Zekaria, whose firm is based in Lakewood. “So it was always very clear that the bones were valuable … and the secret to success of retailers is visibility and exposure.”
Other phases of the project are still in development. The firms are in talks to acquire the JCPenney store at the north end of the complex, while TFE Properties owns the former Macy’s box and is negotiating with separate tenants. Other additions to the property could include a high-end grocer, they said, as well as a new 10,000-square-foot restaurant by a national upscale chain.
The developers are also working with the town on a master plan that would allow for both market-rate and affordable housing, helping the municipality address its state-mandated obligations.
“When we looked at this property and decided what we were going to do with it, it’s a community-based thought process,” Morris said. That meant working with local officials and planners “to come up with a cohesive plan that is respectful of what has been there,” while modernizing the property for today’s needs. That includes new housing, which will serve residents in a different but equally vital way.
“Affordable housing is not low-income housing, and people forget that. It’s to take care of the people that take care of us every day,” Morris said, from police and firefighters to teachers and health care workers “and so many other people that work in our community.”
It’s another source of pride for the project and for the developers, which have deep ties to Central Jersey. But the partnership has quickly grown to include investments in other markets, including Pennsylvania, where the firms are redeveloping the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem.
“We’re very excited about this opportunity,” Morris said. “While it’s a newer relationship — Maurice and I — it’s a good partnership and we look forward to really serving our community.”
Zekaria added: “It should be something everyone’s very proud of. Our goal is really to create something that the community will enjoy for the next 20, 30 years and beyond.”
