A rendering of Riverton, a mixed-use retail village that is planned for a 418-acre site in Sayreville — Courtesy: @MarkToro/Wakefield Beasley & Associates
By Joshua Burd
A joint venture has scrapped a long-awaited plan to build a futuristic, 2.2 million-square-foot “fortress mall” along the Garden State Parkway, replacing it with a proposal for a mixed-use, urban-style retail village that is more in line with changing consumer tastes.
That’s according to a report Saturday by The Wall Street Journal, which detailed the new plans and new ownership structure for the well-known 418-acre site in Sayreville. The report said PGIM Real Estate, the real estate business of Prudential Financial Inc., has acquired the stake of the site’s previous lead developer and brought in North American Properties, a Cincinnati-based firm that has a record of building large mixed-use projects in suburban markets.
The Sayreville property, which sits under 24 lanes of traffic on the Parkway and routes 9 and 35, was once home to sprawling paint pigment manufacturing complex. O’Neill Properties Group was selected as the redeveloper of the highly contaminated site in 2007 and spent tens of millions of dollars on its remediation, hoping to capture the promise of a location that is passed by 400,000 cars daily in the heart of central New Jersey.
The King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based firm’s plan called a massive mall with eye-popping, full-building LED signs and media towers on the exterior, akin to Times Square. The complex would anchor a mixed-use development that also included residential and office space, along with several big-box retailers such as Bass Pro Shops.
But that vision never resulted in vertical construction, despite promises to break ground, the backing of local officials and approvals for a $223 million tax credit package from the state. According to The Wall Street Journal, the plans fell victim to changing consumer patterns that now favor downtown-style experiences rather than the large shopping malls of past decades.
“Retail used to stand alone, but now in many cases, it’s not able to stand alone,” Mark Toro, a managing partner at North American Properties, told The Wall Street Journal. “Here you will have, as on a city street, storefronts one after another and a pedestrian experience that has much more appeal than the sidewalk of a shopping center or the interior of a mall.”
The report said Prudential has been an investor in the site since 2008, but acquired O’Neill’s stake this past March for an undisclosed amount. With North American Properties, the partnership now envisions a village with a mix of shops, restaurants, offices and apartments.
The outlet said the new project, to be known as Riverton, is slated for completion in 2021.
For more, see this weekend’s story by The Wall Street Journal.
