What's happening at Wayne's Preakness Shopping Center? Plan being modified

WAYNE — The owner of Preakness Shopping Center is modifying its approved plan for redevelopment, and its attorney said it will turn in an updated proposal within six months.

Meanwhile, retailers continue to vanish from the Hamburg Turnpike strip mall.

Its most enduring shopfront went dark in January when Manny’s Preakness Diner closed , and at least two more tenants were gone by April as European Wax Center and Mathnasium signed leases at the new row of stores across the street.

Then, in May, the parent company of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain said it would shut down “underperforming” locations . That announcement led to conjecture that the aging retail plaza — among the top taxpayers in the township — could lose its anchor. No announcement has been made about the grocery store's future by its parent company.

“Obviously, we’re concerned when we see vacant stores,” said Mayor Christopher Vergano. “No one wants to see that on Hamburg Turnpike.”

The mayor offered those remarks at a public meeting of the Planning Board last week, when Mark Semeraro, the shopping center attorney, made a brief presentation to request that his client get a time extension on the approval of its January 2020 application .

Under state law, the board can grant up to three one-year extensions after the initial two-year approval period expires.

Semeraro said his client wanted it preserved because certain elements of the plan will not change.

“We’re willing to give them some patience,” Vergano said. “We have faith in the owner of the shopping center coming forward with revisions that will work.”

The owner, Hekemian & Co. Inc. of Hackensack, received board approval to make the following improvements to the 39.3-acre property.

• Demolition of the former Macy’s department store and the former IHOP restaurant.
• Construction of a 5,030-square-foot restaurant, with a drive-thru lane, just west of the Hamburg Turnpike driveway.
• Construction of a new building of 20,000 square feet on the footprint of the former IHOP, and construction of a new building of 60,010 square feet on the footprint of the former Macy’s.
• Reconstruction of the south side of the retail building occupied by CVS Pharmacy and The Gallery Style Haus, a hair salon.

Semeraro said the drive-thru restaurant and the new building on the footprint of the former IHOP will be part of the updated plan.

He said his client was delayed by multiple “irregular events,” including the pandemic, since the board approved its application.

The shopping center was affected by the $6.2 million project by Passaic County to improve traffic flow at the intersection of Alps Road and Hamburg Turnpike, Semeraro said. That work was only recently finished after commencing in April 2022 .

Less than a year after the board approved the plan to redevelop the shopping center, the Township Council endorsed a settlement with Hekemian for the construction of 244 apartments , including 37 for affordable households, at the property.

Semeraro declined to comment on the status of that aspect of the redevelopment plan.

Hekemian pays nearly $1.5 million in annual property taxes for the shopping center, whose tenants include Bath & Body Works, Dairy Queen and Wells Fargo Bank. There is also a bowling alley and a post office.

But more than half of the 44 shopfronts in its main building, which faces west, are empty.

“Things just aren’t turning out as well as everyone anticipated with the markets,” Semeraro said. “That’s playing a role in some of this.”

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A drugstore was the first business to open at the shopping center more than 70 years ago, according to an article published in a local newspaper.

Its earliest grocery store — an A&P — debuted there in December 1955, and within five years, planning was afoot for Preakness Shopping Center to become the largest retail hub in the county, a distinction that now belongs to Willowbrook Mall.

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

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: What's happening at Wayne's Preakness Shopping Center? Plan being modified