Here's an interesting South Jersey real estate comeback story.
Barnes & Noble has signed a deal to relocate its longtime Moorestown bookstore from Eastgate Square to Moorestown Mall. The existing Eastgate location is expected to close in 2027 as Uncle Giuseppe's Marketplace takes over that space. The exact location and opening date for the new Barnes & Noble inside the mall have not yet been announced.
But Barnes & Noble isn't really the story.
Moorestown Mall is.
Remember when everyone was predicting the death of suburban malls?
The properties that survive are increasingly becoming something very different from the enclosed malls many of us grew up with.
Moorestown Mall now includes a 165,000-square-foot Cooper University Health Care facility, and the new Pearl Apartments recently added 375 residences on land that was previously part of the mall's enormous parking area.
Now Barnes & Noble is coming into the mall itself.
That's mixed-use real estate in action.
Housing brings residents.
Healthcare brings patients and employees.
Restaurants and retail give people reasons to visit.
Entertainment creates additional traffic.
And together those uses can make a large property productive throughout more of the day rather than depending entirely on traditional shopping.
For homeowners, this is worth watching because we have other aging commercial properties throughout South Jersey.
Some will disappear.
Others will be reinvented.
The most successful redevelopment may be the kind that asks:
What does this community need today rather than what worked 30 years ago?
Moorestown Mall is becoming a very interesting test case.
It isn't simply trying to become a better mall.
It's gradually becoming a neighborhood.
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