Opening date 2002 No. of floors 1 Number of anchor tenants 2 | No. of anchor tenants 2 Opened 2002 | |
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Location Manalapan, New Jersey, USA Owner Steiner Equities Group, LLC Total retail floor area 460,000 square feet (42,735 m) Similar Hawley Lane Mall, Lackawanna Terminal, The Mall at Mill Creek, Seaview Square Mall, South Hills Mall | ||
The Manalapan EpiCentre opened in 2002 on the corner of U.S. Route 9 southbound and Symmes Road in Manalapan Township, New Jersey. The mall serves the Marlboro and Freehold area. It replaced the earlier Manalapan Mall that was demolished in 1998.
History
The Manalapan Mall was a shopping mall in Manalapan Township, New Jersey. It opened in 1971 on the corner of U.S. Route 9 southbound and Symmes Road and was demolished in 1998 to be replaced by the Manalapan EpiCentre. The mall was anchored by Steinbach, and had 25 stores attached to its south side. A second phase would have included a Macy's, a Sears, and would have grown to a total of 100 stores, but the plans were shelved because of financial problems. By the 1980s, plans were submitted for a super-regional mall, the Freehold Raceway Mall, about 5 miles (8 km) south on Route 9. In 1996, the Steinbach chain was bought out, and the Manalapan Mall store was not included in the purchase. The former Steinbach store was converted to a Value City location. In October 2008, Value City declared bankruptcy and announced they would close all stores by early 2009. The Value City became a P. C. Richard & Son, which opened on November 11, 2011. A Sports Authority opened on August 11, 2012, in the same building as the P. C. Richard & Son, along with a Bonefish Grill on January 27, 2014.
A proposal in the early 1990s to expand the deteriorating mall faced opposition from neighbors fearing increased traffic. By the late 1990s, while Freehold Raceway Mall was prospering, Manalapan Mall was becoming a dead mall. In 1998, the mall, except for the Value City, was torn down to make way for a big-box Epi-Center with a total of 400,000 square feet (40,000 m2) of retail space, some four times the area of the original site.
The P.C. Richard & Son store site is a stand-alone store while the south and west corners of the old mall were turned into Wegmans, The Wiz (which was closed in 2003 and replaced by HomeGoods), Dick's Sporting Goods (which later moved to a space at the Freehold Raceway Mall and was replaced by Marshall's) and a Target. Other smaller businesses in the Manalapan EpiCentre are Applebee's, Verizon, Eyechic Optical Boutique, Gary's Jewelers, Gamestop, Cucina Alessi Italian Ristorante, and The Turning Point. In June 2016, Sports Authority was closed. As of February 2017, Sports Authority is still sitting vacant and has been removed from the Manalapan Epicentre sign.
In 2005, plans were released to build an alternative mall facility that would include 800,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of space, including retailers, a multiplex theater and hotel.