Newport Centre (shopping mall)
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Newport Centre, commonly known as Newport Mall,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> is a shopping mall in Jersey City, New Jersey, that opened in 1987. It is a major component of the enormous Newport, Jersey City, a mixed-use community on the Hudson River waterfront across from Lower Manhattan. One of eleven shopping malls in New Jersey managed by Simon Property Group, it is located at 30 Mall Drive West, and is bound by Henderson Street on the west, Mall Drive East on the east, 6th Street on the south, and Newport Parkway on the north. The mall has a gross leasable area of Template:Convert.<ref>Newport Centre, Template:Webarchive International Council of Shopping Centers. Accessed September 21, 2006.</ref>
The anchor stores are AMC Theatres, JCPenney, Macy's, Primark, Kohl's, and Dick's House of Sport.
Stores
The mall, with four anchors and 165 stores, partially opened to the public on October 14, 1987, with Sears and Stern's as two of the four anchors operating.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was already known that the third major tenant would be a JCPenney store, and the fourth anchor was not announced.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The mall's official opening was on November 11, 1987, attended by New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and Senator Frank Lautenberg.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On that date, the mall contained 75 tenants, featuring the two aforementioned anchor stores, Sam Goody, Benetton, Eddie Bauer, and Hallmark.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Template:Convert was intended to draw residents from the new Newport waterfront development and the surrounding area, as well as shoppers from Bergen County, where blue laws keep shopping malls closed on Sundays.<ref>Kennedy, Shawn G. "Real Estate; New Twist For a Mall In Jersey", The New York Times, October 28, 1987. Accessed February 4, 2018. " Close up, however, a formidable low-rise component of this huge waterfront development becomes evident – a 1.2-million-square-foot shopping mall four blocks from the water's edge, still in construction but already open and partly occupied.This Newport Centre mall will have four department stores, 167 shops and restaurants and a nine-screen movie theater.... The new mall, at the intersection of Sixth Street and Luis Muñoz Marín Boulevard, has been in limited operation since mid-October when Stern's and Sears, two of the four anchor tenants, as well as a handful of smaller stores, opened to the public."</ref>
JCPenney opened on October 4, 1989, with the fourth anchor still unknown.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The shopping mall continued to have only three anchors well into the 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2001, Federated Department Stores closed its Stern's division, and the Newport Centre location was re-branded as Macy's.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The mall was originally planning on building the current Macy's as a new anchor alongside Stern's, Sears, and JCPenney instead of using the converted store.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The plan went on, and the new store opened on November 6, 2002, moving in the 300 employees of the ex-Sterns/Macy's building.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In December 2005, it was announced that Kohl's would occupy the old Macy's building.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Kohl's opened on October 1, 2006.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On March 16, 2020, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop ordered the Newport Centre to be closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The next day, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy backed this temporary closure and ordered all malls in New Jersey to temporarily close as well.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It reopened on June 29, 2020.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
On January 5, 2024, it was announced that Sears, the last location in the state, would be closing at the mall in Spring 2024.<ref>Levine, Cecilia. "New Jersey Sears Closing", Hudson Daily Voice, January 5, 2024. Accessed January 6, 2024. "New Jersey's last-standing Sears store, located in Jersey City, appears to be closing."</ref> Dick's House of Sport and Primark were set to open into the vacant Sears space.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Primark officially opened on August 14, 2025, on the first floor. Dick's House of Sport opened a month later.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
There are three floors to the mall complex. The mall is part of the Newport Complex, which includes the Newport Tower, the sixth tallest building in Jersey City. Both it and the Hudson Mall are in an "Urban Enterprise Zone", reducing the state sales tax on purchases from 6.625% to 3.3125% at eligible merchants (with no sales tax on clothing).
The mall is anchored by JCPenney, Kohl's, Macy's, Primark, Dick’s House of Sport, and AMC Theatres.<ref>Marshall, John. "Newport Centre" Time Out New York, September 26, 2016. Accessed January 6, 2024. "This three-story mall houses the four pillars of department stores—JC Penney, Kohl's, Macy's and Sears—all under one roof."</ref>
Transportation
The mall can be reached via the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail's Pavonia/Newport station and the PATH's Newport station. It is also served by New Jersey Transit buses and is the terminus for routes from Jersey City Heights and the North Hudson towns of Guttenberg, North Bergen, West New York, and Union City.
References
External links
Template:Shopping malls in New Jersey Template:New York City Malls Template:Simon Property Group