NewPark Mall, August 1980, first rush
NewPark Mall opened on August 6, 1980, at Mowry Avenue beside the Nimitz Freeway. The first crowds moved in from the parking lots in steady lines. As they entered, visitors felt cool air and bright light, and saw a full regional mall all in one place.
Inside, the design used natural colors and lots of plants. Brown and tan tiles ran past planters with trees and ferns. Skylights let sunlight into the hallways. A glass elevator stood in the middle. The mall used the slogan "The Park of Plenty."
Macy's and Sears opened as the original anchors. The tenant list around them ran to roughly eighty smaller stores, laid out in an indoor loop. Apparel, jewelry, and other everyday specialty retail filled the storefronts.
The mall soon became a popular place to shop and Newark's most noticeable commercial landmark. It drew regular traffic from Newark, Fremont, and Union City.
It also became a regular indoor spot where people met up, did their shopping, ate, and hung out in the same hallways.
A city plan, a site, and big forecasts
NewPark Mall started on paper before it had a roof. In 1958, Newark's General Plan called for a single core shopping district.
By 1968, the city had picked a 107-acre tract at Mowry Avenue and what is now I-880 for a regional center.
The projections were blunt. Newark expected about 3,500 jobs and roughly $500,000 a year in sales tax revenue.
Sears, through its Homart development arm, was recruited to "seed" the project, with Macy's and JCPenney lined up as major department store partners.
Construction began in 1979. Homart co-developed with Macy's California development unit, known as Calmart.
When the doors finally opened in 1980, the project was marketed as a new shopping era for the East Bay, and Newark had its long-promised core district in concrete and glass.
The interior mix of trees, ferns, and skylights was widely said to nod to the eucalyptus grove that had been on the site.
New anchors arrive: Mervyn's and Emporium-Capwell
NewPark expanded soon after it opened. On October 18, 1985, a new wing opened with Mervyn's as the anchor. Mervyn's relocated from the Fremont Hub.
The addition brought a third major anchor and more inline space, extended the mall loop, and broadened the tenant mix.
The mall could support weekday errands as well as weekend shopping. The added length also left space to keep reworking the property over time without rebuilding it.
On February 7, 1987, Emporium-Capwell opened after relocating from Fremont. The store added an upper-middle-tier department store to the lineup.
By the late 1980s, NewPark had become the Tri-City area's regular indoor shopping destination. Expansion continued as demand held, and the remaining anchor slot had not yet been filled.
JCPenney arrives, and the peak years
JCPenney opened at NewPark on November 6, 1991, completing the department store lineup. By the end of 1991, the mall totaled more than 1.1 million square feet and more than 140 stores.
For southern Alameda County, NewPark became the default enclosed mall.
Southland Mall in Hayward was the nearest comparable enclosed competitor, about 11 miles away, and NewPark operated as the local option for much of the Tri-City area.
The next changes came mid-decade. In 1996, Emporium-Capwell closed after corporate consolidation.
Target moved into the vacant space later in 1996, keeping the anchor space active and shifting part of the mix toward discount retail.
Old Navy opened in 2000 after relocating from the Fremont Hub. Old Navy closed in 2005. Steve & Barry's replaced it in 2007, filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and closed by 2009.
Mervyn's closed in late 2007. Burlington Coat Factory opened in the former Mervyn's building in 2010, filling the space as the long-running department store lineup began to break up.
Renovation plans, delays, and a $40M transformation
In 2004, NewPark's owner proposed an expansion with a 20-screen multiplex on top of an existing parking deck, three freestanding restaurant pads, and added retail space.
Newark began the CEQA environmental review. The project was shelved by 2005, and the mall remained largely unchanged.
Ownership shifted during these years. Sears sold Homart's mall portfolio to General Growth Properties in 1995. After the 2008 financial crisis, GGP spun off Rouse Properties in 2011.
Target left NewPark in 2012 and relocated to Fremont's Pacific Commons. The empty anchor space created room for a rebuild.
Around 2014, Rouse began a renovation budgeted at about $40 million to add dining and entertainment.
AMC NewPark 12 opened on January 28, 2016 in the rebuilt former Target building, with an IMAX auditorium. A glass-walled restaurant row was added on the upper level, including Jack's Restaurant & Bar.
John's Incredible Pizza Company opened in 2017 as a 65,000-square-foot arcade-and-buffet venue. The renovation also added a children's play area.
By early 2017, the interior had brighter finishes, modern lighting, updated flooring, and glass railings.
The central glass elevator remained in place.
Anchors leave, Costco rises, Macy's ends
The renovation did not stop the department store pullback. Sears, an original 1980 anchor, moved into Seritage REIT in 2015 and then entered a wider round of closures.
In June 2018, Sears put NewPark on its closure list. The store closed in September 2018 after thirty-eight years.
JCPenney closed in April 2019. Burlington left in 2020 and relocated to Pacific Commons. Around the same period, John's Incredible Pizza closed and did not reopen after the early-2020 pandemic shutdowns.
By the end of 2020, Macy's was the last traditional department store operating at NewPark.
Costco opened on November 18, 2023, on the east side of the property, on the former JCPenney and Burlington sites.
In early 2025, Macy's included the Newark store in its "A Bold New Chapter" downsizing plan, one of sixty-six locations slated to close.
After clearance sales, Macy's closed in March 2025, ending nearly forty-five-year run that began on opening day.
Inside the mall, a little over forty retailers remain, with the largest draws centered on entertainment and fitness rather than department stores.
Sales fall, vacancies spread, pressure mounts
Annual sales exceeded $200 million in 2006. By 2012, annual sales had fallen to around $130 million.
The decline came during the Great Recession, alongside the growth of e-commerce and the draw of newer open-air retail centers.
Anchor changes accelerated the slide. The sales drop followed Mervyn's closing in 2007 and continued as Target prepared to leave in 2012.
In the late 2010s, more large spaces went dark. Interior sections began to close off.
By 2020, large portions of the mall were shuttered and roped off.
Newark officials tied the weakening performance to consumer movement toward power centers and online shopping and to competition from Pacific Commons.
City planning leaders pushed for more nearby residents to support the remaining retail base.
The financial pressure landed on the city as well as the property. NewPark remained one of Newark's top sales tax generators, and each anchor loss reduced jobs and sales tax revenue.
Leaders warned that inaction would leave the mall unable to survive and described that outcome as a calamity.
Macy's annual sales fell from about $100 million to about $50 million over the fifteen years leading up to its March 2025 closure.
Community events and incidents at NewPark
NewPark continued to function as a local gathering place as the store count fell. Newark Memorial High School and Ohlone College's Newark campus sit next to the property.
The mall stayed in the after-school rotation for food, movies, and part-time jobs.
A DMV office operated at the mall at one point.
The site also hosted regular community use. A farmers' market runs on the mall grounds every Sunday under the Agricultural Institute of Marin.
Shirley Sisk Grove Park next door holds the city's "Groovin' at the Grove" summer concert series, with the mall's parking nearby.
In 2025, the mall's event space held a two-day Ganesh Utsav celebration.
The property also saw occasional incidents. In 2012, armed robbers fired shots during a smash-and-grab jewelry store robbery inside the mall.
No injuries were reported. In 2018, a brawl involving about twenty people broke out at John's Incredible Pizza over a missing cell phone.
NewPark Place plan redraws the district
Brookfield Property Partners acquired Rouse Properties in 2016. Brookfield's retail arm took over as owner and manager of NewPark.
In April 2018, Newark approved the NewPark Mall Specific Plan under the name "NewPark Place," valued at around $1 billion.
The plan allowed 1,500 housing units on the site, more than 500,000 square feet of office space, and up to 1,000 hotel rooms, with much of the new construction placed on underused parking areas.
It also set out to reduce the enclosed mall from about 1.1 million square feet to around 0.9 million and to replace excess retail area with more open-air components.
The layout included parks, plazas, and event areas to keep the property active beyond shopping hours. The plan raised allowable density to 120 units per acre in the mall zone.
The housing capacity was projected to raise Newark's population by about 10 percent, and the mayor at the time stated the plan would "guarantee the long-term survival of our mall and community."
Costco and apartments get approved in 2021
In July 2021, Newark approved a Costco and a 319-unit apartment project along Mowry Avenue.
The Costco plan called for demolishing the empty JCPenney and Burlington buildings, building a roughly 161,000-square-foot warehouse, adding a 32-pump gas station, and removing about 84,000 square feet of inline mall area.
The apartment component was planned as a six-story mixed-use building with a parking garage.
The ground floor included about 12,900 square feet of retail and amenity space, with uses such as a bike shop and a co-working lounge.
Twenty-nine units were designated as affordable housing.
Brookfield and Costco projected about 1,100 construction jobs and 1,300 permanent jobs and estimated about $6.6 million a year in tax revenue.
The site plan included pedestrian paths to Shirley Sisk Grove Park, an outdoor plaza for events and farmers markets, and an "outdoor lifestyle."
Costco opens, then redevelopment stalls out
Costco opened on November 18, 2023, on the southeast side of the property. More than 80 percent of Newark households were already Costco members.
New hotels opened around the mall area. Nearby, D.R. Horton completed a separate 281-unit housing project.
The 319-unit apartment plan approved in 2021 was supposed to be built after Costco. By late 2025, it was unclear what was happening with the plan.
In 2025, Brookfield refinanced loan for the mall. Later that year, Newark's mayor told the city council that Brookfield would not move forward with the bigger plan to improve the mall.
The decision was criticized after years of public promotion.
As of January 2026, NewPark remains open. Costco operates next door. Inside the mall, AMC and fitness uses carry much of the traffic. Large interior spaces remain, awaiting the next step.
