Deptford Mall rises from Jersey farmland
Before there was a huge building for shopping, there was just a field next to a highway. In 1970, a sign went up on that spot in Deptford Township, a promise from Philadelphia developer Strouse Greenberg that something bigger was coming.
Five years later, in August 1975, Deptford Mall opened as Gloucester County's only indoor shopping center, a two-story, three-anchor test of how much suburban life could happen inside.
The setup was classic 1970s mall: Sears at one end, Bamberger's in the middle, John Wanamaker at the other, and about 150 smaller stores in between.
The center area had fountains and clear views, showing the bright hope of a time when people thought department stores would always be around.
The township's own history would later describe the mall as having "forever changed retail shopping habits" in Deptford, Woodbury, Blackwood, Westville, and every older Main Street within driving distance.
There was not much competition. Echelon Mall, about six miles away, was the only real rival.
South of the Raritan River, Deptford Mall quickly established itself as Gloucester County's largest enclosed shopping center and a major regional hub for southern New Jersey.
The highways helped: located just off what would become the busy intersection of Route 42 and Route 55, the mall brought in shoppers from all over South Jersey, quickly turning farmland into parking lots and pay phones.
Anchors, ice cream, and how a mall grew up
The 1980s came to Deptford Mall without much drama. The tenants were mostly the same; the sign over the center anchor was not.
In 1986, Bamberger's came down, and Macy's went up, the result of a corporate decision made far from Gloucester County. In this building, the past had not quite left.
Along the facade, the current logo occupied the foreground, yet if the light arrived from a direction, you could discern the outline of the original letters, saying this used to be another store, answering to another name.
Inside, the years were measured in birthday parties and refills.
At Farrell's Ice Cream, the place's loud, unruly center, there were gigantic sundaes, employees who sang, and that gong announcing every birthday to anyone close enough.
It was a place designed to embarrass children and exhaust parents.
By the middle of the decade, Farrell's was gone, and Ruby Tuesday had taken over the space, replacing gongs with booths, burgers, and a self-serve salad bar.
Food was still scattered along the hallways; the idea of one consolidated food court was only starting to take shape.
This was when Deptford Mall settled into its role as a kind of indoor town square.
Sears was where you went for washers and lawnmowers, Macy's was where you went for coats and dresses, and Wanamaker's was where the air felt faintly closer to Center City Philadelphia.
Teens made loops from anchor to anchor, parents pushed strollers, and older couples did their laps for exercise.
The mall aged in small ways - the colors dulled, the finishes dated - but the parking lot stayed full enough that no one worried much about what it meant.
From Wanamaker to Strawbridge's, and a violent rupture
The 1990s, which were tough for department stores in general, caught up with John Wanamaker.
The well-known Philadelphia chain went bankrupt in 1994, and the Deptford Mall store closed in 1995. The big empty store did not stay empty for long.
Hecht's, a store owned by May Department Stores, moved in that same year, but was renamed Strawbridge's in 1996–97 when May took over the Strawbridge's brand and used it again in the area.
The north end of the mall became a constant reminder of stores joining together.
Deptford's most searing moment came not from a bankruptcy court but from gunfire. On August 5, 1996, a Brooks armored car guard collecting money inside the mall was ambushed near an entrance.
A shootout erupted in the middle of what was supposed to be a safe, air-conditioned space.
One gunman was killed on the spot; the guard was critically wounded but survived. The bullets did not follow any plan.
A 17-year-old high school football player from Clayton was killed while protecting his sister. A 14-year-old bystander was hit by a stray bullet and died two days later, on August 7.
The tragedy made national news and forced Deptford Mall and other area malls to change their security, showing that even the safest places can be touched by real-life danger.
Makeovers, food courts, ownership games, resilience
By the late 1990s, Deptford Mall was both typical and crowded.
The food court, finished by then, was packed with American favorites: Auntie Anne's and A&W, Baskin-Robbins and Bassett's Turkey, Chick-fil-A, Cinnabon, Friendly's, Kohr Bros., Original Philly Steaks, Ruby Tuesday, and more.
You could go from pretzels to crepes to turkey to ice cream without ever going outside. The mall felt more like its own world than just a place to shop.
Growth continued. In 2000, plans were announced for a fourth main store: a JCPenney added to the food court wing.
The new store opened on August 1, 2001, making Deptford a four-anchor mall at a time when this was still a big deal.
Around the same time, the first major update happened. Fountains were removed, new floors and railings were added, and the inside was changed to look more up-to-date, less like the 1970s and more like the 2000s.
By 2002, new places like Sbarro, Build-A-Bear, GameStop, Coffee Beanery, and T-Mobile opened, while older stores like Record Town and Software Etc.
closed. Club Libby Lu opened in 2005 near the center court, offering makeovers and dress-up parties for children until the chain closed in 2009.
Through all of this, most spaces stayed filled. Stores came and went, but the hallways were always busy.
Renovations, super-regional status, and Sears's slow fall
Strawbridge's did not survive the mid-2000s reshuffle. When Federated acquired May Department Stores in 2005, it already had Macy's in the former Bamberger's space at Deptford.
The Strawbridge's box closed and, in 2006, reopened as Boscov's, the Reading-based, family-owned department store that still holds down the north end today.
The real estate story was just as busy. In January 2007, Simon Property Group sold Deptford Mall to Macerich in a multi-center deal.
Macerich paid around $241 million and would later describe the property as a super-regional mall, about 1,040,000 square feet of leasable space, the largest mall in Gloucester County, and among the biggest in New Jersey.
In 2015, Macerich sold a 49 percent interest to institutional investor Heitman but kept management and control.
Physically, the mall kept trying to outrun its birth decade. Between roughly 2012 and 2013, Macerich undertook what it called a vertical movement project.
Stairs at each end and at the center court were ripped out, new escalators were installed, and a glass elevator was introduced in the center court.
Flooring was replaced throughout, and the food court was refreshed with new seating and a children's play area near Jalapeño's.
Behind the scenes, asbestos inspections and air monitoring documented the work of dragging a 1975 shell into compliance with 21st-century expectations.
Meanwhile, one of the original pillars was crumbling nationally. In 2015, Sears spun off hundreds of properties, including its Deptford Mall store, into a real estate trust, Seritage Growth Properties.
The store kept operating, but the move made its eventual demise feel more like a line item than a surprise.
Sears falls, Dick's and Round 1 move in, then a pandemic
On October 15, 2018, Sears announced another wave of closures as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Deptford Mall's Sears was on the list, and by January 2019, the south-end anchor that had opened with the mall was shuttered.
The two-level box, acres of beige retail purgatory, was suddenly empty.
Macerich moved quickly.
The plan was to carve the hulking space into two new anchors: Dick's Sporting Goods would relocate from a standalone store across Almonesson Road into the lower level, and Round 1 Bowling & Amusement, a Japanese entertainment chain, would take the upper level with bowling, arcade games, karaoke, and food.
The Sears Auto Center on the edge of the property was earmarked for a Crunch Fitness gym, tying the former automotive outparcel to wellness instead of wheel alignments.
Construction on the Sears shell stretched from 2019 into 2020, colliding with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like most New Jersey malls, Deptford Mall shut down in March 2020 and stayed closed for about three months, reopening in late June with hand sanitizer stations, distancing markers, and health signage.
Not all tenants returned. Optical World, Modell's Sporting Goods, New York & Company, Justice, Sprint, Ruby Tuesday, Colonial Soldier Arcade, and GNC were among the casualties.
Even so, the new anchors opened into this strange landscape. Dick's debuted in the lower level of the former Sears in September 2020, and Round 1 followed in October 2020.
A planned Krispy Kreme in the parking lot near the new wing was approved, but ultimately backed out; Republic Bank, approved alongside it, opened in June 2021.
An FYE store arrived in July 2021 in the former Justice space, bringing back a dedicated music-and-video shop to a mall that had once hosted Sam Goody.
Pandemic recovery, events, and craft beer at Deptford Mall
By the early 2020s, Deptford Mall's main stores were doing well.
Macy's was in the center, Boscov's at the north end, JCPenney in the 2001 wing, Dick's Sporting Goods on the lower level of the old Sears, and Round 1 above it.
Crunch Fitness and other businesses outside the main building rounded out the complex.
The mall put more focus on activities. Students from Bankbridge Regional who study plants took part in flower-arranging contests in the hallways.
Crunch hosted Football Fest events that brought Philadelphia Eagles players and fans to the parking lot.
In 2023, Bonesaw Pilot House Brewery opened inside the mall. This bar, run by a small beer maker from Glassboro, has an airplane theme, a 15-barrel brewing system, and lots of taps.
It brought freshly made beer to a place once known for Orange Julius and mall security. It also answered a question few people had considered: what if you could have a hazy IPA after buying socks at H&M?
Curfews, $10 parking, and a new tenant mix
The mall's relationship with teenagers, always complicated, tipped into official policy.
On January 15, 2024, Deptford Mall adopted a parental escort policy requiring anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult at least 25 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings.
Unaccompanied teens had to leave by 5 p.m. or find a chaperone; one adult could escort up to four youths, and proof of age could be demanded.
Around the same time, the mall experimented with $10 premier parking spaces closest to the entrances, paid via QR code, then scrapped the program in 2025 after shoppers concluded that, perhaps, walking a few extra yards was not an intolerable burden.
Meanwhile, the tenant mix kept shifting.
Cotton On Body, Inspiration Co., and Rally House were tagged as coming soon; Starbucks in the center court reopened after a closure; Bubble Bear Tea took a food court slot; Earthbound Trading Co. was announced for spring 2025; Pop Mart, the collectibles brand, targeted the mall for a new store.
Express, caught in its 2024 bankruptcy, slated its Deptford Mall location for closure.
Yet overall occupancy hovered around 95 percent, and the mall's own marketing cheerfully touted over 125 specialty stores and restaurants, plus Round1 and Bonesaw as marquee draws.
The South Jersey Film Office listed Deptford Mall as a filming location and still called it the county's only indoor regional mall.
Deptford Mall turns fifty and looks ahead
Beyond the ring road, the gravitational field of Deptford Mall expanded and contracted in its own rhythm.
Directly across Almonesson Road, the Deptford Town Center - once anchored by Bed Bath & Beyond and Christmas Tree Shops - sat mostly vacant through 2023 and 2024 after both chains collapsed.
For two years, shoppers circled a half-empty expanse of asphalt and darkened facades, the negative image of the busy mall across the way.
Then, in 2025, the script flipped again. A redevelopment plan began to refill the Town Center with national tenants.
Tractor Supply Co. opened in late 2025, an Aldi grocery store was nearing completion with a projected winter 2025 debut, and leases were signed for Nordstrom Rack, First Watch, and Aspen Dental, scheduled to arrive in 2026.
Taken together with the mall's anchors and its outparcels - the gyms, banks, craft beer, and donut-that-never-was parking pads - the area reasserted itself as a regional shopping node for the highways lacing South Jersey.
Inside the mall, a 2025 social media post put it plainly: Deptford Mall is turning 50 this year.
The tone was celebratory, the comments nostalgic, full of memories of Farrell's gongs, long-gone chains, and teenage circuits from Sears to Strawbridge's to Boscov's.
The owners now are Macerich, with 51 percent, and Heitman, with 49 percent, but this is almost a technicality.
The real shareholders are the people who have been walking those corridors since 1975, watching anchors change their names, fountains vanish, Sears die and resurrect as a bowling alley, and a craft brewery tap into the mall's circulation.
For all the predictions of the mall's extinction, Deptford Mall persists - a million square feet of American retail history still trying, against the odds, to stay interesting.
