Paramus has two enclosed malls a mile apart on Route 4, and this year, within the same six months, both broke ground on apartments. Westfield Garden State Plaza started construction on 575 rental units and a public green on April 29. A mile down the road, Bergen Town Center's owners are building 426 units of their own under a project called Bergen Chapters. Neither mall needed to do this to keep selling merchandise. Both are doing it anyway, and the reason has as much to do with a real estate split from 1953 as anything happening in retail today.
How Sunday Closing Rules Shaped the Paramus Map
Paramus has never had a Main Street the way Ridgewood or Montclair does. Part of that is zoning. Part of it is a Sunday closing ordinance that predates most of the borough's current residents. The Paramus Borough Code forbids "worldly employment" on Sundays, with narrow exceptions, and Garden State Plaza's own parking gates come down on Sundays so cars can only enter from Route 4 or Route 17. The law was written shortly after the mall opened, out of concern that a seven day retail schedule would jam the highways running through town. It worked. Paramus became a five day shopping destination bordered by residential streets, with almost no walkable center of its own.
That is the backdrop for what both malls are building now.
What's Actually Rising at Garden State Plaza
Garden State Plaza has been owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield since 1996. "Westfield purchased this in 1996, 30 years ago," URW chief operating officer Dominic Lowe said at the April 29 groundbreaking. Phase one of the redevelopment, built with partner Mill Creek Residential, adds 575 luxury apartments connected to the existing mall by a one-acre town green. Beyond the housing, Westfield's own plans describe a main street outdoor district of restaurants and everyday services, the kind of ground floor retail a shopping center doesn't otherwise have room for. The apartments are slated to open to residents in 2028, two years after the groundbreaking.
In a borough where half of all property tax revenue comes from retail properties, Garden State Plaza alone accounts for about 10 percent of everything Paramus collects. That helps explain why the borough has been willing to let its biggest taxpayer add nearly 600 apartments on top of what used to be parking.
The mall isn't only investing in housing. In March 2026, Westfield announced that Level99, an interactive entertainment concept built around physical challenge rooms, would open at Garden State Plaza in 2027, its first location in New Jersey and in URW's national portfolio. As of September 2026, the mall's anchor stores are Macy's, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and AMC Theatres, the same four that have anchored the property since the Lord & Taylor closure in 2020.
A Mile Away, the Same Bet
Garden State Plaza's rival sits on Route 4, and the two properties share an origin story most shoppers never hear. In 1953, Allied Stores and R.H. Macy discussed developing a single site together. The partnership fell apart that August. Macy went on to found Garden State Plaza, chartering a subsidiary to own and operate it in 1954. Allied Stores built its own mall a mile away, originally called Bergen Mall, which opened in September 1957 with Stern's as its anchor. It's known today as Bergen Town Center.
That mall's current redevelopment carries its own name, Bergen Chapters. Russo Development and KRE Group are building two five story buildings on the site's east side, where Red Robin and REI used to sit, for a combined 426 units. The project mixes market rate and affordable housing, which counts toward Paramus's state mandated affordable housing obligations. Construction is expected to wrap by late 2027, roughly a year before Garden State Plaza's apartments open to residents.
Between the two projects, that's more than a thousand new households arriving inside two shopping centers rather than a new subdivision.
The Restaurants Already Doing Business Underneath the Cranes
Both malls were investing in dining well before either broke ground on housing. Fogo de Chão opened its first New Jersey location inside Garden State Plaza in February 2023, occupying a two story space with an open air churrasco grill and a second floor lounge. Eddie V's Prime Seafood opened at the same mall in May 2022, in the space between Macy's and the AMC theater, with four private dining rooms and an outdoor patio. Both sit alongside longer running tenants like Kura Sushi's revolving sushi bar on the mall's first level.
Bergen Town Center is adding to its own roster while its apartment buildings rise. Tommy's Tavern & Tap, a Jersey Shore born chain, is expected to open a location there by spring 2027, according to Urban Edge Properties, the same year construction on the Bergen Chapters buildings is expected to wrap.
What's on the Calendar This Fall
None of this construction has paused either mall's usual community programming. Bergen Town Center's fourth annual Fall Festival runs Sunday, November 8, from noon to 5 p.m., organized by Carr Event Productions, the same event that has drawn crowds for three years running. It's a reminder that both properties are still functioning shopping centers in the middle of becoming something else, apartments and green space rising around active parking lots and open storefronts.
For a town built to keep Sunday quiet and its highways clear, watching two shopping centers compete to build the closest thing Paramus has ever had to a Main Street is a genuinely new kind of local news. Whichever mall's town green fills up first will say something about which version of downtown residents actually wanted.
If the construction near Route 4 has you wondering what it means for property values in the immediate area, Fast Track Real Estate Company can put together a current home valuation that accounts for what's actually rising nearby, not just last year's comps.
