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The Mall at Short Hills, Milburn, NJ


As we restart my Philadelphia trip I had to start with arguably the most famous luxury mall in the United States. None other than The Mall at Short Hills. 160 beautiful stores under one clean roof.

The Mall at Short Hills is a beautiful shopping destination just west of New York City and was developed by Taubman and Prudential Insurance. The Mall at Short Hills was built because of community growth and they wanted a nice shopping area that is easier than New York City. In 1949 the vision started when Prudential Insurance acquired land where the mall and Canoe Brook Country Club sit now. In 1956 B. Altman opened a store on the property. Locals still wanted more retail. By the 1960’s a small center opened and contained Bonwit Teller as an anchor and shops such as FAO Schwarz, Pottery Barn, and Brentano’s. Bloomingdale’s opened a store here in 1967.

In 1974 Prudential Insurance started working with Taubman Centers. By 1980 they had completed The Mall at Short Hills which was now enclosed. At the time the mall included 1.1 million leasable square feet and three department store. The mall wasn’t a luxury power house like it is today it included stores like Godiva, Gap, and The Limited. Abraham & Straus  opened in 1981. In 1993 the first expansion happened and was finished in November adding Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales was renovated, and Macy’s opened in the Abraham & Straus. In 1995 another expansion took place adding a Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus with new shops such as Crate & Barrel & Tiffany & Co.

Saks Fifth Avenue closed in September 2016. The bottom floor was converted to the first Indigo Books and Music stores in the United States which gave me a renovated Border’s vibe. The second level became Crate & Barrel. In December of last year the mall had a water main break underneath the mall, shuttling down the mall for the day.

The mall’s biggest competition is probably these three malls Willowbrook in Wayne, Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, and Livingston Mall which this mall could really hurt their business but I’ll get to that in a minute.


Like I sad Livingston Mall is very close by and I said that mall has issues that works in Short Hills. First of all Simon is currently in the process of buying Taubman’s malls and Short Hills is still under ownership of Taubman which means Simon will buy Short Hills in July when this deal closes Simon will own this and might sell Livingston or just it will just be there like Liberty Tree, Solomon Pond, and Square One.

I think this is a beautiful mall to visit and window shop at when you are in New York City or New Jersey. I will say though if you are going to King of Prussia less than 24 hours later this mall can be not as exciting. The bottom line is make a different trip for this place. I didn’t but you should

Here are my pictures of The Mall at Short Hills from July 28, 2019 at around 5:00 PM.

2019:
















































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