Palisades Center

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Facts and statistics
Palisades Center


Location	West Nyack, New York, USA
Opening date	March 1998
Developer	The Pyramid Companies (EklecCo)
Management	Peter Janoff
Owner	The Pyramid Companies (EklecCo)
No. of stores and services	400+
No. of anchor tenants	16
Total retail floor area	2,000,000 sq ft (190,000 m²) ^[1]
Parking	9,729 Parking Spaces
No. of floors	4, plus 1 level below ground parking garage
Website	http://www.palisadescenter.com/

The Palisades Center, often referred to as the Palisades Mall, in West Nyack, New York is one of the largest malls in the United States. Depending on how it is measured, it is considered to both the second largest shopping mall in U.S. and the largest mall in the New York metropolitan area. With 3,500,000 square feet (325,000 m²), the Palisades is second only to the Mall of America in total area. When measured by its 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m²) of gross leasable area (GLA), the Palisades drops to 10th in size in the U.S. and the second in the New York metropolitan area after Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, New York.^[2]

The mall is operated by mall general manager Peter Janoff for the Pyramid Companies, the original developer and current owner.

The mall is located west of NY Route 303, south of exit 12 of the New York State Thruway (I-87 and I-287), and north of NY Route 59. It is named after the nearby Palisades, which border the Hudson River and the eastern part of Rockland County.

1 Layout
2 Dining
3 Shopping concepts
4 Mall construction (1995-1998)
5 Sinking?
6 Mount Moor Cemetery
7 Anchor stores
- 7.1 Former anchors
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Layout

The mall spans four floors.

The mall has four levels, each of which is approximately the shape of a rectangle. Its anchor stores include Barnes & Noble, Macy's, Home Depot, JC Penney, Lord & Taylor, Staples, Best Buy, and Target.^{[citation needed]}

The east end of the mall includes Macy's and an ice rink. The west end features a Best Buy, Sports Authority, Modell's, and a Target. and two central areas. Other stores in the mall include JCPenney, Krazy City, Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, and Dave & Buster's.

On the fourth floor can be found an ice rink (at the east end), a stadium-seating 21-screen AMC movie theater, and further down toward the west end, an IMAX theater.

In the center of each floor is a bank of four elevators. Each end of the mall also has a bank of two elevators. Although all of the mall's main elevators have access to the parking garage (Level P); one must walk to a separate bank of escalators to reach level P. The mall also has a police sub-station. JCPenney; Macy's; and Lord and Taylor all have access to the parking garage via the stores main elevators and escalators.

[edit] Dining

The mall's food court includes a carousel, a Ferris wheel (not pictured) and tracks suspended overhead that resemble a roller coaster.

The Cheeburger Cheeburger

There are several dining options throughout the mall. On the first floor are The Cheesecake Factory, which replaced Rainforest Cafe, and Aromi D'italia. On the second floor is Johnny Rockets. The food court in the center of the third level contains a carousel and a Ferris wheel, as well as over a dozen restaurants. The fourth floor, also called ThEATery (a portmanteau of "theater" and "eatery"), includes several casual dining restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, T.G.I. Friday's, Chili's, Stir Crazy, Qdoba, Legal Sea Foods, Outback Steakhouse, Cheeburger Cheeburger, Dave & Buster's, Chevys Fresh Mex, and Bravo! Cucina Italiana.

[edit] Shopping concepts

The Palisades Center has been the location of several new concepts, including an Opus entertainment venue (now replaced by Orange County Choppers Souvenir Shop) and several specialty boutiques. On August 24, 2005, a Forth & Towne location opened in the Palisades Center, the first store of its type to open. The clothing store was the first location in the newest chain of stores operated by GAP. Its selection was targeted at fashion-conscious middle-aged women. The chain did not last, as GAP closed its entire Forth & Towne chain in June 2007.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Mall construction (1995-1998)

The Palisades Center mall was constructed on the former site of Dexter Press (a famous and long-time printer of postcards), a bowling alley, a car dealership, Hogan's Diner (an institution with the slogan, "Where the Elite Meet to Eat") and landfill, adjacent to a swampy area of Route 59 frequently prone to flooding from the nearby Hackensack River.

When the mall was first planned in the 1980s, the developers hoped to lure upscale anchors. However, somewhere between town board approval and grand opening, these plans changed.^{[citation needed]} Public areas that were to be "finished" gave way to the mall's current decor of exposed steel beams, concrete floors, and bright splashes of color and neon.

Many speculate that the Palisades Center was constructed too hastily, for it has many apparent quirks such as numerous cracks in the floor; and violent shaking. Along with the rides and ice rink on the fourth floor, the original plan for the mall was much larger and included a roller coaster. Allusions to a roller coaster are made by the track-like lighting fixtures above the food court (which, contrary to rumor, are not actual abandoned track). The original intention was for the mall to be an East Coast version of the Mall of America, a destination going beyond shopping that would be visited by tourists from outside the area.^{[citation needed]}

The original plan for the mall was reduced somewhat due to opposition from people in the Town of Clarkstown. Some believed that traffic would clog the nearby small roads, and to satisfy them the mall plan was scaled down and certain turns to and from mall roads were made illegal. The purpose of these signs is to keep traffic off local streets and direct it on to highways, such as Routes 303 and 59 and the New York State Thruway. Local residents routinely ignore these signs due to inconvenience.^{[citation needed]}

A 2002 referendum to expand the mall was voted down. The "expansion" would have finished unused space on the 3rd and 4th floors above Lord and Taylor at the east end of the mall. At the time of the vote, there was an "empty space walking tour" that one could take.^{[citation needed]} Currently, the 4th floor east end is empty except for the ice rink, four community rooms used by groups within Rockland County, an out-of-the-way restroom, elevators and escalators serving the rink and the community rooms, several benches, and two vending machines.

When this mall was under construction, Pyramid, the builder was very slow to pay vendors. Only vendors that could put a lien against them were paid very late for their labor. Numerous vendors that delivered goods that were unsecured were not paid in full even after very long delays. Stores had to pay for their own alarm and sprinkler systems that were then turned over to the mall owners.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Sinking?

There have been persistent rumors that the mall was sinking. Long-time residents of West Nyack have claimed that the mall was built over a swamp. Many believe that the foundation was not stabilized prior to the construction of the mall, which is slowly sinking into the swamp. The proponents of the sinking theory point to the cracks in the concrete floors, in the way the mall often shakes, and in alarms that would sound throughout the mall. In early 1999, Rosie O'Donnell, who lived in Nyack at the time, shared her town's gossip about the mall on her TV show. Soon afterwards, Thomas J. Valenti, one of the mall's builders, appeared on her show to address the problem, and promised the mall was not sinking (even singing a song he had composed to this effect). Pyramid has said on numerous occasions that the mall is perfectly sound and stable, and is not sinking. Valenti suggested that the rumors could have been started by competitors or local residents who opposed the mall. In jest, mall management also painted depth lines styled like those on a cargo ship on the north side of the mall shortly after the rumors surfaced.^[3]

[edit] Mount Moor Cemetery

The Palisades Center was built around the Mount Moor Cemetery, a 150-year-old burial ground for African-Americans, including many black veterans. The cemetery is on the west side of the mall, next to the parking deck adjacent to the mall's Barnes & Noble and Target, and can be seen by drivers going to or from the deck.

The Historical Society of Rockland County placed a historical sign which reads:

“

This burying ground for Colored people, was deeded on July 7, 1849 by James Benson. and Jane Benson. his wife to William H. Moore, Stephen Samuels and Isaac Williams. trustees. The cemetery has provided burial space for colored people, including veterans of the American Civil War, the Spanish American War, World Wars l and ll and the Korean War. The grounds have been maintained since 1940 by the Mount Moor Cemetery Association, Inc.^[4]

”

An external link below provides a partial listing of the people buried at this site.

[edit] Anchor stores

This section does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007)
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.