In 1995, the Mall at Fashion Plaza in
North Brunswick, New Jersey, turned from an enclosed mall into a larger power center format that added of space. A 1999 article in the
Los Angeles Times cited weaker malls being demalled in the face of intense competition from stronger centers, citing the example of the
Sherman Oaks Galleria declining in competition with stronger anchors at
Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, with the Sherman Oaks Galleria being shifted to include of office space and a far smaller share of traditional retail.. Plaza Pasadena, a former shopping mall was demolished and replaced with
Paseo Colorado, which included shopping, restaurants and 400 apartment units. The phenomenon spread to
Paramus, New Jersey, which has been one of the largest retail communities in the United States, generating more than $6 billion in annual retail sales, more than any other
ZIP Code in the United States. With four major regional shopping malls, the
Fashion Center on
Route 17 had effectively become a dead mall as retailers left and
Lord & Taylor was left as its only anchor store. By 2009, the mall become the first in
North Jersey to use de-malling as a strategy, closing off the interior and focusing on larger retailers accessible only from the exterior. A 2013 analysis in
Revista Lusófona de Arquitectura e Educação documented cases of dead and dying malls in Italy being repurposed for such uses as health care. A 2019 study in the journal
Cities found the phenomenon of declining malls being impacted by decline found de-malling occurring in a study of 55 shopping malls in
Lisbon, mirroring patterns seen in North American. The Westshore Mall in
Holland, Michigan, originally constructed in 1988 as the area's only enclosed mall, was more than half empty by 2014 and underwent a de-malling that started in 2015 and turned the complex into an outdoor shopping mall renamed as
The Shops at Westshore with a quarter of the old mall being demolished. The
International Council of Shopping Centers, the industry's largest organization in North America, cited the example of the
Monmouth Mall, which had declined in the decades after its construction in the 1960s as a result of changing shopping preferences. Owner
Kushner Companies invested $500 million in a redevelopment project that turned the mall into an open-air center, eliminated of space, eliminated two former anchors and added 1,000 residential units and of medical uses. ==References==