Neshaminy Mall: From Thriving Shopping Center to a Ghost Town

While enclosed shopping malls were in their heyday incredibly popular and focal points for their surrounding communities, shoppers have largely ignored them during and after the Covid pandemic, and online retail has rendered the idea of purchasing items in a brick-and-mortar store somewhat obsolete. Currently many once-thriving shopping centers are struggling to retain tenants as anchor stores like Macy’s, Sears, and Boscov’s close locations.

The Neshaminy Mall opened in 1968 and cost an estimated $24 million to build, with Sears and Strawbridge and Clothier as the primary anchors. It was the sixth mall in the Greater Philadelphia region, and added a Lit Brothers wing in 1975, though Lit Brothers closed only two years later and the store became a Pomeroy’s, then in 1987 a Bon-Ton, and later a Boscov’s. Strawbridge’s became a Macy’s, which closed in 2017 and Sears in 2019. With the anchors closed, the vacancy rate skyrocketed, and the mall is a bit of a ghost town now, with more stores closed than open. The AMC Neshaminy 24 Theaters, once among the most popular movie destinations in the area, seems to be struggling as well. In February 2024, the over one million square-foot mall was put up for sale and its future remains unclear, and although it appears that the former Strawbridge’s is being demolished, the Boscov’s and Barnes & Noble remain open.

Neshaminy Mall isn’t the most spectacular mall in the region in terms of style and architecture, but it does have some unique touches that hint at its history. A spacious central court still sports a gorgeous balcony lined with antique street lights and a large clock that was once part of the restaurant at Strawbridge & Clothier. Beneath it, there’s a fountain surrounded by fake plants and topped with a statue of a forlorn-looking Native American – Tawanka, leader of the Lenni Lenape tribe – and signs to stay out of water that is actually just a collection of small sponges that are painted blue. The mall was named after the nearby Neshaminy Creek, and the word means “place where we drink twice” in the Lenni Lenape language. Along the far wall, there are a series of easy-to-miss cubbyholes with displays of the region’s early colonial history. Distinctive areas like this are what makes malls special, and it is rather depressing to note that Strawbridge & Clothier has seemingly been gutted without any formal documentation. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before the mall is closed and razed, but for the time being you can still visit it to wander its empty corridors and reminisce about the days when malls like this were the place to be.