The Herald-News from Passaic, New Jersey • B6

OUR TOWNS Monday, September 15, 2014 B6 HERALD NEWS Cars: Racing Continued from B1 Others came not only to see some of the cars drive around the stadium, but also to have a connection to the venue. Paul and Patti MacCracken of Paterson said they have supported the renovation of Hinch-liffe Stadium for years and wanted to bring their family out to enjoy a Sunday afternoon in one of the most historic places in Paterson. "It's history and fun all wrapped up into one event," Patti MacCracken said. "The kids love it, and we want to see more events here, so we decided to come out." Paul MacCracken said he felt it was important to show his children a piece of history from Paterson. As he spoke, his daughter was sitting in an antique race car and snapping pictures.

"We wanted to show our support and give our kids a sense of history," he said. Reilly said reactions like those from Kramer and the MacCracken family were why the expo was held. He said he hoped enough support from the public might bring racing back to Hinchliffe. "People clearly have an interest in seeing it here in the future," Reilly said. "They wouldn't come out like this if they didn't want to see more of it." Wayne Towne Center's ups, downs Pre-1960s The Wayne Towne Center property is home to a horse farm called Willowbrook Farm.

1969 Willowbrook Mall opens next to the current Wayne Towne Center property. 1974 An enclosed mall, named West Belt Mall, opens on the 40-acre site, with two department stores as its anchor stores, a J.C. Penney and an S. Klein. 1975 The S.

Klein store is closed soon after it opens, and the space is taken over by a Korvettes department store. 1975 The Bay City Rollers, a British rock band, appear at the mall during their first U.S. tour. 1980 The Korvettes store closes, and the site is empty for two years. 1981 Frequent fights by teens leaving a roller rink and an all-night disco at the mall cause Wayne police to increase patrols at the center.

1982 Fortunoff opens in the Korvettes space, giving the mall a much-needed boost. 1984 The mall is sold for $20 million, and the new owners announce a $14 million expansion. 1989 The renovated mall is renamed Wayne Towne Center, with a more upscale image. 1995 The mall grows by 1 13,000 square feet by enclosing an open area. 2003 With lifestyle centers and open-air malls the trend, the owner of the mall begins emptying out the mall in preparation for remodeling.

The mall is sold for an undisclosed amount in December to a New York developer. 2008 The owners begin demolishing the nearly empty mall, with a plan to keep J.C. Penney and Fortunoff as freestanding stores and build other freestanding stores and restaurants around them. 2009 The recession delays the plans. Fortunoff goes bankrupt and closes the Wayne store.

2010 Vomado Realty Trust buys the mall now consisting mostly of empty asphalt, along with several new restaurants and a DSW shoe store for $12.1 million from Wells Fargo, which had taken over the property, and takes on annual lease payments of $2.5 million for the land. October 2014 A Costco store and Dick's Sporting Goods store are expected to open. Signs Wayne: Retail Continued from B1 it from his mailbox. "It wasn't aesthetically pleasing," Carole, his wife, agreed. The couple said they prefer their white wood mailbox as it is, with a painted number on the side and a ceramic squirrel on top.

But John D'Ascensio, fire chief of North Caldwell in Essex County, which also uses the signs, said talcing them down was like removing a smoke detector because of an occasional beep. "They're lifesavers, not decorations," he said. North Caldwell started offering the signs to residents about four years ago. "Some of the people around here it was like they were in the witness protection program," D'Ascensio said. "They didn't want to be found." So far, the borough has sold about 600 signs, leaving 1,500 homes unmarked, according to D'Ascensio.

Muccio said any Woodland Park residents who want a sign for their home should call the borough's Fire Prevention Bureau. Thomas Russo, who also lives on Casson Lane, said he remembered getting a flier in his mailbox several months ago. "I already have a number on my mailbox, so it seemed like a reduplication of efforts," Russo recalled thinking at the time. But after hearing that his neighbor, Frey, the former firefighter, had called the signs a "necessity" for public safety, Russo said he would reconsider. "It does seem like a good idea when you put it like that," Russo said.

FILE PHOTOS At top, a Costco warehouse store under construction at the new Wayne Towne Center, one of two new anchor stores being built at the mall. The Costco will feature a 16-pump gas station. Above, an outside entrance of Wayne Towne Center as it appeared before it was "de-malled," starting in 2008. U-LLD'J-by To Advertise, Call Karen at 973-569-7490 JOE'S POOL SERVICE FREE POOL CLOSING With Purchase Installation of Safety Cover Reserve Early for Pool Closing and Receive FREE Closing Chemicals We Sell Install Vinyl Inground Pools We Service Everything from Pumps to Heaters and Cleaning "All Your Pool Needs With a Family Touch Lic13VH04163800 Ace Masonry Building Contractors Walkways Foundations Basement I Sidewalks Patios Waterproofing Staircases Stone Driveways I Retaining Masonry Brick Pavers Walls Repairs ConcreteAsphalt Decks Demolition 24 HR emergency service I SERVING NORTH JERSEY 201 "865-7889 NJ LIC 13VH01141200 I 201-797-POOL 7 6 6 5 Free Estimates Fully Insured Continued from B1 restaurants. The Wayne Towne Center property was first developed in the 1970s.

A former enclosed mall, named West Belt Mall, opened on the site in 1974 but was always overshadowed by the adjacent Willowbrook Mall, which was five years older and twice as large. The mall also had bad luck with its anchor tenants over the years. One of its original anchor stores, the S. Klein department store, closed a year after the mall opened. It was replaced by a Korvettes, which was out of business within five years.

West Belt Mall was sold for $20 million in 1984, and the new owners announced a $14 million expansion, with a plan to make the mall more upscale. The shopping center reopened as the Wayne Towne Center in 1989 and during the 1990s was popular as the smaller, easier-to-shop alternative to the bigger, busier Willowbrook. But by the next decade, open-air shopping malls and lifestyle centers had begun replacing smaller enclosed malls, and the latest owners of the facility decided to turn Wayne Towne Center into a collection of free-standing stores and restaurants. The plan was to leave the J.C. Penney and Fortunoff stores as unattached buildings, occupied by those retailers, with new buildings constructed around them.

But the recession, and the 2009 bankruptcy filing of Fortunoff, derailed that plan. Vornado took over the site at the end of 2010 and was hailed by local officials as the savior that would resurrect the project. Vornado, which has offices in Para-mus and New York City and owns more than 100 million square feet of commercial real estate, has a policy of not responding to media questions and declined to discuss its plans for Wayne Towne Center. Those plans are outlined in documents filed with Wayne Township and with the state in its request for a tax break. Vornado, in requesting the tax relief, estimated that the redeveloped center would generate 450 permanent jobs, with an average salary of $23,230, and that it would increase sales taxes in Wayne by $2.7 million annually.

The new Costco store at Wayne Towne Center doesn't represent a new retailer for the township. The warehouse club will vacate an existing store across the road, on Willowbrook Boulevard and part of the Willowbrook Plaza shopping center, in order to move into the larger and more visible Wayne Towne Center building. The new Costco will have a gas station, considered a powerful draw because of the chain's attractive fuel prices. A spokesman for Kimco Realty the owner of Willowbrook Plaza, said Friday that the company expects to divide the vacant Costco space into two stores and has two national retailers interested in moving into the building. The names of the tenants will be released after the leases are made final, he said.

With Costco and Dick's two big-box retail stores as the key anchors of the new center, Wayne Towne Center appears to be planned as a "power center," a retail term for centers with three or more big-box retailers and several smaller buildings. Power centers have become less popular this decade as a number of big-box chains, most notably Best Buy and Staples, have announced plans to downsize their stores and focus on online sales. The viability of power centers these days depends on the tenants, and a Costco store is about the best possible power center tenant, said Glenn Brill, managing director of New York-based FTI Consulting, who has worked on North Jersey mall projects. "What you saw in retail during the recession was the only deals that were getting done were things like a Costco or a Walmart," Brill said. Developers like Costco projects because they can get financing, the brand has tremendous marketing power, and "everybody knows Costco is a great place to shop," he said.

Costco can continue to thrive in the big-box format, Brill said, because the warehouse-style format works with what it sells. Brill said Dick's also is an example of a type of retailer that can support big-box stores. "Sporting goods is something that people like to touch" rather than order online, he said. The restaurant parcels surrounding the big-box stores T.G.I. Fridays, Bahama Breeze, Olive Garden, Panera Bread and Chipotle Mexican Grill also will drive traffic to Willowbrook Mall, as well as to Wayne Towne Center, he said.

The Wayne Towne Center restaurants will effectively serve as outparcels lots detached from a shopping center and usually used for restaurants for Willowbrook Mall, he said. Restaurant tenants love outparcels that have good visibility from highways and mall ring roads, and customers love the convenience of being able to park near a restaurant without entering the mall, he said. "Vornado historically has had a strong presence in the power-center business," Brill said. "They understand it very well." Other power centers in Vornado's portfolio include a Hackensack center with a Home Depot, Staples and Petco; the Ikea property in Paramus; and a Totowa shopping center at Route 46 and Riverview Drive. Ray Beesley, who played the Santa at the old Wayne Towne Center mall for some 20 years, until it was de-malled, and now plays Santa beginning every November at the Ice Caverns in Fairfield, said that every year, parents bring him photos taken in the old mall.

He said he is happy the center is being revived in a new format. The Pen-ney's store, the last holdover from the old mall, "needs that shot in the arm, to keep people coming there," Beesley said. "Costco will bring them back, and the gas station is really going to bring them back." Email: verdonnorthjersey.com ft a-plus roofing Durocher Roofing, i aiuiny, raiiiiiny ot ucncrai ouiiirauiiny ROOF REPAIRSNEW ALL TYPES OF MASONRY SIDING 973-812-0614i Re-Roof Tear-offs Re-Sheathing Gutters Leaders Repair Specialists I cm STORM REPAIRS SENIOR DISCOUNTS Super Service Award with Angies List AF RFAT PDICP! I FREE 5 Star Rating with Home Advisor i FULLY INSURED SIDING LEAK EXPERTS! ft ESTIMATES Fall is for Planting Largest selection of trees, shrubs io hn7s 1 Construction. flowers available anywhere Lowest Prices Finest Quality i ROOFING i IREROOFING NEW CONSTRUCTION RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL I I Quality Work At Reasonable Prices MOST JOBS COMPLETED IN ONE DAY 1 LJ f. 13VH01286400 $2OO00 COMPLETE 1 I ah ROOFING JOB 1 1 Sod CST: Pavers Walls Special quantity prices on all nursery stock Snow Blowers Now in Stock www.carlsonbrothers.com Cape Cod $4950 Bi-Level $5600 Split-Level $5950 Includes: Permit, Rip Off, Dumpster, 25 Year Shingle 201-796-7374 5-02 Banta Place, Fair Lawn NJ Lic.13VH01591200 Patio Demolition Foundation Excavation I Paving Stone Keystone Walll I Concrete Work French Drain I SNOW REMOVAL LIC.13VH03234200 FREE ESTIMATES 111 1 1 I rncc no i iivimi no FULLY INSURED REFERENCES Ed 'Home of unusual and rare plant A Visit is worth 1000 words! MATERA'S Nursery HORTICULTURAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER 514 Broad Ave.

Ridgefield, NJ 201-943-8288 I 201-797-1189 fc275S wwwjamecroofing.biz b'halli day's HANDYMAN SERVICE I Roof Repair Brick Pointing i Window Caulking I Wood Deck Fence Restoration Gutter Repair Cleaning I Chimney Cleaning Over 18 Years Of Experience To advertise in please call Karen Gilbert-Hansford at i American Nursery i 5-16 Saddle River Fair Lawn, NJ.