Woodbridge Center Mall has been sold … but what comes next?

Please don’t tell me Woodbridge Center Mall is going to become some funky mixed-use property. My nostalgic heart can’t take it.

Please don’t let it become part medical offices, part condominiums with only some retail. Oh and please don’t let them tear the roof off half of it and have it become some outdoor retail space.

All of these are things they’re doing to reinvent other New Jersey malls and listen, I know the mall concept is in trouble. I understand the way people are shopping is changing.

SEE ALSO: Enormous change coming to one of NJ's biggest malls

But come on, fate, you have to understand some things. Like how Woodbridge Center Mall was my teenage hangout. It’s where I worked. It’s where my boys and I hung out in Space Port and Sam Goody’s and talked to girls.

It’s where I answered the pay phone once and some girl named Gina described exactly what I was wearing but my friends and I couldn’t figure out what other pay phone she was calling us from and the craziness led to us eventually meeting at the Port Reading carnival and going out for awhile. It’s where I had the most fun bar night at Sweet Lou’s Pub with my best friend and our respective girlfriends after a day of Christmas shopping.

So when I read that Woodbridge Center had been sold, I thought, uh oh.

Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac broke the news the mall had been sold in his State of the Township address on Friday. Here’s what little we know.

We know there’s a buyer. We know the buyer says they plan on keeping it as a shopping, dining and entertainment center. We know some changes are expected.

McCormac says he’s prohibited from revealing anything more until the transaction is finalized. We don’t even know the buyer’s identity at this point.

"The Lord & Taylor store, which like Macy’s is separately owned from the mall owner, is closing in on a sale of that building which will also provide a spark to the new mall owners with people working in high-end jobs on site to shop and dine on a daily basis," said Mayor McCormac. He said he was not at liberty to give any more information on that either.

One thing mycentraljersey.com is reporting, the mayor made clear that the township would not accept any housing or warehouse components with the Woodbridge Center Mall property.

So what will become of the Woodbridge Center those of use from the Union County Middlesex County area are so familiar with? We just have to wait to find out. But with so many New Jersey malls making so many radical changes, the wait is going to be tense.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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