{"id":319431,"date":"2026-11-02T11:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/319431\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T11:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:28:07","slug":"neshaminy-mall-in-bensalem-pa-closes-after-58-years-owners-plan-has-yet-to-reach-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/319431\/","title":{"rendered":"Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pa., closes after 58 years; owners&#8217; plan has yet to reach council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BENSALEM, Pa. \u2014 Neshaminy Mall closed for good Saturday after 58 years, and the owners who plan to tear down about half of it have yet to bring a redevelopment plan to Bensalem Township Council.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mall has not been on a council agenda since tenants were told to leave. The <a href=\"https:\/\/bensalempa.gov\/meeting-agendas-and-minutes\/council\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">agendas<\/a> for council\u2019s four meetings from Sept. 14 through Oct. 26 carry no item about it, and it came up in none of the three sets of minutes posted so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boscov\u2019s, the 24-screen AMC theater and Barnes &amp; Noble stay open. The owners, Paramount Realty and Edgewood Properties, said when they bought the mall in 2024 that they would keep those stores and two restaurants in the parking lot, according to a summary of their plans Edgewood posted on its website.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tRest of story locked379 more words \u00b7 2 min<br \/>\n\t\tKeep reading<\/p>\n<p>\t\tStory continues \u00b7 2 min left<\/p>\n<p>Read the rest of this story \u2014 freeWelcome back.That email didn\u2019t go through.<\/p>\n<p>Reader emails keep local news free, with no paywall. You\u2019ll get our newsletter with the Valley\u2019s top stories Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and that\u2019s all we use it for. Do it once and every story stays open.You left the newsletter, so stories past here need your email again. Rejoin and every story opens.We couldn\u2019t deliver to the address you gave. Use another one and every story opens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nl-inline-privacy\">Unsubscribe anytime. <a href=\"https:\/\/lehighdaily.com\/privacy-policy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy policy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What comes next<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That summary said about half the mall would be torn down, that the owners were exploring residential and medical uses and that they would present a plan to the township. They bought the 108.5-acre property from Brookfield Properties for $27.5 million in July 2024, not including the former Macy\u2019s building. Paramount\u2019s website lists the mall as \u201cunder development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A May 2025 sketch plan in a Paramount marketing document showed an \u201copen air main street\u201d with new stores, a four-story hotel and about 700 homes, <a href=\"https:\/\/levittownnow.com\/2026\/10\/05\/nearby-neshaminy-mall-owners-propose-retail-center-housing-hotel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">LevittownNow reported<\/a> in October. The site said it was unclear whether the plan was still current.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Council President Ed Tokmajian Jr. said in a video <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/edtokmajian\/reel\/DdhZ157sZE2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">posted on his Instagram<\/a> that the developer was \u201cworking through a lot of the details,\u201d and Council Secretary Joseph Wenzel Jr. said he would like the site to become \u201csomething more like a town center.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot that still needs to happen, but we are excited about the possibilities and, most importantly, want to hear from you,\u201d Tokmajian wrote with the video, asking residents to suggest a name for the new site.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/neshaminy-mall-in-bensalem-pa-closes-after-58-years-owners-plan-has-yet-to-reach-council-30e97149.jp.jpeg\" alt=\"A mall corridor with a security guard in the foreground and people walking toward a distant entrance.\" class=\"wp-image-12249\"  \/>People walk a Neshaminy Mall corridor on the final day. (Photo posted by GopherPA on Reddit)<\/p>\n<p>Why it emptied<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mall opened in 1968 with Sears and Strawbridge &amp; Clothier as anchors. The Strawbridge store, a Macy\u2019s since 2006, closed in April 2017, and Sears closed in January 2019. By 2024 more than half the stores were vacant, and in September tenants were <a href=\"https:\/\/lehighdaily.com\/neshaminy-mall-in-bensalem-to-close-oct-31-demolition-set-for-december\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told to be out by Oct. 31<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt seems like late 2022\/early 2023 was when things really got dire,\u201d wrote GopherPA, the Reddit user who posted 14 photos from the final hours on the r\/deadmalls forum. \u201cChick fil A, FYE, and the arcade all closed at the end of 2022, and it seems like the stores started dropping like flies after that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWas a great mall in its heyday. Finding a parking spot was a challenge if you could believe it,\u201d another user, philaman01, wrote in the thread.<\/p>\n<p>A piece that survives<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bensalem Township said Thursday that the Washington Crossing diorama from the mall\u2019s \u201cFreedom Wall\u201d has been restored and put on display at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, in a project funded by Penn Community Bank. WHYY filmed the dioramas days before the closing:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/whyypublicmedia\/videos\/2881031565603492\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">View on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BENSALEM, Pa. \u2014 Neshaminy Mall closed for good Saturday after 58 years, and the owners who plan to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[191,193,192,194],"class_list":["post-319431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}