Developers have pitched a $200 million plan to rip the roof off a struggling Long Island shopping mall and reinvent it as an open-air retail destination, a bet that brick-and-mortar shopping still has a future, even as tens of thousands of stores nationwide prepare to close.
The proposal, submitted to the Oyster Bay Town Board this week, would transform Broadway Commons mall into a rebranded property called "Shops on Broadway." The plan calls for removing much of the mall's existing roof structure and converting the site into what developers describe as a lifestyle center, an open-air mix of shopping, dining, and entertainment designed to lure customers who long ago stopped showing up to enclosed malls.
Town Supervisor Joe Saladino said construction could begin early next year if the board approves the project. The town has opened a 20-day public comment period so residents can weigh in before any vote. The Sun reported that the developers behind the proposal were not publicly named in the submission.
Broadway Commons has not aged well. Local residents have described the property as a "disaster," and the redevelopment push comes as the mall sits in a retail corridor already undergoing change. Across the street, a former Sears store is being converted into Long Island's first Bass Pro Shops location, a sign that the area's old retail anchors have already given way.
At least one local shopper told a Long Island news outlet that the neighborhood could absorb the investment.
"This area can handle it. They're doing a big renovation across the street, so they've got to step up."
That sentiment, that the mall needs to match the energy of new development nearby or risk falling further behind, captures the basic logic of the proposal. If Bass Pro Shops is drawing foot traffic to one side of the street, a gutted, half-empty enclosed mall on the other side becomes an even harder sell.
The Broadway Commons plan lands in the middle of a brutal stretch for American retail. UBS has projected that the total number of brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States will drop from 958,000 to roughly 913,000 over the next five years, a loss of about 45,000 locations. The hardest-hit categories since 2019 include clothing stores, consumer electronics retailers, sporting goods shops, bookstores, music stores, and home furnishing outlets.
Some of the names are already gone. Bed Bath & Beyond closed every physical location and retreated to online-only operations. Tuesday Morning and furniture maker Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams both filed for bankruptcy in 2023. Foot Locker announced that same year it would shutter up to 400 stores by 2026.
The survivors, according to UBS, tend to be big-box operators with scale and supply-chain muscle, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, and Target. Smaller specialty retailers and aging enclosed malls sit on the wrong side of that divide.
Developers nationwide have spent the last decade trying to answer the same question Broadway Commons now faces: what do you do with a mid-century enclosed mall that no longer draws shoppers? The most common answer has been some version of the "lifestyle center" model, tear off the roof, add restaurants and entertainment, create outdoor walkways, and hope the experience pulls people away from their screens.
Whether this particular $200 million bet pays off depends on factors the proposal does not address publicly. The developers remain unnamed. The specific mix of tenants, the construction timeline beyond "early next year," and the financing structure behind the project are all unclear. The Oyster Bay Town Board has not laid out the criteria it will use to evaluate the plan once the public comment window closes.
What is clear is the status quo. Broadway Commons sits in a town that already considers it a failure, in a retail sector that is shedding stores by the thousands, across the street from a competitor that is building something new. Doing nothing is its own kind of decision, and not a promising one.
Two hundred million dollars is a serious number. But for communities watching their retail corridors hollow out, the real cost is letting a dead mall sit there and rot.