Retroguy 76's blog

 This new blog post is on the Ocean county mall in Toms River, Nj which is not far away from Seaside heights and Jersey shore house where the Guidos and Guidettes fist pumped into the wee hours of the morning. Is this more still doing well today in 2025??!!  The mall opened on July 20th 1976 which is 12 days after I was born .the mall was developed  by Debartlo. The mall sits a mile off busy rt 37 with most of the big stores located off Hooper avenue. The original anchors were JC Penny, Sears and Bamberger’s. The first anchor change was the most obvious Bamberger’s converting to Macy’s in 1986 before another change a new Stern’s opened at the mall in 1988  which closed in 2001 as Macy’s eliminated the Stern’s branding and reopened as a Boscov’s Sears lasted till 2018 as they closed and the store was redeveloped with ichiban Japanese, Pf Changs and a few other places. Also a lifestyle center on the property with Five Below, Homesense, Ulta Beauty, LA fitness and other...

 Halloween weekend, a new anchor will open at the Freehold Raceway Mall. Dick’s sporting goods house of sport will be opening in what was Lord and Taylor when the mall opened in 1990. The store will be replacing an existing Dick’s on the property which opened in the 2000’s  The only empty anchor left to replace is what was Nordstrom that close during the 2020 pandemic maybe Bloomingdale’s or Boscov’s we shall see but Freehold is back almost to where it was at before the pandemic