Last year, the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, New Jersey closed. Admittedly, the Monmouth Mall was in poor condition for a very long time and the plan to close the interior mall had been in the works for years. The property is owned by the Kushner Companies and they’re planning to turn the site into an outdoor, walkable commerce area along with new housing (apartments and condos, I believe) along with dining, healthcare services, and more. Anyway, I took the pictures below in May 2024 and you can see how utterly empty the mall was back then. you can click any of these pictures to get a bigger view of the image.

Some of the existing stores have already moved to their new locations, including Barnes & Noble. For my part, the new format for the Barnes & Noble isn’t really for me. It’s beautiful, I guess, and there are a ton of books (and non-books, along with a café), but the space is definitely more of the Amazon style (books facing outward) and less of the classic library style that they had in their old footprint. So, since it’s pretty much Amazon, but with higher prices, I’ve been buying my books on Amazon since the new Barnes & Noble opened in November 2024. Kind of a bummer, although I’ve been to the Barnes & Noble in Freehold and Toms River and they’re both still in the old format, thankfully.

Just wanted to post this entry to share these pictures. As of this writing, the old Barnes & Noble is actually torn down except for the roof as is most of the interior mall, though the roof is gone from that part of the mall. It’s a little weird being able to look directly through where the mall used to be, but that’s how these big real estate developments work. I used to love going to the mall to walk around and see what the shops were selling – especially around the holidays. I don’t think I’ll be doing that in the new, outdoor format because, well, it gets cold out side!