New mall opens at Flushing Caldor site

From the Times Ledger:

A stunning new Asian mall has opened at the long-vacant Caldor site at the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in downtown Flushing.

New World Mall, at 136-30 Roosevelt Ave., is a four-floor emporium replete with the 45,000-square-foot J Mart Chinese grocery store, a 150-table Cantonese restaurant, a massive basement food court and dozens of Asian stores.

The 167,000-square-foot space, which is centered around a bank of new escalators, is decadently decorated with chandeliers, soaring ceilings and a dazzling array of shopping and eating options.

The top-floor restaurant’s tables were almost all filled with diners eager to try its dim sum even on a weekday morning last week, and the food court was bustling with hungry patrons.

“It’s a brand-new, mixed-use shopping mall,” Sharon Shi, a broker for Perfect Group Realty, which represents the project, said in September. “The majority of people are Chinese, so the purpose is to pick up a Chinese supermarket, but of course there will be American food, too.”

Of course.

Caldor site to reopen as Asian mall

From the Times Ledger:

The former site of the Caldor department store in downtown Flushing is slated to open by the end of the year as a mall with a wide range of new amenities for area shoppers.

In the building located at the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, construction has been underway for months on what will be called the “New World Mall.”

“This mall will have a supermarket, restaurants, lots of stores,” said Sharon Shi, a broker for Perfect Group Realty, which represents the project. “It’s a mixed-use, brand new shopping mall.”

But the supermarket might be a point of contention with the area’s non-Asian residents, many of whom have been vocally opposed to the conversion of two Key Food store locations into Asian groceries in the past year.

Community Board 7 District Manager Marilyn Bitterman said she believes the supermarket will primarily serve American foods, but will offer an Asian food section.

“They’re very receptive,” she said. “They want to bring in American stores, not just have an Asian mall.”

But on Tuesday, Shi said the store will be a primarily Asian one.

“It will not be an American supermarket,” she said. “The majority of people are Chinese, so the purpose is to pick up a Chinese supermarket, but of course there will be American food, too.”

Mall at Caldor site delayed

From the Queens Chronicle:

Flushing shoppers will have to wait a little longer for the opening of the New World Mall at the old Caldor site in Flushing. Plans now call for it to open in October, a month later than expected.

The 165,000-square-foot building, at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, has been closed since Caldor went out of business 11 years ago. It previously was the location of Alexander’s and prior to that, S. Klein department store.

One of the developers is Sam Chang of McSam Hotels, LLC. on Long Island. According to a spokeswoman, Helen Suen, the three-level store will be converted into shops for nationally known retailers such as the Gap and Cohen’s Optical on the first level, a supermarket on the second floor and an Asian food court on the third.

The developers are in negotiations with other potential retailers they will not yet name. But Suen said the food court will include several eateries featuring Korean, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. The original plan had called for just one restaurant.

The location includes 350 underground parking spots and there will be valets used when the mall opens. Although Flushing officials are happy the vacant store will be used again, they are concerned about how the new mall will affect traffic in an already congested area.

Gene Kelty, chairman of Community Board 7, noted that corner of Main and Roosevelt is particularly busy and that the Department of Transportation is beginning a six-month traffic redirection pilot program in the area beginning in mid-July.