An Inside Look at ‘America’s Saddest Mall’ on Black Friday in NJ

Over the past couple of years, a lot has been written about Hamilton Mall in Mays Landing. Most of it, not very positive.

As shopping habits have changed, especially since COVID, many malls in New Jersey have struggled while some continue to survive.

Among those surviving and thriving malls would be the Deptford and Cherry Hill Malls on the other side of South Jersey. All you need to do is stop by on any given night and you'll see just how crowded those malls are. In some cases, they're wall-to-wall with people. And in some cases, they're so popular that they even tried charging for parking (that was a failed experiment, by the way). They've evolved into shopping and entertainment destinations with lots of things to do.

And then there's Hamilton Mall, right in the middle of Atlantic County. Dubbed by some online as the "saddest mall in America."

Hamilton Mall Could Still Thrive

Now, before you think this is yet another post on the internet that'll be bashing that shopping center, allow me to say what I've been saying for some time: with a little effort, Hamilton Mall could be one of those thriving malls.

Sure, it lost two of its three big anchor stores a number of years ago, but the mall sits right in the middle of 375,000 people in Atlantic and Cape May Counties. While the era of running into Sears is gone and is never coming back -- and the mall seems to be stuck in that timeframe -- that huge property could certainly evolve if the folks who own it put some effort into it.

And as stores there continue to close or move to neighboring shopping centers, we decided to visit Hamilton Mall on Black Friday to see how big of a crowd was there. If there was ever a way to gauge the interest in people shopping at that mall, this would be it.

Black Friday Visit Showed a Little Promise

And, honestly, the mall, which has about four dozen stores open inside, was more active than I thought it would be, although the pictures below don't quite show that. Unless thousands and thousands of people are there all at the same time, the one-million-square-foot mall is going to look empty.

Macy's had quite a large number of cars parked in front of its doors, as did the mall's general entrances. The food court was buzzing, too. But while you had to fight long lines at Walmart and Target just across the street, Hamilton Mall wasn't exactly overflowing with shoppers, and Santa didn't exactly have a long line of kids waiting to see him.