Exton Square Mall Shuttering After 50-Plus Years As Mixed-Use Plans Remain Stalled

While much of the Exton Square Mall will shutter next week, plans to redevelop the property as a mixed-use destination remain up in the air as stakeholders await the outcomes of two legal challenges.

The enclosed portion of the 53-year-old mall is closing June 30, Abrams Realty & Development founder Peter Abrams said. He estimated that the interior parts of the shopping center are between 10% and 20% occupied, with fewer than 10 tenants.

The Boscov’s, Round One and Main Line Health locations will remain open. They each have their own parking and entrances.

“The tenancy in the mall has been slowly deteriorating month by month,” Abrams said. 

“Given the delay and being in this, for lack of a better word, purgatory, we made the decision it was in everybody’s best interest to shut it down.”

In addition to its deteriorating physical condition, Abrams said the largely empty property’s status as “an attractive nuisance for kids” has created untenable insurance and security costs.

The shopping center magnate bought the property for $34M last year with the intention of converting it into a mixed-use community. The latest iteration of the design included more than 700 residential units and 280K SF of retail on a walkable campus. Abrams now expects the full project to deliver in late 2029 or 2030.

His plans came to a halt when the West Whiteland Board of Supervisors rejected ARD’s master plan proposal in October, a decision the developer appealed via a civil suit in the Chester County Court of Common Pleas.

Attorneys representing ARD and the municipality presented their arguments to Judge Sarah Black in April. She still hasn’t rendered a verdict.

After the hearing, ARD’s attorney, Marc Kaplin, said he and the developer met with municipal officials in an effort to resolve the matter outside of court, but the two parties weren’t able to come to an agreement.

“We had a meeting. It was not fruitful,” the Kaplin Stewart principal said.

West Whiteland Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Rajesh Kumbhardare, who is named in the suit, declined Bisnow’s request for comment Thursday, citing the ongoing litigation. The township’s attorney, Kilkenny Law shareholder Alex Baumler, didn’t respond.

Kaplin said ARD’s Exton Square application was submitted shortly before the township changed the town center zoning ordinance governing the property to prevent the level of density included in the current plan.

While the attorney said the project is by right under the old code the application was submitted under, ARD has challenged the updated ordinance on the municipal level with the West Whiteland Zoning Hearing Board. It is an effort to preserve a path forward for the plan if the civil suit doesn’t go ARD’s way and it has to reapply.

“If for some crazy reason we lost the appeal, and if we don’t challenge that ordinance, then we could never redevelop the mall,” Kaplin said.

The attorney has previously said that this level of density is needed for the project to pencil.

The third and final hearing with the Zoning Hearing Board was on April 16, and Kaplin said he expects to get a decision from the body next week.