in our spotlight on business report tonight turning malls into neighborhoods in Bergen County a major redevelopment is underway using property on and adjacent to big shopping centers to build new affordable and luxury housing real estate experts say it's the way of the future as towns find they need to get creative if they want to meet the housing demand and keep their local economies thriving ted Goldberg has the story garden State Plaza could break ground on new apartments later this year as shopping malls statewide look to pivot for us it's less of a pivot and it's more of an addition steven Flor works for Unibile Roamco Westfield the mall's developer he says CO didn't kill malls it just sped up the process for them to change their business model even prior to COVID the mall business was stratifying between the malls that were simply getting stronger and stronger like a Garden State Plaza uh versus other malls that are good pieces of real estate but meant to be something else further into the future the first fully approved phase for the Garden State Plaza would bring 575 apartments onto the property for a place like Pamis uh it's going to be what we believe is going to be a new kind of town center for them uh part of our project is creating an acre and a half town green that provides the knitted connection between the first phase of the project and the mall itself floor says he imagines the apartments will attract young professionals and people looking to downsize while still being near highways and buses this has been a a destination of choice for many over those years i think what we're creating here is only going to strengthen that loyalty because there's going to be many more things for people to explore and spend time and hang out here meanwhile a few miles north an apartment complex next to Pamis Park has done a little more than just break ground we're off off to the races with construction you can see behind me we've poured uh the foundations and footings for the building what's going up now uh you'll see some framing on the other side of the site adam Pastnac works for Russo Property Management owner of the Vermela Pamis apartment building scheduled to open around 300 apartments next spring what's nice about in this situation is Premis Park is not going away his pitch for renters is similar to what's happening at Garden State Plaza a bunch of amenities within walking distance including a mall the mall landed here for a reason it it makes for a great you know location for healthcare makes a great location for for residential for apartment homes and you know we think with our apartment homes in the area there's a lot of jobs that are being brought to the area so it all kind of makes sense once they get home they can leave their car parked in their building and they can walk downstairs and they've got the mall as amenity and they've got the town green as amenity they've got all the new retail in the base of their buildings as amenity at Garden State Plaza 15% of the apartments will be affordable housing while Vermela Pamis will be 4.5% affordable housing we know that redevelopment is the is the way of the future and how a lot of affordable housing is going to get built joshua Bowers is the director of exclusionary zoning litigation for the fair share housing center we have these existing resources you know um in in places like Pamis where you know for instance we're we're focusing on mall redevelopment in in Pamis um in Pamas it's not it's not exactly uh redeveloping the mall but more or less redeveloping the parking lots and actually you know turning them into um something productive where we're going to build structured parking and and build housing it is on underutilized parking it's only used a handful of days of the year it's going to bring a lot of new energy to the site and it's what it's really going to do in the industry is it's going to help people uh think about our properties a little bit differently unless they fight it in court Pamis has to add a thousand units of affordable housing over the next decade despite court battles involving a dozen municipalities Bowers says most municipalities statewide are not fighting mandates for affordable housing stemming from a state law signed early last year we have a lot more participation um at this point in the process than we've ever had at any point in the history of Mount Laurel um we have 440 municipalities that are actually participating which is an increase of almost a hundred from the third round from the last housing cycle the history of Mount Laurel goes back to 1975 the year before Pamis Park opened its doors garden State Plaza has three other phases of construction planned with more housing possibly to come in Pamis i'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News [Music]