Cortlandt Town Center is a retail power center located in Mohegan Lake, an unincorporated hamlet in the town of Cortlandt, Westchester County, New York. It occupies a site along U.S. Route 6, approximately 40 miles north of New York City, and is frequently described as the principal shopping district of the Cortlandt Manor area; The New York Times referred to it as "the main shopping area of the town of Cortlandt Manor" in 2003.
History and development
The property originated as the Westchester Mall, a largely enclosed community shopping center built in 1975 and anchored by an A&P supermarket. By the 1990s the center had lost several anchors and much of its interior retail space had become vacant.
Between roughly 1995 and 1997 the site was redeveloped and substantially rebuilt as an open-air power center, adopting the name Cortlandt Town Center. The redevelopment added numerous new buildings and converted the property into a predominantly outdoor configuration of large-format stores and pad-site restaurants. Published floor-area figures vary by source, with commonly cited gross leasable area of approximately 750,000 to 772,000 square feet on a single level.
Tenants and features
Reported anchor tenants have included Walmart, The Home Depot, Best Buy, Acme Markets, Barnes & Noble, PetSmart, Michaels, Old Navy, Marshalls, DSW, and HomeGoods. The center also houses a Regal (formerly United Artists) multiplex cinema, a Mohegan Lake branch of the United States Postal Service, and numerous restaurants and smaller retailers. Leasing materials published in the mid-2020s list the center as having roughly 2,700 feet of frontage on Route 6 and more than 3,700 parking spaces.
Ownership
Ownership has changed several times. Acadia Realty Trust acquired the property in 2009 through one of its opportunity funds. In February 2016 New York Life Real Estate Investors acquired a majority interest, with Acadia continuing to manage operations and maintenance. Leasing has been handled by third-party brokerage firms.
Retail changes
Like many regional power centers, the property has experienced tenant turnover. Modell's Sporting Goods, Pier 1 Imports, Dress Barn, OfficeMax, GNC, Payless, and Linens 'n Things are among the chains that formerly operated there before nationwide bankruptcies and closures in the 2010s and 2020s. Local press reported mounting vacancies in 2020, followed by partial repositioning of the empty anchor spaces in subsequent years.
Name variation
The property is occasionally rendered as "Cortlandt Towne Center" in some corporate and leasing materials; this appears to be a spelling variation referring to the same shopping center.
Assessment
The Cortlandt Town Center is an established, documented regional retail complex with coverage in general reference sources and local news media. Specific figures for size, tenant rosters, and ownership percentages vary among sources and by date, and should be treated accordingly.
References
- Wikipedia, "Cortlandt Town Center."
- The New York Times, "If You're Thinking of Living In/Cortlandt Manor" (March 16, 2003); "In the Region/Westchester; Large Shopping Centers Set to Move Northward" (February 26, 1995).
- Acadia Realty Trust, press release on purchase of the property (January 29, 2009).
- The Examiner News, "Vacancies at Cortlandt Town Center Continue to Mount" (November 3, 2020).
- Katz & Associates leasing brochure, Cortlandt Town Center, 3121 East Main Street, Mohegan Lake, NY.
