Broadway Mall - History

History

The mall was originally built as an open air shopping center as Mid Island Plaza in the late 1950s, as the population of Nassau County, Long Island surged and the area became a major suburban population center. Gertz, a department store based then in downtown Jamaica Queens, and a unit of the then Allied Stores Corporation planned the center and built a 5 level store to anchor the facility. The Gertz store was reported to be the tallest suburban department store ever built. In the early 1980s, Gertz closed their downtown Jamaica store, and this location became its new flagship store, and the Gertz corporate staff was relocated to the 5th floor of the Broadway Mall location. A few years later Allied merged its Gertz division into its Paramus, New Jersey based Stern's division. All former Gertz locations were re-branded as Stern's, and a regional corporate staff remained at the Broadway Mall store. The store was then rebranded as Macy's in 2001 when Federated Department Stores folded their Stern's Division.

In 1991, IKEA opened their second store in the New York Metropolitan Area at the mall (The Elizabeth, NJ store opened 1990). Until 2003, the store was not connected to the mall (although only about 20 feet separated the mall from the store). IKEA did, however, maintain a display in the center court where its mall entrance would eventually be. It is currently one of the only IKEA stores that is connected to a mall and has a mall entrance.

The mall also serves as a transit hub for the Hicksville area, with the n20, n48, n49, and n50 passing by the mall. The n80 and n81 buses loop around it, serving the rear. These routes are operated by Nassau Inter-County Express.