Zumiez, an escape room and reopened Claire's on tap for Green Acres Mall
A Claire's accessory store, at right on the upper level of the Green Acres Mall, before it closed last year after the company filed for bankruptcy. Plans are in place for the store to reopen, mall officials said.
The clothing retailer Zumiez and an Florida-based chain's second Long Island escape roomcould both be coming to the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream — and accessory retailer Claire’s would be joining them, reopening at the mall after closing last year.
The escape room company, Escapology, is in talks to open at the mall, after its first Island outpost opened in Levittown in 2022, company CEO Burton Heiss told Newsday. The company has not yet signed a lease with Green Acres, Heiss added.
The new Escapology would be staffed by 15 to 20 employees and hold eight or nine escape rooms, where guests solve puzzles to figure out how to get out, Heiss said. It would likely open in early 2027, he said.
Escape rooms are part of a growing trend of experience-focused venues opening on Long Island. Escapology is one of multiple tenants planning to open at Green Acres as the mall undergoes a massive redevelopment, estimated to cost $130 million to $150 million.
The Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency approved a new sublease for Zumiez on May 19 for a 2,646-square-foot store in the mall, which is owned by the Santa Monica, California-based real estate investment trust The Macerich Co.
The IDA holds title to the mall and Green Acres Commons, a nearby shopping center. The properties operate under agreements called payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, which the agency approved in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Macerich, which is considered to be leasing the properties, must get the IDA’s approval for the tenants’ subleases until the tax-break deal ends.
Claire’s plans to reopen in its previous space on the second level of the mall early next year, said Green Acres spokesperson Arun Khosla, who did not immediately share when Zumiez would open. Representatives for both retailers did not respond to requests for comment.
Claire’s filed for bankruptcy last year and closed the Green Acres store. In September, the private investment company Ames Watson, based in Columbia, Maryland, purchased the retailer for $140 million, according to a news release from the company.
The new Escapology would be one of several experience-focused venues — from yoga studios to trampoline parks to ax-throwing ranges — opening at malls across Long Island, Newsday has reported. Since the pandemic, these types of tenants have grown in popularity locally and nationally, said Melissa Naeder, a senior director in the Melville office of Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate brokerage.
"Experiential retail has become one of the biggest drivers of traffic and tenant demand across Long Island’s premier shopping centers," Naeder said. Long Island’s malls "are competing on experience."
Part of the increased demand is the impact of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, when consumers were anxious to get back to in-person activities, Naeder said. Another factor may be the small but growing number of people trying to ditch their smartphones for more in-person activities, according to Heiss.
"I like to call escape rooms ‘60 minutes to forget you own a smartphone,’ " Heiss said. "We're more increasingly connected to devices, so we're increasingly looking for a relief from that and something different to do — something that feels real and tangible and reconnects with friends and family."
The Green Acres site would add to Escapology’s nearly 100 U.S. and 20 international locations, Heiss said.
Newsday's Tory N. Parrish contributed to this story.
