Cross County Shopping Center marks a milestone

It was 1954 and America was not yet “at the mall.”

In Nashville, Elvis Presley recorded his first songs early that year.

The Hudson Motor Car Co. merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corp. to form the American Motors Corp., at the time the largest corporate merger in U.S. history.

A promising power hitter named Hank Aaron made his Major League debut with the Milwaukee Braves.

RCA manufactured the first color TV set. It came with a 12 ½-inch screen and a $1,000 price tag.

In March that year, the first shopping mall opened in Southfield, Mich.

In Yonkers, developer Sol Atlas had a similar vision for postwar American shoppers. On April 28, 1954, Atlas, with financial backing from Scarsdale businessman Leonard Marx Sr., opened the Cross County Shopping Center. The first large-scale open-air shopping center in Westchester and first mall-type venue in New York, Atlas”™s $30 million development was considered one of the most ambitious commercial projects of its kind in the nation.

Cross County opened with about 30 retail stores and one restaurant, Horn & Hardart, which seated 500 diners. It soon expanded to include more than a dozen buildings and nearly 100 stores anchored by Gimbels and Wanamaker”™s.

Sixty years later, Cross County”™s current owner, Brooks Shopping Center L.L.C., and its management company, Macerich, are celebrating the anniversary of its opening with a series of events that began with a VIP kick-off celebration April 28. Summerfest at Cross County this year will include a daylong “60 years of Summers” event July 12.

Marx, the pioneering developer”™s initial financial backer, in 1977 acquired the approximately 70-acre property with Charles Benenson on behalf of a strategic partnership between Merchants”™ National Properties Inc. and Benenson Capital Partners L.L.C. The two New York City-based real estate investment, development and management companies formed Brooks Shopping Centers.

The enduring shopping center was rejuvenated in recent years by a $250 million renovation and expansion project completed in 2011. Two of its tenants since the late 1950s, Suzette”™s Lingerie and Sterling Optical, are among its current mix of 70 national and international retailers. Its 50s-era department store anchors have been succeeded by Macy”™s, Sears, Super Stop & Shop and Multiplex Cinemas.

Construction began this year at Cross County on Hyatt Place Yonkers, a 155-room hotel in an eight-story tower at the center of the shopping center that was formerly used as a hospital and office building. The approximately $25 million development of Manhattan-based Friend Development Group L.L.C. and Lodge Works Partners L.P. of Wichita, Kansas, is expected to be completed in 2015.

“Throughout the last six decades Cross County has enjoyed a steady growth in its business and an increase in daily shoppers,” James Stifel, executive vice president for Brooks Shopping Centers and chief investment officer for Benenson Capital Partners, said in a prepared statement. “The success of Cross County is a testimony to its strategic location and the vision of its founders.”

[box type=”info” float=”right” head=”Building by the numbers”]Construction of the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers began in 1952 and was completed in 1954. Here is what went into the development, according to its current management:
Ӣ 38,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough for a 15-mile-long highway.
Ӣ 1 million cubic yards of fill.
Ӣ 50,000 cubic yards of rock excavated.
Ӣ 75 miles of wood and steel pilings.
Ӣ 12 miles of pipes.
Ӣ 5.3 million bricks.
Ӣ Blueprints weighed 30 tons.
Ӣ 2,000 tons of reinforcing steel.
Ӣ 5,300 tons of structural steel.
Ӣ 30,000 trees and shrubs planted for landscape.
Ӣ More than 2 million man hours of labor.[/box]