The most-watched redevelopment site in Westfield has spent 2026 going nowhere. One Westfield Place, the plan to remake the shuttered Lord & Taylor building and the parking lots around the train station into offices, homes, and public space, is not moving forward in its current form. Its developer's parent company spent the first half of the year in Chapter 11.
Two blocks away, on Elm Street, someone closed on a fully approved mixed-use redevelopment site for $3.7 million and is already planning to build the apartments it comes with.
If you are weighing a home near downtown Westfield right now, that contrast matters more than either headline on its own. One tells you a specific company hit a specific wall. The other tells you what the market actually thinks about the three blocks around it.
What Actually Stopped Moving
One Westfield Place has been in some form of public process since 2020, when the town designated the Lord & Taylor property and eight municipal parking lots as areas in need of redevelopment. The town conditionally designated Streetworks Development, then a unit of Hudson's Bay Company, as the project's redeveloper before the end of that year, and the Town Council adopted the formal Redevelopment Plan and Redevelopment Agreement in early 2023. HBC went on to acquire Neiman Marcus Group in a $2.7 billion deal in December 2024, creating the new company Saks Global.
In January 2026, Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 and asked the bankruptcy court to let it reject leases on 26 shuttered stores nationwide, including the vacant Lord & Taylor in Westfield. That single filing pulled a local redevelopment plan into a national retail restructuring that had nothing to do with North Avenue.
The town did not sit still. Officials retained bankruptcy counsel, confirmed through the process that Saks Global stayed current on its Westfield property taxes, and pursued a roughly $153,000 cure claim tied to money owed the town. Saks Global secured $500 million in exit financing and emerged from bankruptcy in late June 2026 under a new name, Exemplar Luxury Group, refocused on luxury retail rather than real estate development.
Weeks later, at a July council meeting, Mayor Jeremy Berman told residents the reset had a consequence. "One Westfield Place will not be moving forward in its current form." The property's owners intend to sell the former Lord & Taylor building and two adjacent North Avenue parcels rather than build what was approved. Berman said the town already understood there was strong interest from experienced local developers, and that marketing of the site could start within days of his announcement.
He also drew a line that matters for anyone tracking how much of downtown is actually in play. The North Avenue and South Avenue municipal parking lots that were part of the original plan remain town property, and the council has no interest in selling or redeveloping them. Whatever happens next, it happens on a smaller footprint than the original 2020 designation covered.
Two Blocks Away, on Elm Street
While that story was unfolding at the courthouse, a much quieter transaction closed at 184 Elm Street. The Kislak Company announced the sale in August 2026: a 6,000-square-foot retail building with an additional 6,000 square feet of rentable basement office space, on-site parking, and a full approval already in hand to add two stories and ten market-rate apartments above the existing retail. The building's tenants include Haven Savings Bank. It sold for $3.7 million, and the buyer intends to build the approved apartments while leasing up the remaining retail space.
Nobody needed a PILOT agreement, a bond authorization, or a set of project LLCs to make that deal happen. It needed a broker, a buyer with a checkbook, and paperwork that was already done.
| One Westfield Place | 184 Elm Street | |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | Multi-parcel redevelopment valued around $400 million | Single building, $3.7 million sale |
| Financing structure | Developer-backed PILOT, eight project entities | Conventional private purchase |
| Status as of mid-2026 | Paused, owners marketing site for sale | Closed, new owner proceeding on approved plans |
| What's exposed | The Lord & Taylor building and two North Avenue parcels | Nothing beyond the one parcel |
Why the Freeze and the Sale Aren't the Same Story
The size of a redevelopment plan determines how fragile it is, and not in the direction most people assume. A bigger project usually looks safer because it has more institutional weight behind it. In practice, the opposite happened here. One Westfield Place needed a single sponsor to carry roughly $400 million of exposure across office space, retail, housing, and the public plaza and street improvements promised along North Avenue, funded through a PILOT that tied the whole plan to one company's balance sheet. When that company's parent went through Chapter 11 to restructure its retail business nationwide, the department store's own lease obligations, Westfield's included, became one line item in a much larger case that had nothing to do with how well downtown Westfield was performing.
A $3.7 million building with approvals already in place does not carry that kind of exposure. It is sized so that one buyer's own capital covers the entire risk. There is no parent company's balance sheet standing between the site and its next chapter, so there is nothing for a bankruptcy court in another state to interrupt.
That is the actual lesson from this year, not that downtown Westfield's momentum stalled, but that the size and structure of a deal determines how exposed it is to problems that have nothing to do with the town. The smaller, privately financed deals kept closing all year. The one deal that required a national retail conglomerate's balance sheet is the one that got stuck.
What This Means If You're Buying or Selling Near North Avenue
For buyers: price what exists today, not what has been proposed. The former Lord & Taylor building is vacant and will stay that way through at least one more ownership change, so if a walkable, active downtown is part of what you're paying for, look at what has actually opened nearby rather than what a rendering promised. Maize Cocina & Cocktails opened inside the North Avenue train station building in October 2024. PopUp Bagels signed for the former Westfield Seafood space and Bagel Cafe NJ took a spot on North Avenue East, both announced in 2026. That is retail investment happening on its own schedule, independent of whatever comes next for the Lord & Taylor parcel.
For sellers: resist leaning on "the Lord & Taylor site is about to be redeveloped" as a selling point right now. The mayor's own words made clear that whatever gets built next is a new plan on a new timeline, not a continuation of the one that was approved. What you can lean on is what is already true. Buyers were not waiting on the Lord & Taylor outcome to make decisions of their own this year, and a fully approved redevelopment two blocks away just changed hands at a real price with construction plans intact.
The uncertainty that exists is specific and bounded. It applies to one building and two adjacent parcels on North Avenue, not to the downtown as a whole, and the town has been explicit that its own parking assets are not part of any future sale.
A Few Questions This Raises
Does the vacant Lord & Taylor building hurt nearby home values? There is no evidence of that in the record so far. A separate redevelopment site two blocks away, 184 Elm Street, sold at a real price in August 2026 with construction plans intact, which points to continued confidence in the corridor rather than hesitation.
When will something be built on the Lord & Taylor site? There is no date yet. The mayor has said the property is being marketed to new owners and that any future plan still requires town approval, but as of the most recent public reporting, no buyer has been announced.
Could Westfield taxpayers end up covering costs if a future developer runs into trouble too? The town has said no. It retained bankruptcy counsel throughout the Saks Global case, confirmed the developer stayed current on property taxes, and structured the original plan around a developer-backed PILOT rather than taxpayer funding. The municipal parking lots included in the original plan remain town owned regardless of what happens to the private parcels.
What should I actually look at if I'm considering a home near the train station? Look at what is open and trading now, the restaurants and shops that have leased space in the past two years, recent sale prices on downtown-adjacent parcels like 184 Elm Street, and current days-on-market figures, rather than the fate of one vacant building.
If you're weighing a move near downtown Westfield and want a clearer read on what a specific block or a specific parcel's history means for your decision, The Isoldi Collection can walk through the comparable sales and the current picture with you. Request a Private Market Consultation and we'll get you the local read the portals can't give you.
