On a Sunday morning in July, the busiest corner of Newark is not the one most residents would have named five years ago. The Marin Farmers Markets nonprofit still sets up on the NewPark Mall property, but the shoppers walking between the stalls and the 350 NewPark Mall Road parking lot are just as likely to be pushing a Costco flatbed as carrying a canvas tote. That overlap is the story of the summer.
The mall that anchored Newark's retail identity for four decades is no longer a mall in the sense your neighbors grew up with. It is a hybrid: warehouse club, movie house, farmers market, construction site, and, starting late next year, a Canadian grocery chain's largest California store. If you already live here, the practical question is not whether to mourn the old NewPark. It is how to route a Saturday around what the site has actually become.
The mall stopped being a mall in the way you remember
Two dated facts frame everything else. Macy's closed in March 2025 as part of a national round of 66 store closures. Then in June 2026, Brookfield Properties confirmed that the former Macy's box will become a T&T Supermarket, the Canadian grocery chain's largest California location at more than 72,600 square feet, expected to open in late 2027. That is a fifteen-month gap where Newark's largest department store sat dark, and it changed how the entire property reads.
The Costco piece is older news, but its footprint keeps mattering. The 152,000-square-foot warehouse at 350 NewPark Mall Road sits next to the mall right off Interstate 880, and it eliminated what used to be a 4 to 14 mile drive to Fremont, Hayward, or San Jose for Costco members. Add the AMC 12 with IMAX and the Sunday farmers market that Marin Farmers Markets has run on the property for years, and NewPark now works as four separate destinations that happen to share a parking lot.
The construction changes the calculus further. The southern parking lots will make way for five new residential developments delivering 1,519 units and roughly 2,800 residents, with an activated retail-and-residential street woven through parks, plazas, and commercial outlets. In other words, the site is being rebuilt as a small neighborhood, not restocked as a shopping center.
The anchor timeline, in one glance
| Anchor | What happened | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Macy's | Closed as part of 66 nationwide store closures | March 2025 |
| Costco (350 NewPark Mall Rd) | Opened next to the mall, 152,000 sq ft | Nov 18, 2023 |
| AMC 12 with IMAX | Operating since the 2017 renovation | Ongoing |
| Sunday Farmers Market | Run on mall property by Marin Farmers Markets | Ongoing |
| T&T Supermarket | Announced for former Macy's box, 72,600+ sq ft | Opening late 2027 |
| Residential build-out | 1,519 units across five buildings on southern parking lots | Under way |
Read the column on the right and the pattern is obvious. The site's identity is being rewritten in three-year increments, and the summer of 2026 sits in the middle of the rewrite. If you bought your home when Macy's was still the visual anchor of Cedar Boulevard, the mental map you use to explain Newark to guests is already out of date.
Why the summer calendar drifted east to Cedar Boulevard
While NewPark absorbed its retail changes, Newark's community calendar quietly consolidated on the civic side of town. The events that draw the biggest local crowds this July are not at the mall.
The International Kite Festival lands at Newark Junior High on Saturday, July 18, starting at 11:00 a.m., and 3ER Festival Viva Peru takes over Swiss Park Newark the following Sunday, July 26. Swiss Park has become the default venue for the cultural festivals that fill the shoulder months as well, with 90s @ The Park V returning on September 26 and Gran Festival Viva Nicaragua the day after. Then the 2026 Newark Days Celebration runs Thursday, September 17 through Sunday, September 20, primarily around the MacGregor Fields and Newark Community Center at 35501 Cedar Blvd.
The shift is worth naming. A decade ago, a summer Saturday in Newark routed through the mall interior and stayed there. Today the interior draws a movie audience and a grocery run, and the crowd that used to browse storefronts is at Lakeshore Park, at Swiss Park, or at the Newark Community Center. The mall is a utility. The community is at Cedar.
A July Saturday that uses both sides of town
If you want a route that respects what each side of town does well, here is one that a Newark resident could run this month without doubling back.
- Start at the Sunday farmers market on the NewPark property. Arrive early, do produce, walk a full lap. This is the last window before the T&T Supermarket build-out reshuffles the parking geometry on the north end.
- Detour into the mall for the specific errands the interior still does well. The 12-screen AMC with IMAX is the reliable indoor option when the afternoon heat spikes, and Jack's Restaurant & Bar remains one of the few sit-down anchors inside the ring.
- Cross to Costco next door. Because the warehouse is a one-minute drive from Cedar Boulevard, Farwell Drive, and I-880 Exit 17, the trip you used to plan as a separate afternoon now folds into the same loop as the farmers market.
- Move to Cedar Boulevard for a mid-day break. Bistro 880 inside the Doubletree still handles the sit-down lunch reliably. HiroNori Craft Ramen, Hungry Cow, and Rasa Bowls all sit on the same side of town if the group leans casual.
- End on the civic side. Lakeshore Park handles the afternoon walk. If it is the third weekend, the International Kite Festival at Newark Junior High absorbs the rest of the day. Swiss Park handles the following Sunday if Viva Peru fits the group.
The point of the loop is not the individual stops. It is that Newark now supports a Saturday that spans a Canadian grocer's future footprint, a farmers market, a warehouse club, three restaurants that did not exist at scale ten years ago, and a civic cluster on Cedar, all inside a fifteen-minute drive radius.
What this means if you own here
The value of a Newark home is tied to a physical center of gravity, and that center is moving in a specific direction. Costco has already been priced in. The T&T Supermarket announcement has not. The 1,519-unit residential build-out on the mall's southern lots has been approved on paper but has not yet appeared in the daily experience of driving Mowry Avenue.
Sellers thinking about a 2026 or 2027 exit should know that the walkability story around NewPark is about to get materially stronger, not weaker, and buyers touring homes on the Cedar side are already asking about it. Owners on the Lakeshore Park side of town have a different pitch to make: the civic calendar has consolidated on your side of the freeway, and the events at Swiss Park, MacGregor Fields, and Newark Junior High are now the anchor of the Newark summer that the mall used to provide.
Either way, the neighborhood a buyer is evaluating in 2026 is not the neighborhood that shows up in a five-year-old listing description. The gap between the two is where preparation, positioning, and pricing decisions get made.
If you are weighing what your Newark home looks like against this shifting map, a conversation grounded in the specifics of your street, your block, and your timeline is the fastest way to get clarity. Sanjay Mitra works with Newark owners and buyers on exactly that kind of local read. Schedule a consultation when you are ready to make the map work for you.
