New World Mall

New World Mall

Company type	Private
Industry	Retail
Founded	2011 (2011)
Headquarters	Flushing, Queens, New York City , United States
Products	Retail stores, food court, supermarket, banquet hall

Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates

New World Mall is an Asian-themed retail complex situated at 136‑20 Roosevelt Avenue within Flushing Chinatown, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City. When it debuted in 2011, it held the distinction of being the largest Asian shopping center in the Northeastern United States.

Features

Entrance on Roosevelt Avenue in 2018

Occupying four floors and encompassing approximately 165,000 square feet, New World Mall extends along Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York City. The mall’s layout includes a basement level housing a food court, retail spaces on the first and second floors, and a banquet hall paired with a dim sum restaurant on the third floor. Anchoring the mall is a 45,000-square-foot Jmart supermarket. Additionally, the facility offers an underground parking garage with a capacity for 350 vehicles. At its opening, this mall was recognized as the largest Asian shopping destination in the Northeastern region of the United States.

History

The structure that now houses New World Mall was initially a department store operated by S. Klein, before transitioning to an Alexander's location in 1975. Later, it became a Caldor store. The building featured four floors totaling approximately 185,000 square feet (17,200 m²), along with an underground parking facility accommodating 340 vehicles. Following Caldor’s closure in 1999, the property remained vacant until 2011.

In 2002, there was an initiative to transform the site into a shopping complex called the Flushing Expo Mall, but this project did not come to fruition. A later proposal to convert the building into a Walmart store was abandoned in April 2006.

In August 2009, applications were submitted to redevelop the property as New World Mall. The design included retail chains occupying the ground floor, a supermarket on the second level, and an Asian-themed food court on the third floor. Although the mall was initially slated to open in September 2010, the launch was delayed. Ultimately, New World Mall officially opened its doors on May 22, 2011.

Significant Events

On August 6, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the New York City Department of Buildings ordered the closure of New World Mall after discovering it was operating in defiance of state-enforced COVID restrictions. The following day, after the building management addressed the cited violations, a partial reopening of the mall was permitted.

In August 2023, The City revealed that New World Mall was implicated in an unlawful straw donation scheme linked to New York City mayor Eric Adams throughout and following his 2021 mayoral campaign. The investigation suggested that fictitious contributions were made under the names of mall employees to manipulate New York’s matching funds system for political donations. Moreover, multiple fundraising events for Adams’ campaign, organized by his advisor Winnie Greco, took place in the mall’s banquet facilities. On February 29, 2024, as part of a wider probe into the Eric Adams administration, the FBI conducted searches at New World Mall and at two residences owned by Greco. At that time, management of the mall was under the family of Lian Wu Shao.