A Sneak Peek of King of Prussia Mall’s In-Progress Expansion

Shoppist takes a hard-hat tour.

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Behold, the new corridor that connects the Plaza and the Court. | Emily Goulet.

Yesterday, I put on my hard hat (see proof of this below) and took a tour of the King of Prussia Mall’s huge new — and very much still under construction — expansion. Set to be completed in August of 2016, the plan is to connect the Plaza and the Court via a 170,000-square-foot pavilion that will house 50 additional retailers and a new dining pavilion.

“Why is this amazing shopping center two shopping centers?” said David Contis, president of Simon Property Group, to the small crowd of press that gathered outside the construction site yesterday. “Because no one could figure it out. Could we possibly build [a connector]? It would have to go through a road, a parking lot, connect two department stores and be built entirely in the air.” the answer: Yes, but with a lot of manpower (over 400 contractors are working on the project), steel (5,000 tons), pipes (38,000 feet of them). 

But about those retailers: Vince, Stuart Weitzman, CH Carolina Herrera, Robert Graham and Clarins have confirmed they’re leasing space in the new addition. Five luxury retailers in the mall are relocating to the new corridor and expanding into flagship stores (these have not been released yet, but I did spot someone from Tiffany in the crowd, and Contis noted that he was trying to convince Restoration Hardware to open a larger, two-story store in the corridor). And Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s are opening new entrances, which means revamped store layouts and, reportedly, a new women’s section in Neiman Marcus.

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Feeling very official in a hard hat.

Click here for a time-lapse video of the construction progress.