Joan Verdon

Staff Writer, @JoanVerdon

The Catholic chapel at the Outlets at Bergen Town Center in Paramus, which for 47 years has been a secluded spiritual sanctuary in the midst of a suburban shopping mall, is preparing for its last Mass.

The chapel will close after saying its final Ash Wednesday masses on March 1, the start of Lent, the holiest season for Catholics.  It then will pack up its pews, religious items, and its gift shop, and look for a new home.  The chapel, office rooms and gift shop occupy 5,000 square feet. 

The chapel, believed to be the only such space in a mall in New Jersey, has outlasted mall makeovers, and ownership management and name changes, and outlived dozens of tenants that have come and gone at the mall, formerly known as Bergen Mall, the oldest shopping center in North Jersey. 

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The chapel, run by the Carmelite order of priests since it opened in 1970, has had a month-to-month lease at the mall for the past decade, after it moved out of the shopping center’s lower level to a space above the current Marshalls store.  As was the case 10 years ago, the chapel’s space is needed as the mall remodels for new tenants.  This time, the Carmelites have been told there are no other vacant corners of the mall they can relocate to. 

Treated well by the mall

Rev. Eugene Bettinger, director of the chapel, said he is grateful the chapel was able to remain at the mall as long as it has. “ I have no complaints,” he said. “ We have been treated very well by the mall.”  He is hopeful the chapel will find a new home, and will be able to continue its ministry of serving the spiritual needs of suburban shoppers. 

“We would like to remain in Paramus,” he said, “because we are a known entity here,” but he is also looking at surrounding towns. 

The main problem facing the chapel will be finding a new location the Carmelites can afford.  Many of the strip-mall and shopping locations they have looked at charge $25 to $35 a square foot in rent, while at Bergen Town Center they have been paying less than $10 a square foot. 

Mall officials declined to comment on the move, and referred questions to the chapel director.  The mall is owned by real estate investment trust Urban Edge Properties Inc.

The chapel is a throwback to the days when the former Bergen Mall had a collection of unusual tenants, including a psychic, in a basement level of the mall, known at one time as the Village Mall.  That area was remodeled about 10 years ago as part of the makeover that gave the aging facility a new façade facing Route 4 and added discount and outlet stores that used the basement level. 

Closed on Sundays

But the chapel remained popular, even after it moved from the basement to the upper level space in 2007.  Three masses were said there Mondays through Fridays, and four on Saturdays.  On Sundays the chapel is closed, like the rest of the mall, which must abide by the Bergen County blue laws. 

The Carmelites opened the chapel in 1970, a time when suburban shopping malls were becoming the new downtowns, because of the success of another mall chapel they operated in Peabody, Mass., which opened in 1959.  They said at the time that they wanted to be where the people were, and to make it a place of reflection and religion in the midst of materialism. 

The Saturday masses typically draw 50 or more people to the 150-seat chapel. 

On Tuesday, a group of women stayed behind after the noon Mass to pray the rosary. 

“Everybody’s praying really hard, and they’re looking forward to being in an even better place,” said Susan Munroe, a volunteer at the chapel and a member of the Order of Consecrated Virgins who devote their lives to service.