Dress Barn HQ Breaks Ground in Mahwah

Dozens of corporate officers met with local and state politicians to officially break ground on a new headquarters that is planned to open in Mahwah in 2014.

According to officials from Dress Barn, and its parent company Ascena – which owns and operates 3,800 stores across the country – the company felt the old Footstar building on Macarthur Boulevard would be the perfect spot for the company to call its new home.

Dress Barn’s execs, NJ Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno and Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet donned hardhats and held golden shovels Monday morning to ceremonially break ground at the site, which has already started undergoing the company’s planned $38.5 million renovation of the space.

“It just felt like this could be our own little campus,” Dress Barn President Jeff Gerstel said. “It’s got the grass and the trees, and we are planning a café, a fitness center, and a rooftop garden. It's going to have a really great feel.”

According to Gerstel, the company will be completely renovating the 145,000 square foot building that’s already on the site, and adding another 50,000 square foot facility that will be connected to it by an enclosed bridge.

The company’s founders, Elliott and Roslyn Jaffe, were at the groundbreaking ceremony Monday, and said they were happy to have found a new home for their company in Mahwah. Though Dress Barn has never been headquartered in NJ, the founders said finding the space felt like a homecoming. 

“I am a Jersey boy,” Elliott Jaffe, who was born and raised in Paterson, said. “I love being back.”

Over the company’s 51-year history, Jaffe said it has had eight previous headquarters.

“This one is for keeps,” he said.

According to company executives, the current headquarters, in Suffern, NY, is too small to allow any expansion. Ascena currently has about 400 employees, but has plans to expand over the next three to five years. Gerstel said it plans to grow to somewhere between 500 and 550 employees after it moves into its new Mahwah home.

He called the construction and impending move, “very exciting. Right off the bat, we are bringing in 400 jobs to Mahwah, and we are excited to look into the talent pool here and in surrounding towns.”

Ascena, which operates Dress Barn, as well as other clothing brands Lane Bryant, Cacique, Maurices, Catherines, Justice and Brothers, is receiving $38 million in tax breaks from the state, thanks to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s Grow New Jersey program.

Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno said Monday the incentives are part of a plan to bring businesses back into New Jersey. During the ceremony, she thanked company executives for choosing Mahwah.

“This is a great New Jersey story,” she said. “And, it is a story for generations because you are betting not only on the New Jersey of today, but on the New Jersey of tomorrow.”

Politicians said Dress Barn, which executives say has done $1 billion worth of business since it opened its first store in Connecticut in 1962, is the type of business the state is looking to attract.

Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet called Dress Barn’s move a “real shot in the arm for us, it’s a very exciting day for our community.”

He added, “there are a lot of reasons [Ascena] choose to come here, and I think their choice points out what an attractive place this is for corporations to be.”

Laforet said the township will continue efforts to attract more corporate headquarters to locations in Mahwah.

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