T&T Supermarket plans to take the 72,600-square-foot former Macy's anchor at NewPark Mall in Newark for a late-2027 opening — the largest California store for the Canadian chain, and the second time in two years the struggling mall has filled a big anchor shell with a destination non-traditional tenant.

The Macy's at NewPark Mall in Newark operated for 45 years before it closed in March 2025, one of the 66 underperforming stores the chain announced it would shutter in January of that year. The 72,600 square feet it left behind sat dark at the mall's anchor corner — until building permits filed in December 2025 confirmed what's coming next: T&T Supermarket, the Canadian-owned Asian grocery chain, plans to open there in late 2027.

It would be T&T's biggest store in California.

The announcement surfaced publicly on June 22 through real estate trade press, eight days after T&T opened its first California location at Westgate Center in San Jose — a 55,000-square-foot store that drew hundreds of shoppers on opening morning. CEO Tina Lee told SFGATE the Newark plans had been held back while the company stood up San Jose. "We have been working on this for over a year," she wrote in an email to the outlet. Building permits for the former Macy's space were filed in December 2025; T&T has also applied with California's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for a Type 21 license — off-premises beer, wine, and spirits — and a Type 86 license for instructional tastings, both typical for a T&T build-out that emphasizes prepared food, seafood tanks, bakery, and private-label imports alongside standard grocery.

NewPark Mall, owned by Brookfield Properties at 200 Newpark Mall Road, has spent much of the past two decades losing tenants. At its peak it housed more than 140; today the count is around 40. Newark Mayor Michael K. Hannon said as recently as April that the mall had seen a "substantial increase in store vacancies" and that the city was hoping to see it become a regional destination again. T&T, he told SFGATE, "should add jobs and offer new shopping choices" — with around 400 jobs projected for the Newark location.

When Costco opened in the former JCPenney/Burlington anchor space in November 2023, it was the most significant new commitment the mall had attracted in years. T&T in the old Macy's shell would be the second. The pattern matters: both tenants filling Newpark's big anchor boxes now generate their own destination traffic, independent of the surrounding retailer mix. Costco pulls warehouse runs. T&T, with its ready-to-eat counters, live seafood, and import sections, pulls a different trip entirely. Whether that pairing does anything for the roughly 40 remaining tenants between them is the open question facing Brookfield and the city.

The Newark location fits into a broader Bay Area push. T&T also has a San Francisco store planned at City Center on Geary Boulevard and a 52,000-square-foot Millbrae location at Friendship Plaza, both targeting winter 2026 openings. Newark at 72,600 square feet would be larger than either. Loblaw Companies, T&T's Canadian parent, disclosed in its Q4 2025 earnings call that 11 U.S. store locations were approved and that 2026 would represent the trough year for the U.S. expansion's drag on earnings before revenues start coming in. The Newark timeline — late 2027, permits in, licenses pending — is part of that arithmetic.

For now, the former Macy's space at 200 Newpark Mall Road sits empty. The permits are filed and the alcohol licenses are in motion. Someone walking the mall today would pass a lot of dark storefronts on the way to the Costco end. By late 2027, one of those darkened anchors should have live crabs in the tank.