Willow Grove mall opens new Tilted 10 indoor amusement park

The Willow Grove Park Mall in Abington Township has debuted the first phase of its long-planned Tilted 10 entertainment center that includes bumper cars and an arcade with more than 150 games.

Last weekend, Tilted 10 opened the second floor of the family attraction in the former J.C. Penney department store, which closed in 2017. Construction on the first floor is expected to be finished this summer, featuring black-lit mini golf, a laser tag arena, full service bowling lanes, and a taco and margarita bar. 

Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, the mall’s owner, announced the 104,000-square-foot entertainment center in October 2021 as part of an overhaul of the former department store. PREIT has not yet revealed plans for the former Sears department store that closed last year after more than three decades.

Tilted 10 has 13 entertainment centers in the U.S., including one at the Logan Valley Mall in Altoona.

The new attraction at the Willow Grove mall does not have an entrance fee. Instead, points are purchased at a kiosk and loaded onto a Tilted 10 play card. When the facility is fully opened later this year, Tilted 10 will sell packages for birthday parties and other private events. (Those with a long memory of the mall may recall birthday parties at the former Challenges arcade near the food court in the 1990’s).

PREIT has described the new entertainment complex as return to the roots of the property, which operated as an amusement park from 1896-1975 and had a streetcar service operated by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. The three-story mall opened in its current form in 1982. One of the original park’s biggest attractions was its Music Pavilion, where John Philip Sousa’s band played annually during the first quarter of the 20th century.

The debut of Tilted 10 comes as PREIT develops plans to build more than 1,400 apartments on the land of its Philadelphia area properties including the Willow Grove and Plymouth Meeting malls in Montgomery County and the Springfield Mall in Delaware County. PREIT is already constructing hundreds of apartments as the Moorestown Mall in South Jersey. The company is also a part-owner of the Fashion District Philadelphia mall in Center City.

PREIT filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 and emerged from it later that year, but still carried about $1.8 billion in debts as of last November — mostly from mortgages and loans. It has sold some of its properties, including the Exton Square Mall in Chester County and the Cumberland Mall in Vineland. The company says sales at its core malls, including the Cherry Hill Mall, hit a record in February.

An opening date for the first floor of Tilted 10 has not yet been announced.

“This unique entertainment experience brings something that people can’t find anywhere else, making Willow Grove Park Mall a must-see destination for Philadelphia this year,” PREIT CEO and chairman Joseph Coradino said of Tilted 10’s arrival as a new anchor.