Medical clinics, schools and apartments: For a decade, shopping mall owners have been desperately seeking new options for space vacated by shuttered department stores and bankrupt retailers.

One former J.C. Penney store at Westfield Garden State Plaza, a mall in Paramus, N.J., heralds yet another direction: themed attractions — or the catchier term, “retailtainment” — based on popular toy brands like Play-Doh and Nerf.

Construction workers have already divided up the second and third floors of the store into what will be the Nerf Action Xperience — Nerf AX for short — an attraction dedicated to the spongy, lightweight plaything made by Hasbro that includes mini footballs and blasters that shoot foam darts.

Brigid Witzke, head of new openings and projects at Brite Management, the site’s operator, wove around scissor lifts and dumpsters as she led a tour on a recent morning, pointing to where visitors will be able to shoot foam basketballs at moving hoops and race through a parkour-inspired obstacle course.

In a maze of rooms on the upper level, “you’re going to feel like you’re in a postapocalyptic train station,” Ms. Witzke said.

When it opens later this year, Nerf AX will join an explosion of entertainment concepts taking over an even larger share of retail spaces in an effort that started decades ago. But now, no longer just a movie theater or an arcade, these new, sprawling attractions cater to a variety of niche interests from Formula 1 racing to immersive installations for fans of Netflix shows and movies.

The New York Times