Hawthorne Plaza Shopping Center
Hawthorne Plaza is a dead mall along Hawthorne Boulevard between 120th Street and El Segundo Boulevard in Hawthorne, California. The 40-acre (16 ha) property opened in 1977 and included an indoor mall and freestanding stores at the property's south end. The mall largely catered to the middle-class residents living in and around Hawthorne and featured cheaper stores than other nearby malls such as South Bay Galleria and Manhattan Village.[3]
.jpg.webp) The mall's former The Broadway department store as seen from Hawthorne Boulevard | |
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| Location | Hawthorne, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 33.92128°N 118.35144°W |
| Address | 12000 Hawthorne Blvd. (formerly 12124 Hawthorne Plaza) |
| Opening date | February 1977 |
| Closing date | March 1, 1999 |
| Developer | Ernest W. Hahn Inc., Carter Hawley Hale Properties Inc., Urban Projects Inc. |
| Architect | Charles Kober Associates |
| No. of stores and services | 134 (1977) |
| No. of anchor tenants | 3 (all vacant) |
| Total retail floor area | 801,000 sq ft (74,400 m2) The Broadway 159,100 sq ft (14,780 m2) Montgomery Ward 158,500 sq ft (14,730 m2) J. C. Penney 168,000 sq ft (15,600 m2) |
| No. of floors | 2 |
| [1][2] | |
Decline
Despite initial popularity, the mall went into decline in the 1990s due in part to the economic decline of the area after the cutbacks in aerospace jobs, white flight, and to competition from other shopping centers. The mall's number of occupied stores declined from 130 in the late 1980s to 87 in 1994 and around 70 in 1998. By that year only one anchor store remained out of the original four. After the Macy's Clearance Center (which replaced The Broadway upon the latter's purchase by Federated Department Stores) closed in December 1997, there were plans to put in an AMC Theatre on the site and to convert the mall into an open-air shopping center. Their plans never came into fruition, and the mall portion closed in 1999.[3]
The property's southern part was redone in 1998 and is still open. It includes a supermarket, a pharmacy, and some small restaurants. The mall building and most of its multistory parking lots are now abandoned except for a police training center that was built in the portion formerly occupied by Montgomery Ward. On the northern side is an annex administrative office for the Hawthorne school district. The abandoned mall has also been used to film several movies, TV shows, and music videos such as Minority Report (2002), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), The Green Hornet (2006), Teen Wolf (2011), Beyoncé's "Superpower" (2013), Agents of Shield (2013), Gone Girl (2014), Lindsey Sterling's "Heist" (2014), David Guetta's "Bang My Head" (2014), Rush Hour (2016), Colony (2016), Westworld (2016), Taylor Swift's "...Ready for It?" (2017), Travis Scott's Astroworld trailer (2018), Chris Brown's "Party" (2017),[4] and BTS' "Black Swan" (2020).
Redevelopment
On November 21, 2014, ABC News announced that Hawthorne Plaza would be revitalized as an outlet mall.[5]
In February 2016, it was announced that the Hawthorne Plaza Mall would be intended to be revitalized as a large "power center", which could include an outdoor mini-mall, an office complex and walkable outdoor retail strips with upper-level homes.[6]
A month later, on March 10, 2016, the Hawthorne Specific Plan, which includes the revitalization of the ailing mall, was approved by the city council. The plan also calls for 500 high-end housing units, innovative office units, commercial outlets open to Hawthorne Blvd, and outdoor dining sites.[7] Property owner Charles Co. never began construction.[8]
Project
On November 29, 2016, the Hawthorne City Hall commission announced plans to demolish the Hawthorne Plaza and rebuild something similar as the Farmers Market in Los Angeles.
Former tenants
Former anchor tenants were:
Vestiges of the mall's past—the scar of a former Thom McAn shop
References
- Gnerre, Sam (October 20, 2010). "Hawthorne Plaza". The Daily Breeze. Retrieved August 31, 2011.
- "Construction Under Way at Hawthorne Plaza Site". Los Angeles Times. 1975-07-27. pp. F13. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
- Jeff Arellano (October 2, 2005). "Hawthorne Mall: Hawthorne California". DeadMalls.com. Retrieved 2010-02-13.
- Williams, J (30 June 2014). "Watch: Exploring the Spooky Abandoned Hawthorne Mall". Curbed. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
- Hernandez, Miriam (19 November 2014). "Hawthorne staging comeback with outlet mall". KABC-TV. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
- Mazza, Sandy (18 February 2016). "Ambitious new plans emerge for abandoned Hawthorne Plaza mall". Daily Breeze. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
- "Hawthorne Happenings March 10, 2016". City of Hawthorne. 10 March 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
- Mazza, Sandy (12 February 2018). "Makeover of decrepit Hawthorne Plaza Mall canceled again". The Daily Breeze. Retrieved 12 March 2019.