La Mirada Mall was a 72-acre (29 ha) regional shopping mall at the southeast corner of La Mirada Boulevard (originally named Luitwieler) and Rosecrans Avenue in La Mirada, California, in southeast Los Angeles County, in a region known as the Gateway Cities. It is now the site of the La Mirada Theater Center, a strip mall.
Ohrbach's opened a freestanding store here, its third in the Los Angeles area after Miracle Mile and Downtown L.A., and the first one in a suburb, on November 3, 1962, measuring 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2).[1][2][3]
In the early 1970s, Canadian developer Mark Tanz invested about $7 million to turn a loosely arranged, growing collection of stores into an enclosed mall next to a renovated outdoor plaza with fountains and trees. Over the years, stores that came and went included J.J. Newberry, Woolco, Ohrbach's, Barker Bros., Lucky Stores, Market Basket, the La Mirada Theatre (Pacific Theaters)(cinema), and Robert's Department Store.[4][5][6] The former open-air nearly double in size in its transition to a fully-enclosed mall.[7]
In the early 1980s, failing to create a unique profile among the dozen or so malls in the Gateway Cities area, the mall shifted to profiling itself as a "discount mall" with lower rents and stores that offered discounted, but name-brand, merchandise.[8] Ohrbach's and Woolco left the mall.[9]
In 1983, Toys-R-Us opened in the space that Woolco vacated[10] at 15300 La Mirada Blvd.[11]
But by early 1988, the decision had been made to demolish the mall and reduce its size.[12] By 1990, demolition began on the old mall.[7] The Toys R Us at the south end (#15300) was demolished in 1991 and is now the site of housing; the toy retailer reopened in the old Roberts space, now the UFC space.[13] [14] The outbuildings of the original mall's north side were renovated and these are now the main strip center anchored by an Albertsons supermarket, CVS Pharmacy (originally Sav-On Drugs), AMC Theatres and the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
References
edit- ^ "Advertisement for Ohrbach's". Los Angeles Times. September 9, 1962. p. 17.
- ^ "Ohrbach's To Build Department Store in Panorama City Center". Valley Times (North Hollywood, California). January 9, 1964.
- ^ Mahoney, Tom, and Leonard Sloane. The Great Merchants: America's Foremost Retail Institutions and the People Who Made Them Great. Page 320. New York: Harper & Row, 1974 ISBN 0-06-012739-2
- ^ "La Mirada Hopes That Small Will Be Better for Mall : Redevelopment: City officials break ground for scaled-down neighborhood shopping center to replace mall that failed". 30 September 1990 – via LA Times.
- ^ "Last Days of La Mirada Mall : Developers Forgo City Help as They Plan to Clear 72-Acre Site and Rebuild". 14 January 1988 – via LA Times.
- ^ "La Mirada Mall map 1976".
- ^ a b Blume, Howard (September 30, 1990). "La Mirada Hopes That Small Will Be Better for Mall : Redevelopment: City officials break ground for scaled-down neighborhood shopping center to replace mall that failed". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "'Nouveau Poor' get a break at off-price mall". Los Angeles Times. March 6, 1983.
- ^ "La Mirada Led Way with First Discount Mall". East Review. 6 February 1986. p. 20. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
- ^ "La Mirada Mall Gets Toys-R-Us Store as Tenant". East Review. 19 May 1983. p. 6. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
- ^ "Advertisement for Woolco". The Los Angeles Times. 19 December 1971. p. 225. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
15300 La Mirada Blvd.
- ^ Boxall, Bettina (January 14, 1988). "Last Days of La Mirada Mall : Developers Forgo City Help as They Plan to Clear 72-Acre Site and Rebuild". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "Toys R Us Grand Opening - La Mirada - 1991 Commercial". YouTube. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
- ^ "2007 street view of 14920 La Mirada Blvd, La Mirada, CA 90638". Google Maps. Retrieved 8 February 2024.