Location Hawthorne, California Closing date 1999 Address Hawthorne, CA 90250, USA Number of stores and services 134 (1977) | Opening date February 1977 No. of stores and services 134 (1977) Opened February 1977 Number of anchor tenants 3 | |
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Developer Ernest W. Hahn Inc., Carter Hawley Hale Properties Inc., Urban Projects Inc. Architect Charles Kober Associates Similar Skywest Commons, Barstow Mall, Mayfield Mall, Florin Mall, Macdonald 80 Shopping | ||
Hawthorne Plaza is a partially dead mall along Hawthorne Boulevard between 120th Street and El Segundo Blvd in Hawthorne, California. The 40-acre (16 ha) property opened in 1977 and included an indoor mall and free standing 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.
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 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 was remaining 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 down 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, however, and the mall portion closed down in 1999.
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 Quizno's at 120th and Hawthorne and 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 a number of movies and TV shows, such as Minority Report (2002), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), The Green Hornet (2006), Gone Girl (2014), Rush Hour (2016), Westworld (2016).
On November 21, 2014, ABC News announced that Hawthorne Plaza would be revitalized as an outlet mall.
In February 2016, the Hawthorne Plaza Mall would 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.
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.
On November 29, 2016 Hawthorne City Hall has announced plans to demolish the Hawthorne Plaza and rebuild something similar as the Farmers Market in Los Angeles.