Few Bay Area malls generated as many postcards as Sunvalley Mall. During the late 1960s and 1970s, publishers produced multiple postcard series documenting the center's futuristic architecture, fountains, sculptures, and public spaces. Together they provide a remarkable look at one of California's most ambitious shopping centers during its early years.
Aerial view and retro promises
One postcard shows the mall from above—looking southeast, Mount Diablo in the background, I-680 a quiet freeway. No Willows Shopping Center. No Ellinwood office park. Just grasses, wild mustard, and that gleaming retail monolith rising like a spaceship from a cow field.
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| A sea of concrete and asphalt surrounds the gleaming Sunvalley Mall, with Mount Diablo rising quietly in the distance. Circa 1974, when retail was king and this Concord landmark reigned as the world’s largest enclosed shopping center. |
The back of the card reads: "Sunvalley Shopping Center. An aerial of the newest and most modern shopping centers in the U.S.A. It is completely enclosed and air conditioned."
The card was postmarked February 24, 1975. Back when it cost 8 cents to mail a postcard! Near Penney's, a wooden fence surrounds a cement courtyard that allowed you to see the roof of the ice rink underground. This "hole" became a restaurant pad by 1968. I think Macy's still has the blue awnings. Timeless, they might say.
Chrome, wagons, and 9,000 spaces: parking lot perfection
You'd never know the mall was two stories from this postcard; the lower level is underground (least on this side of the mall). If you look closely, you can see "Cinema" on the side, by Bank of America. It has been said that the first movie to show at the cinema was the Dirty Dozen. The back of the postcard reads "SunValley, the world's largest enclosed, air conditioned shopping center, contains free parking for 9,000 cars, including 16 acres of covered parking."
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| Sunvalley Mall’s vast parking lot hums with life—chrome bumpers and wood-paneled wagons gleaming under the California sun. JCPenney anchors the foreground, Macy’s looms behind, and a fleet of late ’60s and early ’70s cars stands ready for a day of shopping. |
Great Hall with fiberglass flowers and blooming dandelion lights
In a postcard, a woman pushes a Baza’r cart through the center, even though Baza’r wasn’t in the mall (it was a discount store up the road). Go figure. But the real stars of the shot were the giant light fixtures—bulbous bursts of chrome and filaments, like space-age dandelions mid-explosion. And in the center? Those giant metal sculptures that rose from the fountain below, more palm tree than public art, unless you squinted just right.
The postcard promises: "Over 120 stores on two levels of the mammoth mall at Sun Valley, the world's largest enclosed, air-conditioned shopping center."
A friend wrote on it: “Mary, we should do this shopping center together some day! Spent 3 hours there Monday and hardly scratched the surface.”
Mary Carello of Syracuse: this one’s for you.
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| Great Hall in full Sunvalley splendor—gold-topped information booth gleaming, dandelion-inspired light fixtures blooming overhead, and a mother navigating the terrazzo floors with a shopping cart and wide-eyed child in tow. A perfect moment of 1970s retail wonder. |
This second-series postcard allows you to see all the way down to Sears.
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| A few years later, but the magic’s still there—the Great Hall aglow under the pop of a camera flash. The gold-capped info booth still stands, the space-age dandelion lights still sparkle, and shoppers flow past in a softened blur of bell bottoms and weekend plans. Sunvalley in its prime. |
The dills and dandelions fountain
Ah yes. Copper coins and childhood wishes. I remember tossing pennies into the black stone fountain, watching them tumble through the water like tiny suns.
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| "Dills and Dandelions" by John Augsburger—The lower level center court in all its colossal glory. Fiberglass flowers tower from the fountain below, sprouting 40 feet into the air, swaying with hidden fans and watched over by gleaming metal bugs. |
The back of the card reads: "Sunvalley Shopping Center. 'Dills and Dandelions' feature dandelions and various other petaled flowers on 40 foot fiberglass stems. These flowered kinetics are rooted in the first level main fountain and shoot through a large airway into the second level Great Hall. They will move and sing when air is blown on them from hidden fans. Six-foot long attractive metal bugs cling to several of the flowers lending a Brobdingnagian atmosphere to the Great Hall." (I had to look that up. It means really big.)
The escalator to the dungeon
This next card shows the center court, taken near the portals to the lower level (we affectionately called "the dungeon" in the early 80s). Visible is the B. Dalton Bookseller, which ultimately relocated between Macy's and Penney's.
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| Escape from the dungeon—A view from the upper level of Sunvalley’s center court, where escalators rise from the shadowy lower floor. Shoppers ascend into a world of terrazzo, chrome lightbursts, and retail wonder. The 1970s never looked so futuristic. |
JCPenney Court and escalators
Here we have another beautiful postcard showing the JCPenney court.
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| Up from the Dungeon—A vintage view of Sunvalley Mall’s upper level, where escalators delivered shoppers from the shadowy lower floor into the bright bustle of JCPenney. The classic blue “Penney’s” sign shines like a beacon of 1970s retail bliss. |
Boy howdy do I remember those escalators. The handrails were grey with ridges. I don't know WHY I remember that, but I do. It wouldn't surprise me if they haven't replaced the handrail track, yet.
The classic "Penney's" logo displays, with its "P" in blue. That sign survived intact until the Nineties! Even Sears had updated their red classic-script sign by then. On the lower level in this area was the food court, which was removed at some point. I'd love to find a photo of that, since it's just a blurry memory. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a postcard floating around with it (I'll keep my eyes peeled).
JCPenney Court and the roosters
Things you often forget, but cause an immediate memory jog: mall art. This first-series postcard was postmarked 1974. It was taken from the Penney's Court.
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| “Rooster and Hen” by Bezalel Mann—A rare postcard glimpse of Sunvalley Mall’s elusive rooster sculptures, perched mysteriously in the shadows of the upper Penney's Court. |
Let's face it, the photo needed flash. In the second series of cards, now we can see the art. Having discounted the notion that artwork in a mall is wasted on the young, I am converted.
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| “Rooster and Hen”—With the camera flash on, Sunvalley Mall’s rooster sculptures finally emerge from the gloom. Bold, bizarre, and unmistakably 1970s, they watched over shoppers like silent, oversized sentinels of suburban art. |
The Sears Court
Well, that one had a sculpture too—a bronze piece titled "5 and 20 blackbirds." I remember him, calmly looking up at the ceiling with a spoon. He vanished in the renovations. Back when the mall first opened, Sears had only one entrance from the mall on the upper level. A lonely staircase connected shoppers with the lower level. It was a bit like entering a side-quest in a video game.
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| Vintage 1970s postcard of Sunvalley, featuring the iconic "4 and 20 Blackbirds" sculpture by Joseph Anthony McDonnell in front of Sears, with Walgreens visible in the background. |
The legacy of Sunvalley Mall
Sunvalley Mall is still here. Still bustling. Still changing. But sometimes, I close my eyes and see it as it once was: a temple of light and tile and endless escalators. Where the fountains sang, the bugs were bigger than your head, and the air was always, miraculously, cool.
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