Almaden Plaza in San Jose, California originated as Almaden Fashion Plaza, opening in August 1968 as part of a brief Emporium retail development experiment in which The Emporium functioned as both anchor tenant and direct developer of a suburban shopping center. This project represents a transitional moment in suburban retail development, occurring at the end of Emporium’s suburban expansion phase and before department store–led development gave way to developer-assembled regional mall construction in the early 1970s. Ad for Almaden Fashion Plaza in San Jose when it had its grand opening on August 8, 1968. As the headquarters for fashion, the 35-acre site hosted 20 curated stores. Suburban expansion context (1950s–1960s) The Emporium’s suburban expansion began in the early 1950s and included multiple Bay Area retail developments prior to Almaden. One of the earliest was the Emporium at Stevens Creek Plaza, where the store opened in 1957 and the surrounding shopping center followed...
Explore the malls, department stores, and shopping centers that helped shape postwar Northern California and the suburban communities that grew around them.