BIGMallrat | lost malls, department stores, and Bay Area retail history

From urban revival to arena dreams In the early 1990s, Sacramento set out to reinvent its downtown core—and at the center of that vision was Downtown Plaza, a massive open-air shopping mall designed to bring energy back to the K Street corridor. Opening in 1993, this ambitious project was developed by Ernest Hahn, the same mind behind San Diego’s successful Horton Plaza. With 1.2 million square feet of retail space, Downtown Plaza was a bold fusion of urban retail, modern architecture, and destination design. The peak of Downtown Plaza View of the Downtown Plaza sign when it was owned by Westfield. At its height, Downtown Plaza was home to major national retailers and the largest Macy’s in the Sacramento region—with separate buildings for Men’s and Furniture departments. Its central architectural showpiece was a futuristic steel-framed rotunda, which hosted laser light shows that lit up the skyline and added a theatrical flair to downtown nights. Downtown Plaza’s central open-air...