BIGMallrat | Retail history of Northern California

San Mateo Fashion Island opened in 1981 at the height of the American mall boom. Anchored by JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, Bullock's, and Liberty House, the project represented decades of retail thinking: build a bigger mall, add more department stores, and shoppers would come. But Fashion Island arrived at a turning point. Within just a few years of opening, two of its four anchors had abandoned the Northern California market entirely. Meanwhile, nearby Hillsdale Mall reinvented itself and captured much of the attention Fashion Island had hoped to command. The result was one of the Bay Area's earliest major mall failures—a shopping center that opened at the peak of department-store dominance only to discover that the retail landscape was already changing beneath its feet. Grand opening ad from September 1981 for San Mateo Fashion Island mall with the slogan "look to us." Annotated Apple Maps view of San Mateo showing the location of Fashion Island mall, positioned o...

Del Monte Center opened in September 1967, developed by the Dillingham Corporation with design by John Carl Warneke & Associates. The landscape was designed by Lawrence Halprin & Associates, incorporating the preservation of mature oak trees and the use of adobe brick and timber elements that reflected regional architectural references. The center is defined by its 17-foot exposed-beam overhangs and open-air courtyard configuration, which established a retail environment closely integrated with Monterey’s coastal and historic character. The distinctive 17-foot exposed-beam overhangs at Del Monte Center—built from adobe brick and redwood timbers, blending modern retail with regional heritage. A mid-century open-air retail center in Monterey The original design emphasizes shaded walkways, courtyard spaces, and landscape integration. A central fountain continues to serve as a spatial anchor within the retail layout. Since its opening, the center has undergone limited expansio...

Published: November 3, 2006 · Last updated: September 23, 2026 When Eastridge Mall opened on May 17, 1971, it was promoted as the largest shopping mall in the West. Developed by Bayshore Properties and Homart Development Company, the East San Jose center brought more than 160 stores, four major department stores, and more than 1.7 million square feet of retail space to a former agricultural landscape. But Eastridge was notable for more than its size. Its three-level design, dramatic Grand Court, fountains, commissioned artwork, bold colors, and unusual split-level layout represented a new approach to the regional shopping center. The mall was designed not simply as a place to shop, but as a destination and public space. Early postcards captured that ambition. Their views of the Grand Court, department stores, fountains, sculpture, and brightly finished interiors preserve Eastridge as it appeared during its opening era, before decades of renovation transformed much of the original de...

In the 1970s, many cities believed enclosed shopping malls could save aging downtowns. Sunnyvale embraced that idea on a grand scale. Eight blocks of downtown were cleared for a $60 million redevelopment project that would transform 34 acres into Sunnyvale Town Center, an enclosed regional shopping mall anchored by Macy's and Montgomery Ward. At the time, Sunnyvale was one of the largest cities in California without a department store or regional shopping center. City leaders hoped the project would bring shoppers back to downtown and create a new civic centerpiece. Modeled in part after a similar redevelopment in Santa Maria, Sunnyvale Town Center represented the prevailing wisdom of the era: if downtown was struggling, build a mall. For a time, the strategy seemed to work. But over the following decades, Sunnyvale would discover an unexpected problem. The mall built to save downtown ultimately became an obstacle to the kind of downtown the city wanted to create. From an Octobe...

Town Center Corte Madera, originally known as Corte Madera Center, officially opened its doors on July 17, 1958, bringing the suburban shopping boom to Marin County. Just a few months later, JCPenney joined the growing lineup, followed by Montgomery Ward, which opened on March 16, 1960. Like many mid-century shopping centers across the Bay Area, Corte Madera Center arrived with ambition and architectural flair. Designed for easy access just off U.S. Route 101, it featured large department stores alongside specialty retailers, a format that would become a standard in American retail. Today, Town Center Corte Madera stands as a revitalized open-air shopping hub, blending its historic roots with modern lifestyle and community-focused retail. A postcard glimpse of Town Center Corte Madera One of the best glimpses we have of the center’s early years is a 1960s postcard, most likely taken not long after Montgomery Ward arrived. The scene is carefully staged—photographer Mike Roberts, kno...

A modest beginning in 1955 Country Club Plaza, located in Sacramento, California, opened on June 23, 1955. Initially, it was a simple strip of shops fronting Watt Avenue, directly across from the earlier Country Club Centre, which had debuted in August 1952 with a JCPenney anchor. At the time, the Watt Avenue corridor was rapidly transforming into Sacramento’s premier retail zone, competing closely with the newly built Arden Fair, where Hale’s had just opened weeks earlier. 1952 grand opening advertisement for Country Club Plaza, featuring a bird's-eye rendering of the original layout—including an auto parts store and early storefronts along Watt Avenue. Expansion and a boost from Weinstock’s In 1961, Country Club Plaza expanded significantly with the opening of a Weinstock-Lubin department store (later renamed Weinstock’s). The addition helped transform the plaza from a neighborhood shopping center into a major regional retail destination. Early newspaper rendering of Sacram...

Macy’s arrived in the Bay Area long before the suburban mall era, establishing its San Francisco presence in 1945 with the acquisition of O’Connor, Moffatt & Co. From that downtown foundation, it expanded outward for the next half-century, first through acquisitions and later as a defining anchor of the region’s new shopping centers. As the postwar suburbs grew, Macy’s became closely tied to the development of enclosed malls across Northern California. In many cases, it did not simply occupy space in these centers—it arrived with them, helping establish the commercial cores around which new communities formed. Malls like Valley Fair, Bay Fair, and Stoneridge were not just locations of Macy’s stores; they were part of the same development wave that reshaped the Bay Area itself. By the mid-1990s, that system was already under strain. The region had too much retail space, too many overlapping shopping centers, and a department store model that was beginning to contract. The 1995 acq...