After serving for many years as a neighborhood hub and fashionable purchasing heart, the Westminster Mall in Orange County is on the point of shut its doorways.
A lot of the retailers within the mall will shut down on Oct. 29 when leases expire, in keeping with Westminster Metropolis Supervisor Christine Cordon. The Metropolis Council authorized a redevelopment plan in 2022 to show the mall right into a mixed-use web site for housing, leisure and retail.
The 100-acre property, located on the south facet of the 405 Freeway, might quickly provide 3,000 housing models and not less than 600,000 sq. ft of upscale retail area.
The town’s Westminster Mall Particular Plan additionally units apart greater than 9 acres for parks and recreation.
“The neighborhood has expressed a powerful need to revitalize this vital industrial heart,” the redevelopment plan says. “The challenge web site offers a novel alternative to reposition the mall into the thriving exercise heart that it as soon as was and to accommodate the long run development of the town.”
Neighborhood members gathered final week to say their goodbyes to the mall, which already has shuttered shops and empty parking heaps. In response to the mall’s on-line listing, fashionable retailers similar to Victoria’s Secret, Vans and Kay Jewelers are nonetheless open.
JCPenney, the mall’s oldest anchor retailer, is slated to shut by Nov. 21. Finest Purchase and Goal are anticipated to stay open for just a few extra years because the property undergoes redevelopment.
Alexis Malatesta, who frequented the mall as a youngster and now runs a Westminster Mall fan account on Instagram, hosted a farewell karaoke celebration on the mall on Friday.
She posted movies of the gathering, the place a number of neighborhood members got here to reminisce and sing songs within the mall’s honor.
Malatesta’s Instagram says it’s “a web page devoted solely to the Westminster Mall’s battle with terminal sickness,” referencing the mall’s lengthy, rocky fall from its prime.
In 1986, the mall was Orange County’s second-highest-grossing retail heart. The subsequent yr, the mall introduced an enormous renovation plan.
In its heyday, the mall was a gathering spot when there have been few different locations to hang around. It was the place children discovered the most recent fashions and the place “mall rats” roamed in packs after faculty.
Malatesta, who grew up in Huntington Seaside, mentioned she spent numerous afternoons on the mall within the early 2000s, driving the carousel and snapping digital images. Because the mall fell into disrepair, she posted stunts on social media to attempt to generate enterprise, together with a faux wedding ceremony ceremony to declare her marriage to the mall.
“I wished to get individuals to go benefit from the area whereas it was nonetheless there,” she mentioned in an interview. “The Westminster Mall was an enormous a part of my childhood and I’ve met a ton of individuals by means of our shared obsession with the mall.”
The Westminster Mall opened in 1974 on the previous web site of the world’s largest goldfish farm, in keeping with metropolis paperwork.
It underwent main renovations within the Eighties and in 2008, and is now managed by 4 firms that share possession of the property: Kaiser Permanente, Shopoff Realty, True Life Cos. and Washington Prime Group.
True Life, a Denver-based actual property agency, has obtained permission from the town to construct a five-story, multifamily housing construction on the three.6 acres that was beforehand occupied by Infants R Us.
Due to a pending settlement among the many 4 firms, a demolition date for the mall has not been set.
Although the town has bold redevelopment plans, the Westminster Mall will lose its nostalgic worth for Malatesta, now 33.
“You’ll be able to go into an indoor mall and you may neglect concerning the exterior world,” Malatesta mentioned. “Westminster Mall was my spot.”
