MainPlace Mall (formerly known as Westfield MainPlace) is an enclosed shopping mall at the north edge of

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

near Downtown Santa Ana, adjacent to the City of Orange and the

Orange Crush interchange The Orange Crush interchange, frequently called The Crush, is a freeway interchange in the cities of Orange, California, Orange and Santa Ana, California, near the city limits of the cities of Anaheim, California, Anaheim, and Garden Grove, Cali ...

of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

freeways. The anchor stores are

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...

24 Hour Fitness 24 Hour Fitness is a privately held and operated fitness center chain headquartered in Carlsbad, California. It is the second largest fitness chain in the United States based on revenue after LA Fitness, and the fourth in number of clubs (behin ...

Ashley HomeStore Ashley Home Stores Ltd. (doing business as Ashley and still known as Ashley Furniture HomeStore in some countries) is an American furniture store chain that sells Ashley Furniture products. Opened in 1997, the chain comprises over 2,000 locations ...

, Round 1 Entertainment, DXL Mens Apparel, and

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

. There is 1 vacant anchor store that was once

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and a seco ...

History

Anchor stores, current and former

Fashion Square

MainPlace Mall was built on the site of the much smaller open-air center that Los Angeles-based department store

Bullock's Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialt ...

opened in 1958, first called Bullock's Fashion Square. The center cost Bullock's $11.5 million to build and was designed by

Pereira & Luckman Pereira & Luckman was a Los Angeles, California architectural firm that partners Charles Luckman and William Pereira founded in Los Angeles in 1950. They had been classmates at the University of Illinois’ School of Architecture and had each becom ...

. Bullock's Fashion Square debuted with 32 stores including branches of boutique department stores I. Magnin,

Desmond's ''Desmond's'' is a British television sitcom broadcast by Channel 4 from 5 January 1989 to 19 December 1994. Conceived and co-written by Trix Worrell, and produced by Charlie Hanson and Humphrey Barclay, ''Desmond's'' stars Norman Beaton as b ...

Haggarty's Haggarty's (also J. J. Haggarty, the New York Cloak and Suit House, the New York Store) was a department store chain founded in Los Angeles in 1906, which closed in May 1970 due to not keeping up with fashion trends and a resulting $4.4 million ...

and

Mandel's Mandel's (a.k.a. Mandel's Shoe Stores and Mandel's Fascinating Slippers) was a chain of shoe stores in the Southwestern United States for many decades of the 20th century. For a time it advertised its wares as "Mandel's Fascinating Slippers". Mauri ...

, plus the Jolly Roger restaurant. There was parking for 3000 cars and opening day drew crowds of 40,000 people from across Orange County, according to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. As Bullock's opened similar Fashion Square malls in other Southern California cities, the venue was renamed Santa Ana Fashion Square. Mainplace-ext

Transition to MainPlace

After a period of decline, JMB Property demolished most of the shopping center, except for the anchors, and had it replaced by MainPlace in 1987. Bullock's chose to stay on while I. Magnin ultimately decided not to remain and therefore closed on February 14, 1987. Along with Bullock's,

and J.W. Robinson's were the anchors when MainPlace first opened. In November 1990, a new wing opened with

May Company California May Company California was an American department store chain founded in 1881 as A. Hamburger & Sons by Asher Hamburger. It was renamed after its acquisition by The May Department Stores Company in 1923. Its flagship store and headquarters wer ...

becoming the mall's fourth anchor store which opened in May 1991. By January 1993, Robinson's merged with May Company to become

Robinsons-May Robinsons-May was an American department store chain founded in 1993 with the merger of J. W. Robinson's and May Company California. It retained the former May headquarters in Los Angeles, California, and operated in Southern California, Arizo ...

and as a result, the original May Company store closed and reopened as the Robinsons-May Women's & Children's store while the original J.W. Robinson's store closed and reopened as the Robinsons-May Men's & Home store. The Bullock's became

in May 1996. In 2000, JMB Urban, the successor to JMB, sold MainPlace and other mall properties to the American branch of

Rodamco Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE (previously Unibail-Rodamco SE) is a European multinational commercial real estate company headquartered in Paris, France, and is the owner and operator of Westfield shopping centres in the northern hemisphere. Its ...

. Rodamco, in turn, sold its North American properties to

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; ...

in 2002. Following the acquisition, the mall was renamed Westfield Shoppingtown MainPlace, and the "Shoppingtown" moniker was dropped in 2005. By September 2006, the Robinsons-May Women and Children's store closed due to the chain being acquired by Macy's &

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which purchased the Macy's department store chain in 1994, ...

in which the Robinsons-May Men's & Home store remained opened but became the Macy's Men's and Home store. In March 2007, JCPenney opened in the vacant Robinsons-May Women's & Children's store. In 2006,

sought to revamp the mall in the face of losing local retail market share to

South Coast Plaza South Coast Plaza is a regional shopping mall in Costa Mesa, California. The largest shopping center on the West Coast of the United States, its pre-COVID sales of over $1.5 billion annually were the highest in the United States. Its 275 retai ...

, California's largest and highest-volume mall, only to the south. In 2014, Westfield announced a $50 million renovation to the mall. Macy's closed its Men's & Home Store at the mall in 2012, and consolidated those merchandise categories into the main store. The building, originally the J.W. Robinson's store, was split between 24 Hour Fitness, Ashley Furniture Home Store, and an entertainment center. In December 2015, Westfield sold the mall to a consortium that was headed by Centennial Real Estate Company and included Montgomery Street Partners and USAA Real Estate Company. Nordstrom, an original anchor when MainPlace opened in September 1987, closed in 2017.

Plans for transformation

By 2019, MainPlace Mall had seen 35 store closures and a $54 million drop in gross sales over a two-year period. In March 2019, it was announced that a project would transform the mall into an outdoor center by removing its central portion, adding a

food hall A food hall is a large standalone location or department store section where food and drinks are sold. Overview Unlike food courts made up of fast food chains, food halls typically mix local artisan restaurants, butcher shops and other food- ...

in "European marketplace" style, an interactive play center for children, upgrades to its movie theater, a grocery store, and two apartment communities with 700 new residential units. Together with new residential communities adjacent to the mall, there would be a total of 3,000 new residential units in the immediate area. As of 2024 a FYE store has been announced to open.

References

External links

Westfield MainPlace Official Site
{{Shopping malls in California MainPlace Buildings and structures in Santa Ana, California History of Santa Ana, California Postmodern architecture in California Shopping malls in Orange County, California Shopping malls established in 1987