Santa Monica Place is an outdoor

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

. The mall is located at the south end of Santa Monica's

Third Street Promenade The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premi ...

shopping district, two blocks from the beach and

Santa Monica Pier The Santa Monica Pier is a large pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, California, United States. It contains a small amusement park, concession stands, and areas for views and fishing. The pier is part of the greater Santa Monic ...

. The mall originally opened in 1980 as an indoor mall, and underwent a massive, three-year reconstruction process beginning in January 2008 and re-opened as an outdoor shopping mall on August 6, 2010. The mall spans three levels. The mall also features the traditional retailer

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 ...

. The mall's tenant mix is predominantly upscale, featuring Tiffany & Co.,

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ...

, Tory Burch, Elie Tahari, and AllSaints.

History

Santa Monica Place originally opened as an indoor mall in 1980 at the apex of Santa Monica's

, developed jointly by

The Rouse Company The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when GGP Inc., General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James Rouse, James W. Rouse in 1939. Begin ...

and The Hahn Company. Originally anchored by J. W. Robinson's and The Broadway, it featured 120 shops, restaurants and a food court, spanning three levels. The mall was meant to inject vitality into the then-struggling

but it only took away more customers from the street. Notably, Santa Monica Place was one of the first works of

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry ( ; ; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions. Gehry rose to prominence in th ...

and his first shopping mall, after being rejected from designing

The Mall in Columbia The Mall in Columbia, also known as the Columbia Mall, is the central shopping mall for the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, United States. It has over 200 specialty stores and the anchor stores are AMC Theatres, Lidl, Main Event Enter ...

Columbia, Maryland Columbia is a planned community in Howard County, Maryland, United States, consisting of 10 self-contained villages. With a population of 104,681 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the second-most-populous community in Maryland ...

, early in his professional career with Gruen Associates. In the 1990s, both anchor stores changed names. In 1993, the Robinson's store rebranded as Robinsons-May while The Broadway store rebranded as

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 ...

in 1996.

Macerich The Macerich Company ( ) is a real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers. It is the third-largest owner and operator of shopping centers in the United States. As of December 31, 2020, the company owned interests in 52 propert ...

purchased Santa Monica Place from Rouse in 1999, and rumors of major changes to the then-flailing shopping center were reported. In 2004, the company proposed tearing down the mall and replacing it with a complex of high-rise condos, shops and offices. The plan met with strong opposition from local residents who felt the project did not meet the low-rise character of the neighborhood and would worsen traffic. In 2006, Robinsons-May closed as a result of Federated buying out

May Department Stores The May Department Stores Company was an American holding company of department stores founded in 1877 by David May. It operated several regional department stores throughout the United States, which were managed as distinct business divisions ...

in 2005. The store was replaced by Steve & Barry's in 2007. In a second 2007 proposal, Macerich significantly scaled back its plans, which was received as positive by the public, and was passed. 052607-009-SMP

The $265 million project removed the mall's roof and gutted the interior, replacing it with two levels of retail shops and a third-level food court. At the same time, Kevin Kennon Architects converted the original Macy's into a

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, ...

while the Steve & Barry's was replaced with a

. Dallas-based Omniplan served as the executive architects in association with The Jerde Partnership who served as the design architects. The architect for the redesign was Jon Jerde. It was his last major work before his death in 2015. The mall reopened on August 6, 2010. On November 15, 2015 an Arclight Cinemas

multiplex Multiplex may refer to: Science and technology * Multiplex communication, combining many signals into one transmission circuit or channel ** Multiplex (television), a group of digital television or radio channels that are combined for broadcast * ...

opened in a new structure atop the Bloomingdale's anchor store. On January 6, 2021,

announced that they would close their anchor store. Its final day of operation was March 28, 2021. On April 12, 2021, ArcLight Cinemas, located atop the Bloomingdale's anchor store, and temporarily shuttered since March 17, 2020 due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, had its lease terminated for non-payment of rent. In 2023, it was announced that the structure containing Bloomingdale's and the ArcLight Cinemas would be renovated as a 48,000-square-foot flagship outpost for Arte Museum, an immersive digital media destination planned and produced by D’strict, a digital design company based in Seoul, South Korea. Macerich, the mall development corporation, announced that the remaining space in the structure would possibly house a high-end fitness facility. It's the only ArcLight location to do not reopen as a movie theater.

Public transit access

The

Los Angeles Metro Rail The Los Angeles Metro Rail is an urban rail transit system serving Los Angeles County, California, United States, consisting of six lines: four light rail lines (the A, C, E and K lines) and two rapid transit lines (the B and D lines), ...

E Line's Downtown Santa Monica station is located across the street from the former Bloomingdale's. In addition, many Santa Monica Big Blue Bus routes serve the mall.

References

External links

* {{Santa Monica, California Commercial buildings completed in 1980 Buildings and structures in Santa Monica, California Landmarks in Los Angeles Frank Gehry buildings Shopping malls established in 1980 Macerich Shopping malls on the Westside, Los Angeles Tourist attractions in Santa Monica, California 1980 establishments in California