Huntington Beach Mall (Bella Terra); Huntington Beach, California
Part of the reason Labelscar exists is because tons of enclosed shopping malls have been turned inside out to plazas or lifestyle centers in the last decade, but we’ve actually talked fairly little about the results of these transformations, in part because our focus has been on preserving bits from the old versions of these centers. Sometimes the new product is just as interesting, or at least worthy of discussion.
This is a set of photos I took back in February at the former Huntington Beach Mall in Huntington Beach, California, down in Orange County. The center has since been renamed and re-christened “Bella Terra,” and it sports a cross section of stores that supplements the larger Westminster Mall an exit up the freeway, instead of trying to compete with it.
First, a brief bit of history on the old Huntington Beach Mall. The center originally opened in 1965 at Edinger Ave & I-405 as the first fully enclosed shopping mall in Orange County, with The Broadway, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney as anchors arranged mostly in a dumbell fashion. The Huntington Beach Mall was expanded with a new Mervyn’s-anchored wing in 1986. Unfortunately, competition from other malls in the area began to have their impact by the early 1990s: JCPenney shut their store in 1992, and The Broadway went out of business in 1996. The mall closed for good in 2003.
Instead of turning the Huntington Beach Mall into a lifestyle center or a big box center, the developers (Bella Terra Associates) went for something about halfway inbetween, where the focus of the center is on a cluster of big box anchors and a movie theatre, with a small pedestrian court sporting a variety of dining options and higher-end street furniture with an Italian village feel, such as fountains and landscaping. The result is a very pleasant center that still retains some sense of the sense of “place” you’d find in larger lifestyle centers or malls. At the same time, the groovy, Googie-style architecture of the massive The Broadway store was cleaned up and retained for Kohl’s to fill the space.
The problem with the Bella Terra development may well be the small size of the pedestrian friendly area, however. Although it’s designed mostly for dining and theatre patrons, the area feels too small to generate much foot traffic or critical mass and it’s questionable how successful it will be in the long term without that degree of a draw. Plus, Kohl’s, Mervyn’s (who was a tenant), and Burlington Coat Factory don’t feel very serendipitous with the higher-end dining options, the movie theatre, or the Barnes & Noble store. On the one hand, Bella Terra is trying to be a convenience-oriented, apparel-heavy, female-skewing big box center, and on the other it’s trying to be an upscale suburban nightlife and lifestyle retail destination, but frankly it’s too small to balance both of these acts.
There is one carrot here for dead retail enthusiasts. The mall’s original Montgomery Ward store still sits completely abandoned at the mall’s western end because the parcel is owned separately from the mall itself. The store looks especially sad and derelict, and given the amount of attention paid to the redevelopment of the rest of the center it’s somewhat shocking that this parcel was never reused.
More on Bella Terra:
- Los Angeles Times article about the redevelopment
- Beach California
- An article about the redevelopment
Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D)
August 9th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Is the old mall entrance to Wards visible? And I bet the vacant Mervyn’s will be an eyesore too, huh?
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Caldor Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
@Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D), yup. The old mall entrance is visible in photo #4.
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Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D)
August 9th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Something also tells me that once the economy improves, the center will try to connect more fully to the former Mervyn’s while Wards will be flattened for redevelopment.
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Rich
August 9th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This seems like a big box-ish counterpart to Paseo Pasadena , which also was carved out of dead mall and wound up with an “exotic’ sounding name.
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J-Man Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
@Rich, I believe you’re referring to Paseo COLORADO (formerly Plaza Pasadena) in Pasadena.
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J-Man Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
@Rich, I believe you’re referring to Paseo COLORADO (formerly Plaza Pasadena.)
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Myrtle
August 9th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I grew up in this area (literally in between the Huntington Center and Westminster Mall) and have a lot of good memories of this mall. I received my first stereo (with a CD player!) from the Montgomery Wards, along with my first 10-Speed. My mother shopped at that Mervyns all of the time, and my junior high band would perform concerts inside of the mall. As a teenager, we preferred hanging out at the Westiminster Mall because there was a lot more “teenagey” things to do – even by 1992, the Huntington Center was kind of dead.
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AceJay
August 9th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Wow, just wow. The landscaping/design firm really went all out on this project. They made the Mervyn’s building look incredible, which is something I can’t say about any other Mervyn’s.
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AceJay Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Crap, really need an edit button lol. I just saw this on their website:
“Bella Terra Launches Mixed-Use Expansion
Summer 2008
Bella Terra’s dynamic mix of shopping, dining and entertainment is about to get even better! DJM Capital Partners, Inc. is currently in predevelopment and planning phases for a 16-acre mixed-use expansion to be called The Village at Bella Terra.
Planned for the site along Edinger Avenue, to the immediate west of the existing retail center, The Village at Bella Terra will replace the vacant Montgomery Ward store, tire shop and parking lots with a distinctive collection of sophisticated new residences, integrated lifestyle retail, more unique dining options and a vibrant open-air park and plaza.
More expansion updates coming soon!”
So there we have it.
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Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D) Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I did mention “Something also tells me that once the economy improves, the center will try to connect more fully to the former Mervyn’s while Wards will be flattened for redevelopment.”
So there you have it. That was made in summer ‘08, before the economic/housing collapse. PLANNING STAGES in ‘08, at that.
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The Caldor Rainbow
August 9th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Definitely bizarre to leave that Ward’s hangin’ among an otherwise hip looking mall. Perhaps the property owner recognizes its historic angle? Heh, yeah I think not…
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Stacey Jordan
August 10th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
You really need to see this mall during the Holiday Season. Our company has been lucky enough to provide the exterior Christmas Decor here for the last few years. We start installing again in November. Want to see their Christmas elements? Send me an e-mail at staceyj@dekra-lite.com
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Jeff
August 10th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
KOHLS oddly took over the entire Broadway location. They built the store only on the first two levels of it. The third was closed off, the escalators covered in drywall and who knows what is up there.
The former JCPenney / Current Burlington Coat Factory was never remodeled on the exterior, and is partly hidden by the parking structure.
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Karen
August 11th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’ve confused B&N with Borders.
My heart is heavy…..
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Caldor Reply:
August 12th, 2009 at 9:43 am
@Karen, whoops! I think I had too much coffee, it was making me type random stuff. I fixed it
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Mark
August 14th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I like the idea, it’s like a mall with no ceiling.
It’s sad to see it so empty though, hopefully it’s outlook would improve in the coming years.
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C. J.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:19 am
Before several strokes of bad luck (Penney’s moved to a bigger store in Westminster Mall, and Broadway and Monkey Wards died), Huntington Center was a small but excellent mall. Parking and access were a snap and there was an excellent mix of tenants. Watching the mall die was a long, sad process.
The new “Bella Terra” (with it done-to-bloody-death “Tuscan” theme) it a nighmare of traffic flow and bad planning. Instead of an easy stroll through an enclosed mall, one now must walk through a too-small, too-busy parking lot to get from one store to another.
Worse yet, *most* of the parking is around the back in a parking structure that isn’t anywhere near store entrances. It’s almost like they went out of their way to make things inconvenient.
And If you want to go from one end of the mall to the other, you’ll probably need to get in your car and drive. Without a central pathway between the buildings, one must walk all the way *around* this huge complex.
The tenants, of course, are mostly big chains that you can find within a 10 or 15 minute drive in almost any direction.
For years, community “leaders” talked up this redevelopment project like it was the second coming of Christ. I would’ve settled for a walkable environment, good parking, and some interesting shops.
Can anyone explain WHAT they were thinking when they built this mess?
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