Old Towne Mall

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Old Towne Mall was a shopping mall in Torrance, California that did not have department store anchors but was focused on a mix of shopping, amusement and entertainment. It opened on October 9, 1972 and cost $30 million to build, and launched with 142 specialty shops, individual food vendors and artisans.

Features[]

Different parts of the mall were themed, for instance the Old West, or turn-of-the-20th-century U.S. The mall featured:^[1]

• "Artisan Way", a wing with glassblowers, weavers, potters, clockmakers and jewelry craftsmen

• Turn-of-the-20th-century-themed Wax Museum

• Old Towne Mall Little Theater

• Antique streetlights from Long Beach (placed indoors)
• A singing security guard
• A refurbished cable car
• A working carousel
• Indoor forest-themed ride
• Special events like
  • Dance marathons, frog jumping contests, bingo games and armwrestling tournaments, civil war reenactment
  • Christmastime elves
  • Arts festivals
  • Concerts
  • Puppet shows
  • Costumed bands and Old Towne Singers performing at an old-fashioned gazebo

Decline[]

The mall could not effectively compete with nearby Del Amo Fashion Center and the South Bay Galleria. By 1982, the owners remodeled the mall for $3.8 million remodel and added two big box anchors, Marshalls and Dayton Hudson’s then-new "Plums", which opened in Sept. 1983. The name was changed to Old Town Place. The Federated Group electronics store closed in 1989; the electronics and appliance store Silo replaced it but went out of business in 1995.^[1]

Conversion to power center[]

By 1989 the 314,804-square-foot (29,246.2 m²) mall was roughly a third vacant and the city approved its conversion to an outdoor power center format.^[2] Only the carousel remained from the earlier attractions after the 1990 remodel when the remodel. In 1994, the carousel was moved to the Eastwood Mall in Niles, Ohio. The center was renamed first Torrance Citiplex, then Torrance Promenade. Trader Joe’s was added in November 2002.^[1]

References[]