Anaheim Plaza, originally Broadway Orange County Center, then Anaheim Center, in

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

, was the first shopping mall in

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

. It was a regional mall from 1955 to 1993 and is now a

power center Power center may refer to: *Power center (geometry), the intersection point of the three radical axes of the pairs of circles *Power center (retail) A power center or big-box center (known in Canadian and Commonwealth English as power centre o ...

anchored by

big-box store A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The t ...

The Broadway The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant reta ...

was the original anchor department store opening October 14, 1955, with the mall shops opening gradually in the following weeks and months. Both The Broadway and the center as a whole were designed by renowned Los Angeles architect

Welton Becket Welton David Becket (August 8, 1902 – January 16, 1969) was an American modern architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California. Biography Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washingt ...

. The store cost $8.5 million to build, was in size, employed around 1,000 people and had parking for 5,000 cars. Brown McPherson was the first store manager In February 1963, a

J.W. Robinson's J. W. Robinson Co., ''Robinson's'', was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California. History Joseph Winchester Robinson was a merchant from Waltham, ...

was added as the mall's second anchor store. In 1974, the center's owner, Prudential Life Insurance Co., completed a $4 million renovation, including enclosing the center and renaming it Anaheim Plaza.Anaheim Plaza: Mall That's Been Mauled"
''Los Angeles Times'', December 2, 1990 In July 1977, a

Mervyn's Mervyn's was an American middle-scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris (1920–2021). It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, ...

was added as the mall's third anchor store. By the 1980s, better-off patrons had moved out of the surrounding area for

Anaheim Hills Anaheim Hills is a planned community encompassing the eastern portions of the city of Anaheim, in Orange County, California. History Prior to the development, a few scattered low-density neighborhoods existed in the area, including Peralta Hills ...

and southern Orange County and the area were becoming more working-class and Hispanic. In September 1987, business at Anaheim Plaza started to decline which was caused by the grand opening of

MainPlace Mall MainPlace Mall (formerly known as Westfield MainPlace) is a shopping mall at the north edge of Santa Ana, California, adjacent to the City of Orange and the Orange Crush interchange of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange freeways. The anchor ...

in nearby

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana () is the second most populous city and the county seat of Orange County, California. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census, making Santa Ana the List of ...

. Robinson's opened a store at MainPlace Mall also in September 1987 and closed its Anaheim Plaza store in January 1988. By 1992, the mall was only 35% occupied. In January 1993, the mall's original anchor store The Broadway closed for good and in August of that same year, the mall was bulldozed except for the Mervyn's store.Jennifer Lowe
"Orange County`s 1st Mall Faces An Overhaul"
''Chicago Tribune'', August 16, 1992 A new strip mall, all new except for the Mervyn's, was opened in November 1994, in size and costing $30 million. Mervyn's closed in late 2008 due to the chain being liquidated and has been replaced by Forever 21 (now closed). Currently (as of 2022), anchor stores include El Super (formerly

OSH Osh (Kyrgyz: Ош, romanised Osh; uz, O‘sh/Ўш) is the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan, located in the Fergana Valley in the south of the country and often referred to as the "capital of the south". It is the oldest city in the country (e ...

and Gigante),

Smart & Final Smart & Final is a chain of warehouse-style food and supply stores based in Commerce, California, which developed through a series of mergers and expansions. The oldest of the combined companies, Hellman-Haas Grocery, was founded in 1871 in Los ...

(formerly

OfficeMax OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S ...

Petco Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. is an American pet retailer with corporate offices in San Diego and San Antonio. Petco sells pet food, products, and services, as well as certain types of live small animals. Founded in 1965 as a mail-ord ...

Ross Ross or ROSS may refer to: People * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan * Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland Places * RoSS, the Republic of Sou ...

TJ Maxx TJ Maxx (stylized as T•J•maxx) is an American department store chain, selling at prices generally lower than other major similar stores. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in ...

(formerly

CompUSA CompUSA was a retailer and reseller of personal computers, consumer electronics, technology products and computer services. Starting with one brick-and-mortar store in 1986 under the name Soft Warehouse, by the 1990s CompUSA had grown into a natio ...

), and

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

(which opened in January 1995).Anaheim Plaza official website
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References

{{Shopping malls in California Shopping malls in Orange County, California Shopping malls established in 1954 Power centers (retail) in the United States Buildings and structures in Anaheim, California Economy of Anaheim, California Welton Becket buildings