Puente Hills Mall, located in

City of Industry, California City of Industry is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is almost entirely industrial, containing over 3,000 businesses employing 67,000 people, with only 264 residents as of the ...

, United States, is a major regional

shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County. It is most famous for serving as the filming site for the Twin Pines/Lone Pine Mall for the 1985 movie ''

Back to the Future ''Back to the Future'' is a 1985 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. Set in 1985, ...

'' starring

Michael J. Fox Michael Andrew Fox (born June 9, 1961), known professionally as Michael J. Fox, is a Canadian-American retired actor. Beginning his career in the 1970s, he rose to prominence portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom ''Family Ties'' (1 ...

and

Christopher Lloyd Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the ''Back to the Future'' tril ...

. Anchor tenants are

Burlington Burlington may refer to: Places Canada Geography * Burlington, Newfoundland and Labrador * Burlington, Nova Scotia * Burlington, Ontario, the most populous city with the name "Burlington" * Burlington, Prince Edward Island * Burlington Bay, no ...

, Round 1 Entertainment, and

Ross Dress For Less Ross Stores, Inc., operating under the brand name Ross Dress for Less, is an American chain of discount department stores headquartered in Dublin, California. It is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S.; as of 2018, Ross operates 1,483 sto ...

History

1974-75 opening

Puente Hills Mall was opened in phases over a year from February 1974 through Spring 1975, after the completion of the

Pomona Freeway Pomona may refer to: Places Argentina * Pomona, Río Negro Australia * Pomona, Queensland, Australia, a town in the Shire of Noosa * Pomona, New South Wales, Australia Belize * Pomona, Belize, a municipality in Stann Creek District Mexico * ...

a few years earlier. The first anchor to open, on February 18, 1974, was

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 ...

, with three levels and 160,000 square feet. J.W. Robinson's followed, opening in March.

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

followed, and by March 1975 the mall had about 150 shops open.

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

opened on April 16, 1975. By September 1975 the mall reported 152 shops open and announced plans for construction of an adjacent 41-acre auto mall and home improvement and home furnishings retail district. The mall has a cross-shaped design and was developed by

The Hahn Company The Hahn Company, San Diego, California, alternately known as Ernest W. Hahn, Inc., was a major American shopping center owner and developer from the 1950s to the 1980s. Purchased by the Trizec Corp. in 1980 (which then took the name TrizecHahn), ...

1990s

In 1993, J.W. Robinson's rebranded as

Robinsons-May Robinsons-May was a chain of department stores operating in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, from 1993 until 2006. It was created when May Department Stores combined two of its chains, May Company California and J. W. Robinson's cha ...

after the chain merged with May Company. In 1996, two anchor stores, The Broadway (at the time purchased by

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

) and JCPenney, were closed. At the time of JCPenney's departure, the mall was at about 50% occupancy. The mall was extensively renovated afterwards and features a 20-screen

AMC Theatres AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

megaplex A multiplex is a movie theater complex with multiple screens within a single complex. They are usually housed in a specially designed building. Sometimes, an existing venue undergoes a renovation where the existing auditoriums are split into s ...

, and stores traditionally found in power centers such as 24 Hour Fitness and

Burlington Coat Factory Burlington, formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory, is an American national off-price department store retailer, and a division of Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation with more than 1,000 stores in 40 states and Puerto Rico, with i ...

, in addition to the remaining two original anchors, Robinsons-May and Sears.

Ross Dress for Less Ross Stores, Inc., operating under the brand name Ross Dress for Less, is an American chain of discount department stores headquartered in Dublin, California. It is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S.; as of 2018, Ross operates 1,483 sto ...

, Circuit City,

Linens 'n Things Linens 'n Things was a Clifton, New Jersey-based big-box retailer specializing in home textiles, housewares, and decorative home accessories. The chain operated 571 stores in 47 U.S. states and six Canadian provinces, and had 7,300 employees as ...

, Spectrum Club, Burlington Coat Factory,

Borders A border is a geographical boundary. Border, borders, The Border or The Borders may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Border'' (1997 film), an Indian Hindi-language war film * ''Border'' (2018 Swedish film), ...

, and

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 nati ...

all opened in 1998.

2000s

In September 2006, Borders was officially closed while Robinsons-May rebranded as Macy's, after Federated purchased

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ...

in 2005. Linens 'n Things, Circuit City, and CompUSA all closed their locations at the mall in 2008 and 2009. Circuit City and CompUSA had both gone bankrupt while Linens 'n Things was closed as part of a strategy to focus on online shopping. On August 28, 2010, the Japanese sports entertainment chain Round1 opened the first U.S. location of Round1 Bowling & Amusement, a video game arcade and bowling alley, as a new anchor. It was the company's first overseas store, replacing Linens 'n Things. 2019 Puente Hills Mall

The center of the mall previously featured a large cubed water fountain, then a merry-go-round attraction built in 1990, but it was later removed by the mall's owners, Krausz Companies, as they were losing money in its operation. An East Asian-style

koi pond Koi ponds are ponds used for holding koi carp, usually as part of a garden. Koi ponds can be designed specifically to promote health and growth of the Nishikigoi or Japanese Ornamental Carp. Koi ponds or lakes are a traditional feature of Jap ...

replaced the carousel, but was removed as of 2006. The koi were moved to Sycamore Lake at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier. The mall underwent a full interior makeover in 2007 after the removal of the koi pond. Due to the large and influential Asian immigrant populations residing and/or operating businesses in nearby areas (notably in Industry, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Walnut, and Diamond Bar), some redesigns of the mall incorporated feng shui principles.

Store closures since 2018

Toys "R" Us Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters loc ...

opened in June 2011, taking the spot previously occupied by Circuit City. Toys "R" Us had formerly been located at the Plaza at Puente Hills on Gale Avenue in Industry. It closed along with all Toys 'R' Us stores in early 2018, shutting down on April 15, 2018. In 2021, Round1 expanded into the former Toys 'R' Us retail space to open the first U.S. location of their Japanese "Spo-Cha" indoor sports and interactive activity centers. On May 31, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 72 stores nationwide. The store closed in September 2018. On December 1, 2019, Forever 21 announced it would close the Puente Hills Mall store along with 21 other locations in California & 90 stores nationwide. The store closed in January 2020. On January 5, 2022, Macy's announced that their Puente Hills Mall anchor would be closed in the first financial quarter of 2022. The store closed on March, leaving Burlington and AMC as the remaining anchors in the mall.

''Back to the Future''

Puente Hills Mall served as a filming location for the fictional Twin Pines Mall (later Lone Pine Mall) in the 1985 film ''

''. In the film, Doc Brown (

) uses the mall's south parking lot (visible in the above photograph) to stage his time travel experiments with the

DeLorean time machine In the ''Back to the Future'' franchise, the DeLorean time machine is a time travel device made by retrofitting a DMC DeLorean vehicle with a flux capacitor. The car requires 1.21 gigawatts ("jigawatts/jigowatts") of power and needs to travel 8 ...

. The JCPenney and Robinson's stores feature prominently in the background. A Ross Dress for Less store can be seen in a strip mall across the street. The scenes were filmed in January 1985. According to the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

audio commentary An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...

, screenplay writer

Bob Gale Michael Robert Gale (born May 25, 1951) is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, film producer and director. He is best known for co-writing the science fiction comedy film ''Back to the Future'' with his writing partner Robert Zemec ...

says that several fans gathered at the Puente Hills Mall in the early hours of October 26, 1985, the date given in the film as the

present day The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

, to see if anything would happen. Puente Hills Mall featured replicas of the Twin Pines Mall sign, the time machine, and Dr. E. Brown Enterprises truck in its parking lot in October 2015.

References

External links

Official Puente Hills Website
{{Shopping malls in California Shopping malls in the San Gabriel Valley Washington Prime Group Back to the Future (franchise) Shopping malls established in 1974 City of Industry, California 1974 establishments in California