The ''May Company Building'' is one of the anchor tenants of the

Westfield Mission Valley Mission Valley (formerly Westfield Mission Valley) is a retail complex consisting of a traditional open-air shopping mall owned by Real Capital Solutions and Lowe, and a power center (retail), power center owned by Sunbelt Investment Holdings In ...

shopping center in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, and is an example of

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

architecture. The building opened as a May Company store on February 20, 1961; the first location of May Co. in San Diego. The store later rebranded as

Robinsons-May Robinsons-May was an American department store chain founded in 1993 with the merger of J. W. Robinson's and May Company California. It retained the former May headquarters in Los Angeles, California, and operated in Southern California, Arizo ...

in 1993 after May Company merged with Robinson's. A subsequent rebranding 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 ...

occurred in 2006, upon

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (previously Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American holding company of department stores. Upon its establishment in 1929, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus (departm ...

merger with the

May Department Stores Company 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 ...

. Macy's operated until the store was closed in 2017. It is currently empty. The May Company Building at Mission Valley was designed in 1958. Construction began in 1959 with completion in late 1960; the store opened with the mall on February 20, 1961. It was designed by William S. (Bill) Lewis, Jr. for LA-based AC Martin (later of Deems-Lewis), Frank L. Hope & Associates backstopped the project locally. The building consists of 363,000 square feet on three levels, with one basement level. A large cafe, originally named ''The Mission Room'' extends from the second floor on the southern face of the building. Framed in floor-to-ceiling windows, it provided patrons expansive views of Highway 80 (later

Interstate 8 Interstate 8 (I-8) is an Interstate Highway in the southwestern United States. It runs from the southern edge of Mission Bay at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in San Diego, California, almost at the Pacific Ocean, to the junction with I-10, ...

), and the hills of south Mission Valley. It has been described by San Diego architectural photographer and historian Darren Bradley as an architectural icon, a "jewel box with a unique texture … striking architecture … the cladding all the way around the building … (is in) a modernist design that plays with light and shadow … designed to grab attention." This was part of a modernist landscape established in the area in the 1960s. As of January 2017, Westfield was considering a number of different plans for the use of the building. A 2015 study by the City of San Diego concluded that the building meets several criteria for qualification for the San Diego Resources register: an example of community development and of an identifiable architectural style (

Modern Contemporary architecture Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture was ...

of 1955–1965). However the report stated that the building did not qualify because of the lack of integrity of the original construction, due to replacement of some original tiles, altered walls, covering up of the building by new retail space set in front of it, removal of original pop-out display windows and "May Co." signage, and demolition of the 1958 canopy and columns, thus all together the alteration of more than 50% of the surface area of the original building exterior. It also did not qualify because it is not the "identifiable work" of a "listed Master Architect".

References

{{coord, 32.768964, -117.146329, region:US-CA_type:landmark, display=title Modernist architecture in California Buildings and structures in San Diego Retail buildings in California Mission Valley, San Diego

Mission Valley, San Diego Mission Valley is a wide river valley trending east–west in San Diego, California, United States, through which the San Diego River flows to the Pacific Ocean. For planning purposes the City of San Diego divides it into two neighborhoods: Mi ...

May Company California