Orangefair Marketplace is a community

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 ...

Fullerton, California Fullerton ( ) is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617. Fullerton was founded in 1887. It secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Sa ...

which when built was one of the earliest large shopping centers in

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

. along with

Anaheim Plaza Anaheim Plaza, originally Broadway Orange County Center, then Anaheim Center, in Anaheim, California, was the first shopping mall in Orange County. It was a regional mall from 1955 to 1993 and is now a power center anchored by big-box stores. ...

and

Orange County Plaza Orange County Plaza, later Garden Grove Mall, Garden Promenade, now The Promenade at Garden Grove, was, upon its expansion in 1959, with sixty stores, the largest shopping center in Orange County, California, and at the time billed itself as "Orang ...

. It is located at the southeast corner of Harbor Boulevard (originally Spadra Road) and Orangethorpe Avenue, a mile south of Fullerton's historic downtown.

History

The plans for the Orangefair Center, as it was first known, shopping center were announced in 1955. It was to cost $8–10 million, be built on with parking for 3000 cars. it was to include: * a J. C. Penney

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

* a

W. T. Grant W. T. Grant or Grants was a United States-based chain of mass-merchandise stores founded by William Thomas Grant that operated from 1906 until 1976. The stores were generally of the variety store format located in downtowns. History In 1906 the ...

variety store A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It u ...

* a

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. ...

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

* a

Woolworth's Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

for a total of of gross leasable area. The center opened in 1956 as did the new Houston Freeway, which together with what was then called the Santa Ana Canyon Freeway, now form the 91 (Riverside) Freeway. In 1957 a $4,000,000, extension was built which, among other new stores, included Long's Drugs and a new branch of

Rankin's Rankin's was a department store at 117 West Fourth Street at Sycamore in downtown Santa Ana, California. The Rankin Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on its own and also as a contributing property of the Downtown Santa ...

, a Santa Ana department store, the only one it would ever build, but only operated for part of 1959 before closing. Orangefair was an open air mall surrounded by parking lots, with a pedestrian mall in a T shape on the interior, which is now closed off and used for service vehicles. In 1967, Penney's opened a totally new and much larger store, which it called the first "Total Penney's" and its first "complete department store" in Orange County. A

Boston Stores Boston Stores, originally and later still often called The Boston Store, was a chain of department stores based in Inglewood, California, just southwest of Central Los Angeles, that operated from 1934 through 1996. Ira Kaufman started the chain ...

junior department store opened in the space in 1968. During an era when owners of older shopping center became concerned about upgrading their facilities in light of competition from new centers, plans in 1976-7 called for the building of a bridge over Harbor Blvd. and incorporating the site of a

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

store (now

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

) store on the west side of Harbor. These never came to fruition. In 1993, JCPenney closed and relocated to

Brea Mall The Brea Mall is a shopping mall located in the Orange County city of Brea, California. Since 1998, the mall has been owned and operated by the Simon Property Group. It is home to four major department stores, 179 specialty shops and boutiques, ...

, which led to the creation of a new power center of today, now anchored by

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 ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

and

Marshalls Marshalls is an American chain of off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store, covering 42 states and Puerto Rico, and 61 stores in Canada. Mar ...

. The former JCPenney building first operated as a

HomeBase Homebase is a British home improvement retailer and garden centre with stores across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Founded by Sainsbury's and GB-Inno-BM in 1979, the company was owned by Home Retail Group from October 2006, unti ...

store before becoming Burlington afterwards. There are additional community-size open air centers across the streets immediately to the north (Fullerton Town Center, with a

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation (doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores (warehouse club). As of 2022, Costco i ...

(formerly Price Club),

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

(formerly Silo Electronics), and

Amazon Fresh Amazon Fresh is a subsidiary of the American e-commerce company Amazon in Seattle, Washington. It is a grocery retailer with physical stores and delivery services in most major U.S. cities, as well as some international cities, such as Berlin, Ha ...

(formerly

Toys R Us A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include Toy block, toy blocks, Board game, board games, and Doll, dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed sp ...

)), east (

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 ...

(formerly

Zody's Hartfield-Zodys was an American retail corporation begun in 1960. It operated the Hartfield chain of women's ready-to-wear apparel in the Los Angeles area, and starting in 1960, the Zodys chain of discount retail stores (1960–1986), which oper ...

/later

Food 4 Less Food 4 Less is the name of several grocery store chains, the largest of which is currently owned by Kroger. It is a no-frills grocery store where the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout. Kroger operates Food 4 Less stores in the ...

), and south (

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

and Curacao).

References

{{History of Retail in Southern California Shopping malls in Orange County, California Buildings and structures in Fullerton, California Tourist attractions in Fullerton, California