LARWIN PLAZA
Sonoma Boulevard and Valle Vista Avenue
Vallejo, California
Solano County's first regional-class shopping center was built on a 56-acre parcel, located 25 miles northeast of San Francisco's Union Square, in the North Bay suburb of Vallejo. The center was developed by a joint venture of Vallejo's G. Wilfred Hewett and the Beverly Hills-based Larwin Fund. The Larwin Fund also built LARWIN SQUARE in Tustin and LARWIN PLAZA in the Simi Valley.
LARWIN PLAZA in Vallejo was built in two stages. Construction of three eastern store blocks began in 1961, with the mall's first stores opening in September of 1962. Plans for a 1-level (102,500 square foot) Sears were announced in December 1961. This store, which anchored the north end of the complex, was dedicated on June 5, 1963.
Encompassing approximately 500,000 leasable square feet and forty stores and services, the original LARWIN PLAZA included Smith's Clothiers of Oakland, Motherhood Maternity, Crown's Hallmark, United California Bank, Singer Sewing Center, an (11,600 foot) Hartfield's, (24,000 square foot) Mayfair Market grocery, (17,000 square foot) Thrifty Drug and (28,000 square foot) S.S. Kresge 5 & 10.
A mall-wide face lift was completed in 1989, with the name of the complex changed to VALLEJO PLAZA. This reinvention was successful for a time. However, Michaels, Office Depot and the American Multi-Cinema Vallejo Plaza 6 pulled out of the mall between 1997 and 2001. By 2002, SavMax had also went dark.
In 2003, the shopping center received a degree of notoriety. Two Berkeley architects, Jill Stoner and Susannah Meek, proposed a green-friendly solution for dealing with the struggling retail center. They advocated flooding parking areas and razing vacant retail structures; returning the mall site to its original -White Slough- wetland state. The ladies were among the winners of the year's "Dead Malls" competition, which was sponsored by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture & Urban Design.
Instead of being flooded and demolished, VALLEJO PLAZA was given a 17 million dollar renovation, and was successfully remarketed to the large Asian population in its vicinity. Seafood City, a Pomona, California-based Filipino specialty grocer, set up shop in a (53,000 square foot) section of the old Sears. The store began business in May 2003.
The Seafood City dedication was followed by openings for several new businesses. These included Valeria's Tropical Bakery, the Chow King and Max Of Manila restaurants, Dollar Tree, Factory 2-U and Vallejo Plaza Banquet Hall. A (39,100 square foot) dd's Discounts welcomed its first shoppers in August 2004.
By this time, one third of the mall structure (its southwest store blocks) had been demolished, clearing 7 acres for redevelopment. The parcel was sold to Alliance Communities, who built a "luxury apartment homes" complex, known as Broadstone Sterling Village. The 200-unit facility was completed in 2005.
Sources:
The Oakland Tribune
The Napa Valley Register (Napa, California)
http://www.bizjournals.com
http://www.economic-innovation.com
City Of Vallejo Economic Development News: Second Quarter 2003 / Third Quarter 2004
www.cinematreasures.org
