North Main Street and West Town and Country Road
Santa Ana, California
Southern California's Bullock's Realty Company selected Orange County for the location of their first FASHION SQUARE shopping center. It would be built in the northern corporate limits of Santa Ana, on a 45-acre parcel. The site was located 31 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles and was adjacent to the Santa Ana Freeway, which had opened to traffic in 1956.
BULLOCK'S FASHION SQUARE was designed by William Pereira & Charles Luckman, Burke, Kober & Nicolais and H.C. Chambers and Lester Hibbard. The 560,000 square foot complex consisted of eight store blocks, with Bullock's Santa Ana as its anchor. This 4-level (336,000 square foot) department store was the chain's sixth branch.
At its official grand opening, held on September 17, 1958, BULLOCK'S FASHION SQUARE housed thirty-two tenants. These included Harris & Frank, Desmond's, J.J. Haggerty's, See's Candies and a 3-level (30,000 square foot) I. Magnin. There were lushly-landscaped courts and concourses, displaying 400 trees and 10,000 plants. Floral arrangements were replaced four times a year to reflect the changing seasons.
As the FASHION SQUARE was being built, a 240,000 square foot strip center was constructed on an adjacent 16.8-acre site. METCALF PLAZA housed a (40,000 square foot) Food Giant supermarket, (26,500 square foot) S.H. Kress 5 & 10, Sally Shops ladies' wear, Thrifty Drugs, Richman Brothers men's wear and Thom McAn Shoes. Stores opened in early 1959.
Shopping centers within the FASHION SQUARE trade area included BROADWAY ORANGE COUNTY CENTER (1957) {5.5 miles northwest, in Anaheim}, HONER PLAZA (1959) {1.2 miles southwest, also in Santa Ana}, SOUTH COAST PLAZA (1967) {5 miles southwest, in Costa Mesa}, CITY SHOPPING CENTER (1970) {1.2 miles northwest, in Orange} and MALL AT ORANGE (1971) {3.6 miles northeast, in The City Of Orange}.
The Garden Grove Freeway, which passed directly north of the FASHION SQUARE, opened to traffic in 1967. In 1978, a multilevel parking garage, sitting west of I. Magnin, was added. By this time, the complex -promoted as SANTA ANA FASHION SQUARE- was in decline. The venue had operated under three owners since 1958, with the latest being completely uninterested in any type of renovation or expansion.
The City of Santa Ana was desperate to see their city's "minor league" shopping hub brought up to date. A joint venture was formed, consisting of Santa Ana's Community Redevelopment Agency, Chicago's JMB / Federated Realty and an entity known as Santa Ana Venture (a joint venture of the Henry Segerstrom Family and Chase McLaughlin).
"A new downtown for Orange County" was envisaged, which would take the place of the past-its-prime FASHION SQUARE. The MAIN PLACE project was to include a one million square foot shopping galleria, luxury hotel and three office towers...all of these linked by a system of skybridges.
The owner of the property, Chicago's Draper & Kramer, balked at the redevelopment project. They were eventually bought out, at great expense. With this road block removed, demolition of FASHION SQUARE was able to get underway in late 1985.
A 3-level, fully enclosed mall was built, incorporating the existing Bullock's. The northwest parking structure was left standing, with two new parking facilities constructed. I. Magnin closed February 14, 1987. Its building was also left standing and was worked into the newly-built -300 million dollar- facility. The prospective office towers and hotel were dropped from the final plan.
MAINPLACE SANTA ANA was dedicated on September 26, 1987. In addition to Bullock's, the complex included a 3-level (150,500 square foot) Nordstrom and 3-level (142,500 square foot) J.W. Robinson's. The complex also included the 17-bay MainPlace MainCourse Food Court and American Multi-Cinema MainPlace Theatre 6 multiplex. This venue had showed its first features on September 25, 1987.
The first stores in a 182,000 square foot North Wing were dedicated on November 1, 1990,. A 3-level (150,000 square foot) May Company California opened its doors in May 1991. The shopping center now encompassed approximately 1,158,000 leasable square feet and housed one hundred and ninety-five stores and services under its roof.
Anchor rebrandings occurred later in the decade. May Company and J.W. Robinson's came under the Robinsons-May nameplate January 31, 1993. The old May Company morphed into Robinsons-May North (Women's & Children's) with the former Robinson's re-opening as Robinsons-May South (Men's & Furniture). Bullock's was "Macy-ated" on May 1, 1996.
By the year 2000, MAINPLACE SANTA ANA was owned by the North American subsidiary of Rotterdam, Holland-based Rodamco. Australia's Westfield acquired fourteen Rodamco malls in May 2002, including the MAINPLACE property. It was immediately renamed WESTFIELD SHOPPINGTOWN MAINPLACE, which was shortened to WESTFIELD MAINPLACE in June 2005.
More changes occurred during 2006 and 2007. The 6-plex cinema had closed and re-opened under new management during 1999. It closed and re-opened -with new management- on October 20, 2006. It was now promoted as Picture Show at MainPlace.
The Robinsons-May South store became a Macy's Men's & Home late in the year. The Robinsons-May North operation closed and was sold to Westfield. It re-opened, as a J.C. Penney, on March 4, 2007. Los Angeles-based Forever 21 relocated into the lower level of the old I. Magnin space in November 2007, establishing a (21,000 square foot) XXI Forever store.
The main MAINPLACE Macy's (in the old Bullock's) was renovated during 2012, with retail area expanded into old office and storage space. New mattress and men's wear departments were installed. The Macy's Men's & Home store was shuttered, with its merchandise incorporated into the main Macy's store.
In August 2014, Westfield announced a 50 million dollar MAINPLACE makeover. The vacant Macy's Men's & Home would be divided between seven tenants; the largest of these being Ashley Homestore, 24 Hour Fitness and a Round 1 Bowling & Amusement Center.
Ashley Homestore became the first new tenant to open, on November 14, 2014. It was followed by 24 hour Fitness and Round One, which were dedicated in mid-2015. Four sit-down restaurants were also installed as part of the renovation. These were Panni Cafe, DXL, Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que and Wokcano.
A Restaurant Row, adjacent to J.C. Penney, featured Boudin SF Bakery and Johnny Rockets. Beneath the existing Dining Court, the Westside Dining area included Blaze Pizza, Starbucks Coffee and Dog Haus.
A consortium of San Antonio's USAA Real Estate, Dallas' Centennial Real Estate and San Francisco's Montgomery Street Partners bought the shopping center in December 2015. Its official name was changed to MAINPLACE MALL soon after.
Nordstrom shuttered their MAINPLACE MALL store on March 17, 2017. The mall's proprietor plans to repurpose the vacant building with several tenant spaces, in a move similar to the Macy's Men's store redevelopment.
Sources:
The Los Angeles Times
preservenet.cornell.edu/publications/Longstreth Branch Store.doc
"Main Place: A Look at Multi-use Redevelopment" / David K. Cole / September 1985
http://www.mainplacesantaana.com (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
www.westfield.com
www.cinematreasures.org
www.lw.com
FAIR USE OF BULLOCK'S FASHION SQUARE IMAGE:
The photo from the Orange County Archive illustrates a key moment in the mall's history that is described in the article. The image is not replaceable with free-use or public-domain image. The use of the image does not limit the copyright owners' rights to distribute the images in any way. The images is being used for non-profit, informational purposes only and its use is not believed to detract from the original image in any way.
