SOUTHLAND CENTER
West Winton Avenue and Hesperian Boulevard
Hayward, California
California's first two enclosed, regional-class malls opened for business during 1964. The first, Los Angeles' TOPANGA PLAZA, held a soft opening in February. The first stores in the Bay Area's first interior mall opened their doors in April.
The initial phase of SOUTHLAND CENTER occupied 12 acres of an 82-acre parcel. This was located 25 miles southeast of San Francisco's Union Square, in the East Bay suburb of Hayward. The mall was built next to PALMA CEIA CENTER. This open-air strip complex served the adjacent Palma Ceia Village housing development, which had opened in 1953. PALMA CEIA CENTER was anchored by a freestanding, 2-level (287,000 square foot) Sears. This store welcomed first customers on November 6, 1958.
A twelve-store strip was dedicated between January and April of 1961 and included Leanor's Gift Shop, Lucien's Beauty Salon, Thrifty Drug, the Red Garter cocktail lounge and Safeway and Lucky Stores supermarkets. The PALMA CEIA name had been dropped by mid-1963, with the store strip becoming an outparcel of the prospective mall. Sears was connected with said mall and served as one of its anchors.
Seattle's John Graham, Junior designed SOUTHLAND CENTER. The complex was the first developed by Bayshore Properties, a joint venture of Chicago's Arthur Rubloff, Detroit's A. Alfred Taubman and Charles Allen, Junior. It was also the first enclosed mall built under the auspices of the Taubman Company, which eventually morphed into Taubman Centers, a major retail developer of the late 20th century.
In addition to Sears, the 620,700 square foot SOUTHLAND mall was anchored by a 2-level (168,700 square foot) J.C. Penney, which was dedicated on October 22, 1964. Inline stores opened between 1964 and 1966. These included Lerner Shops, Singer Sewing Center, Smith's Clothiers, Grodins men's wear, Roos-Atkins men's wear and an F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10.
SOUTHLAND had a Lower Mall level, accessed from the Penneys Court. It housed the Le Mans Speedway bumper cars track, a cocktail lounge, pinball arcade and several meeting rooms. The General Cinema Corporation Southland Cinema I & II, a north parking area outparcel, opened December 21, 1967. The venue would eventually be reconfigured as a 5-plex.
In the early 1970s, an extension to the mall's existing West Wing was built. This included a Joseph Magnin store, indoor Ice Rink and 3-level (180,400 square foot), Honolulu-based Liberty House. This store held its grand opening on July 30, 1972. With this addition, SOUTHLAND CENTER encompassed approximately 1,186,000 leasable square feet.
Major shopping centers in the vicinity of SOUTHLAND CENTER included BAY FAIR CENTER (1957) {3.3 miles northwest, in San Leandro}, FREMONT HUB (1961) {9.3 miles southeast, in Fremont}, STONERIDGE MALL (1980) {9.7 miles northeast, in Pleasanton} and NEWPARK MALL (1980) {10 miles southeast, in Newark}.
SOUTHLAND CENTER was given a thorough renovation between 1983 and 1984. The Le Mans Speedway space became the 14-bay Food Fair Food Court. A section of the Penney's Court floor was removed, creating a 3-story-high atrium over the new culinary complex.
Adjoining area on the Lower Level was converted to a Brisbane, California-based The Good Guys! electronics outlet. This eventually morphed into a Dave & Barry's apparel and -then- Gold's Gym. Courts and concourses in the mall were also given a face lift.
By this time, Liberty House had been shuttered. The store re-opened as a Bay Area-based Emporium-Capwell in October 1983. This location was "Macy-ated" in early 1996. Meanwhile, Hayward-based Mervyn's, who had operated a store in downtown San Lorenzo since 1949, moved to a new, 2-level (98,800 square foot) flagship at SOUTHLAND CENTER. It opened for business January 14, 1995.
Chicago-based General Growth Properties established 100 percent ownership of the shopping venue in December 2002. Its official name morphed to SOUTHLAND MALL around this time. The complex housed 1,400,000 leasable square feet, with 140 inline stores.
The SOUTHLAND Mervyn's was shuttered in December 2008 and re-opened, as a Wisconsin-based Kohl's, September 30, 2009. A Steve & Barry's University Sportswear closed its doors in early 2009.
In January 2012, SOUTHLAND MALL became one of several GGP properties placed under the newly-formed Rouse Properties REIT, a spin off division devoted to Class B-type shopping hubs. Rouse properties, and its portfolio of thirty-five shopping malls, was sold in July 2016. The buyer was Toronto's Brookfield Asset Management.
Meanwhile, Kohl's was shuttered on January 17, 2014. The building was remodeled and re-opened, as a Dick's Sporting Goods, on July 8, 2016. Soon after, plans for a new in-mall multiplex were announced. The Century Theatres Southland Mall 5 would be built in the southeast corner of the shopping facility, taking space previously occupied by inline stores. The venue showed its first features on December 20, 2018.
Soon after, two mall anchors pulled up stakes. Dick's Sporting Goods, in business at SOUTHLAND CENTER for less that 5 years, went dark on January 5, 2020. Sears shuttered their 62-year-old store on February 14 of the same year.
Sources:
The Oakland Tribune
http://www.bigmallrat.com / Scott P. webmaster
http://www.haywardareahistory / "Palma Ceia Elementary School and Neighborhood" / Dean Dizikes
http://www.ggp.com / General Growth Properties
https://hayward.legistar.com
http://www.southlandmall.com
http://www.haywardareahistory / "Palma Ceia Elementary School and Neighborhood" / Dean Dizikes
http://www.ggp.com / General Growth Properties
https://hayward.legistar.com
http://www.southlandmall.com
https://www.cinematreasures.org
http://www.rouseproperties.com
http://alamedasocialservices.org
http://www.rouseproperties.com
http://alamedasocialservices.org
"Carter Hawley Hale Stores" article on Wikipedia
"Southland Mall" article on Wikipedia
"Southland Mall" article on Wikipedia
FAIR USE OF SOUTHLAND CENTER IMAGES:
The images credited to Vano-Wells-Fagliano illustrate a key moment in the mall's history that is described in the article. The images are not replaceable with free-use or public domain images. The use of the images does not limit the copyright owners' rights to distribute the images in any way. The images are being used for non-profit, informational purposes only and their use is not believed to detract from the original images in any way.
