Westminster’s infamous dead shopping center is on course for redevelopment

Westminster Mall, a once-popular shopping center that has been desecrated by graffiti and vandalism since it closed last year, is slated for demolition soon.

It will be replaced by housing, a hotel and some shops and stores, part of a national trend of exchanging outdated, failed shopping centers in high-traffic locations for a mixed-use development that typically includes apartments. The process often takes a long time, putting empty shopping centers at risk of being misused

In recent weeks, videos have circulated on social media showing widespread paint marks and destruction inside the structure that was a cultural touchstone in the Orange County city of Westminster for decades after it opened in 1974.

In its heyday, the mall was a gathering place, when there were few other places to hang out. It was the place where children discovered the latest fashion and where ‘mall rats’ roamed in packs after school.

Its owner, Irvine-based Shopoff Realty Investments, formally completed its purchase of the property visible from the 405 Freeway and announced last week that demolition of the massive indoor shopping center would begin in April. Target will continue to operate during this period, its owners said.

The company paid nearly $93 million for most of the old mall, according to real estate data provider CoStar. Shopoff Realty acquired the mall’s former Sears and Macy’s parcels in 2022.

Shopoff Realty now manages the mall and surrounding retail properties on an 89.3-acre site that it plans to convert into a mixed-use complex called Bolsa Pacific in Westminster.

The plans for Bolsa Pacific call for 2,250 homes with a mix of owner-occupied homes and affordable rental properties at market rates, the developer said.

The project also includes a 120-room hotel and more than 20,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. Bolsa Pacific will include more than 15 hectares of open space, including private spaces for residents, outdoor promenades and a network of walking trails.

Shopoff Realty expects city officials to approve the plans in the coming months and construction to begin by the end of the year after demolition is completed.

“The Westminster Mall meant a lot to a lot of people for many years,” said Willliam A. Shopoff, president of Shopoff Realty. “It was a meeting place and it was a place where people had their first jobs, or their first dates or their first kiss – or all of the above. We envision a new kind of meeting place that can have the same meaning for people for the next 50 or 75 years.”

As many as 8,000 people will live there, he said, and hundreds will work at the hotel.

“It’s hard to accumulate that much land in Orange County,” Shopoff said. “This is truly a special opportunity.”

According to city documents, the Westminster Mall opened in 1974 on the former site of the world’s largest goldfish farm. In the 1980s and 2008 it underwent major renovation.

As malls have closed due to changing consumer shopping habits and a desire for more lucrative development opportunities, the sprawling vacant buildings have taken on a new appeal as a kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland, much to the chagrin of local officials. Grazing such large structures and building something new in their place often takes years, leaving the malls empty and ripe for abuse.

Videos on social media and YouTube show people tagging empty storefronts, skateboarding or cycling indoors, and urban explorers touring the abandoned spaces for posterity or looking for signs of paranormal activity.

After the Hawthorne Plaza closed in 1999, it became the eerie setting for music videos by artists like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Travis Scott. Graffiti, trash, violations and safety problems at the sprawling shopping center have rankled local officials for so many years that they enforced a court order forcing the property’s owners to redevelop or demolish it by August.

Valley Plaza in North Hollywood, once touted as the largest mall on the West Coast, had been abandoned for nearly a decade and had become a hot spot for fires and criminal activity before it was demolished last year.

Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.