Panorama Mall

Panorama Mall, in Panorama City, in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, is an enclosed mall anchored by two large discount stores, Walmart, and Los-Angeles based Curacao ("Cur-uh-SOW"), aimed primarily at a Hispanic customer base.

The mall originally opened as the open-air Broadway-Valley shopping center in 1955,[1] and was renovated and enclosed in 1980.[2] Similar to what happened with nearby Valley Plaza, after opening, additional department stores and retail strips opened on the edges of the Broadway center, and during the 1960's the merchant's association of the various owners, marketed its retail properties collectively as the Panorama City Shopping Center.[3]

History

The Broadway-Valley shopping center, as it was then known, opened on October 10, 1955, as a single strip of stores along Van Nuys Blvd. north of Roscoe Blvd, with 89,000 square feet (8,300 m2) of retail space adjacent to and sharing a parking lot with a 226,000-square-foot (21,000 m2) Broadway department store designed by architect Welton Becket. Silverwoods, Mandel's, Kinney Shoes, Lerner's and Woolworth were the other stores in the complex.[1]

The anchor department stores opened as follows:

  • The Broadway, opened October 10, 1955, 226,000 square feet (21,000 m2), 3 stories,[1] currently Walmart
  • Montgomery Ward, opened September 13, 1961, 154,537 square feet (14,357.0 m2), 2 stories,[4] closed in 2001, building currently empty
  • J. W. Robinson's, opened on June 27, 1961[5]
  • Ohrbach's, opened October 7, 1964, 115,000 square feet (10,700 m2), 2 stories, 7.5 acre site, cost $5 million to build,[6] currently the Valley Indoor Swap Meet

A 1964 advertisement promoted 86 stores collectively as the "Panorama City Shopping Center" - not just the Broadway and Silverwoods complex. These included three full-line freestanding department stores within one block of The Broadway.[3] J. W. Robinson's, and .

By the 1970s, business had declined, notably to other regional malls that had opened in the Valley such as the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Sherman Oaks Fashion Square and Northridge Fashion Center.[7]

In 1979, the Santa Monica-based MaceRich Co. real estate development firm and the Connecticut General Mortgage and Realty Investments Co. bought the mall for $5.8 million and enclosed and renovated it. The $7 million in improvements included a refresh to the look of the mall, new construction including a second strip of shops, plus a roof over the mall walkway. The retail sales area increased to 145,000 square feet (13,500 m2) and the mall was physically connected to the adjacent Broadway store. A large stainless sculpture by artist Sebastian Trovato was added, portraying intertwining rings.[2]

In 1986,the Panorama Mall ranked 40th out of the 61 regional shopping malls in Los Angeles and Orange Counties with more than $68 million in annual sales. Business was improving, according to the manager of the Broadway, but the Los Angeles Times characterized retail in the area as "awaiting revival".[7]

In the late 1990s, Walmart opened in the building vacated by the Broadway after that chain's merger into Federated Department Stores and then Macy's.[8]

The owners renovated the mall again for $1 million in 2005.[9]

As of 2019, the abandoned Montgomery Ward store across from the mall is set to become a residential and retail mixed-use development.[10]

References
  1. "'Copter Takes Group To Broadway-Valley". Valley Times. October 10, 1955.
  2. Stein, Mark (November 23, 1980). "Panorama Mall Reopens with New Face: 25-Year-Old Shopping Center, One of Valley's First, Renovated". Los Angeles Times. p. 638.
  3. Ohrbach's advertisement in Valley News, 1964
  4. "Ward Valley Store to Open Wednesday". Los Angeles Times. September 10, 1961.
  5. "Panorama City Store Opened by Robinson's", Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1961
  6. "Los Angeles Times". October 8, 1964.
  7. "Panorama City: Once vital business area awaits revival". Los Angeles Times. January 25, 1988. p. 24.
  8. "Right Place, Time for Wal-Mart". Los Angeles Times. April 27, 1997.
  9. "Facelift prices up San Fernando Valley's old mall". The Desert Sun (Palm Springs). November 20, 2005.
  10. https://www.dailynews.com/the-icon-at-panorama-project-moves-forward-after-city-officials-reject-appeal

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