A Brief History of the Crenshaw Mall | Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South LA (2021)

A Brief History of the Crenshaw Mall | Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South LA (2021)

Believe it or not, South LA is home to one of the very first modern malls in the nation. And that history starts with the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, locally known as the Crenshaw Mall.

The Crenshaw Mall is one of the oldest in largest malls in South Los Angeles / South Central and the City of Los Angeles.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:28 Redefining Retail
3:11 The Decline Part One
4:37 A Glimmer of Hope
5:18 The Decline Part Two
8:18 Outro

Before the Crenshaw and Baldwin Hills neighborhoods of Southwest Los Angeles were developed, it was primarily private ranch land owned by Elisas “Lucky” Baldwin, a wealthy landowner in the late 19th and early 20th century who held more than 40,000 acres of land across Los Angeles.

In November of 1947, The Broadway, a major department store in the 20th century, opened a $6 million, 200,000 square foot store in what was then called the Crenshaw Center. This retail development had a whopping 10-and-a-half acre, 2,200 car parking lot.

Read about how the Crenshaw Mall lost Walmart in 2016 - http://ourweekly.com/news/2016/jan/21... This was the only Walmart in the bounds of Los Angeles until it closed in 2016.

Sears was another major anchor until it closed in 2019 http://ourweekly.com/news/2019/nov/14...

Read about how the CIM Group planned on purchasing the mall in 2020, but backed out - https://www.bizjournals.com/losangele...

Downtown Crenshaw Rising came close to purchasing the mall in 2021, but its bid was denied. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-wa...

This LA Times article covers the Harridge Development Group, which bought the mall in August 2021 with a $111 million bid - https://www.latimes.com/business/stor...

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