| Plaza West Covina | |
| Coordinates: | 34.0709°N -117.9325°W |
| Location: | West Covina, California, U.S. |
| Address: | 112 Plaza Drive |
| Opening Date: | (as West Covina Plaza) (as West Covina Fashion Plaza) |
| Previous Names: |
|
| Developer: | Sylvan Shulman (1962) May Centers, Inc. (1975) |
| Manager: | Pacific Retail Capital Partners |
| Owner: | Starwood Retail Partners |
| Number Of Stores: | 185 |
| Number Of Anchors: | 7 (6 open, 1 vacant) |
| Floor Area: | 1200000square feet |
| Floors: | 2 (1 in Best Buy, Gold's Gym, and Nordstrom Rack, 3rd floor offices in JCPenney, 3 in Parking Garage and former Sears) |
Plaza West Covina (formerly Westfield West Covina, and before that Plaza at West Covina, West Covina Fashion Plaza, and West Covina Plaza) is a large regional shopping mall in West Covina, California, owned by the Starwood Capital Group. Its anchor stores are Macy's, JCPenney, XXI Forever, Nordstrom Rack, Best Buy, and Gold's Gym with one vacant space last occupied by Sears. Westfield America, Inc., a precursor to Westfield Group, acquired the shopping center in 1998 and renamed it "Westfield Shoppingtown West Covina", dropping the "Shoppingtown" name in June 2005.[1] In October 2013, the Westfield Group sold the mall to Starwood Capital Group and the mall is now managed by Pacific Retail Capital Partners. [2] [3]
The history of what is now Plaza West Covina dates back to two original shopping centers.
In 1954, plans were announced for the new 36-acre, 50-store West Covina Center at the eastern end of what is now the Plaza space anchored by a 50,000 square-foot J. C. Penney, with parking for over 2,000 cars. It was to cost $5 million, financed and built by Los Angeles financier Sylvan S. Shulman and associates. It was stated at the time that the Penney's would be "West Covina's metropolitan-type store".[4]
The Broadway, opened August 6, 1962[5] and Desmond's, a specialty retailer, opened April 30, 1962,[6] anchoring a new West Covina Plaza, at the northwest end of what is now the Plaza. The complex would be incorporated into the later Plaza, but was demolished in 1974 except for The Broadway and Desmond's.
By 1968, the city of West Covina's general plan identified deterioration in the shopping centers district, such as poor traffic circulation, noting that it was one of the first cities in the country to identify deterioration in a modern planned shopping center district. Traffic circulation was poor, the Penney's-anchored "Center" was "poorly built and planned" and the Broadway-anchored "Plaza" while "built to a high standard of architectural and landscaping design", "could use some color to add to its appeal", according to the study.[7]
In 1973, plans were announced to build a new, large, enclosed mall to replace the two existing malls, to be known as "West Covina Fashion Plaza", which would open in 1975. Sylvan S. Shulman was the developer and Burke Kober Nicolais was the architect.[8]
The old centers would be demolished, except for The Broadway–Desmond's complex.
In 1991, then-named Sylvan S. Shulman Co. changed the official name of the mall to "Plaza at West Covina". In 1992–1993, a new wing anchored by Robinsons-May was constructed east of the Bullock's store. The first major anchor changes didn't come until 1996, when Federated Department Stores sold The Broadway store to Bloomingdale's, but due to lease issues, it became a Sears instead, and converted the Bullock's location to Macy's. Sears opened their new location in 1996, moving from a nearby stand-alone location in Covina.
On September 9, 2006, Federated renamed the old Robinsons-May store as Macy's and temporarily operated two stores at the mall.
Tower Records closed in late 2006. The mall's parking lot was also home to the newest Bob's Big Boy restaurant, which was located in the old Chevy's space (since closing) and a new concert venue known as Crazy Horse Live.
In the late 2000s the mall was redeveloped:[11]
In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 properties, including the Sears at Plaza West Covina, into Sertiage Growth Properties.[12]
Crazy Horse, which closed in 2015, was demolished and replaced by a Porto's Bakery. Porto's opened on April 30, 2019.[13]
On November 7, 2019, it was announced that Sears would be closing this location a part of a plan to close 96 stores nationwide. The store closed on February 16, 2020.[14]
In October 2020, Spirit Halloween opened up a temporary location in the vacant Sears space for the Halloween Season. As of November 2, 2020, Spirit Halloween moved out of the building, leaving the space now vacant.[15]
Plaza West Covina is a large regional mall with 185 shops, stores, and restaurants. The mall is two levels and is anchored by Macy's (180000square feet) to the east, JCPenney (193963square feet) to the south, former Sears (137820square feet) to the west, Best Buy (45000square feet) to the north, the newly opened XXI Forever flagship store (to the north) and Nordstrom Rack. There is a food court on the second level as well as other restaurants, and other food & drink kiosks. The Mall features many fashion shops such as; H&M, Sephora, M.A.C., Hollister, Express, American Eagle Outfitters, and The Children's Place.
