Town & Country Market was a shopping center in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, at the southeast corner of Third and Fairfax, across Third from Farmer's Market. it incorporated elements of a farmer's market but profiled itself as a "small town of 100 smart shops". Opened in 1942, author Richard Longstreth, who calls it an example of the "shopping court", notes that it was one of the first shopping centers in Los Angeles built with parking lots for customers arriving by car, being much larger than the earlier Broadway & 87th Street shopping center and preceding the larger Broadway-Crenshaw Center (opened 1946) by 5 years. It was more regular in plan and more pretentious in appearance than Farmer's market across the street. It promoted its entertainment and had 26 restaurants onsite, in this sense a precursor to the lifestyle center of today. [1] [2] [3] The market opened on May 14, 1942. [4]
The site continues as a community shopping center signed Town & Country Center. The anchors are: [5]
As of 2023, it is currently being redeveloped by Regency Centers as Bloom on Third, with a new mixed-use complex under construction on the site of the demolished Kmart. It will have apartments on the upper floors, and the Whole Foods Market will move into the lower levels when it is completed. [6]
A shopping center, shopping centre, also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.
The Fairfax District is a neighborhood in the Central region of Los Angeles, California.
The Original Farmers Market is an area of food stalls, sit-down eateries, prepared food vendors, and produce markets in Los Angeles, California, at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street. First opened in July 1934, it is also a historic Los Angeles landmark and tourist attraction.
The Grove is a retail and entertainment complex in Los Angeles, located on parts of the historic Farmers Market. The mall features Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble.
The Historic Core is a district within Downtown Los Angeles that includes the world's largest concentration of movie palaces, former large department stores, and office towers, all built chiefly between 1907 and 1931. Within it lie the Broadway Theater District and the Spring Street historic financial district, and in its west it overlaps with the Jewelry District and in its east with Skid Row.
3rd Street in Los Angeles is a major east–west thoroughfare. The west end is in downtown Beverly Hills by Santa Monica Boulevard, and the east is at Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles, where it shares a one-way couplet with 4th Street. East of Alameda it becomes 4th Street, where it heads to East Los Angeles, where it turns back into 3rd Street upon crossing Indiana Street. 3rd Street eventually becomes Pomona Boulevard in Monterey Park, where it then turns into Potrero Grande Drive and finally turns into Rush Street in Rosemead and ends in El Monte.
Plaza West Covina 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. In October 2013, the Westfield Group sold the mall to Starwood Capital Group and the mall is now managed by Pacific Retail Capital Partners.
Fallbrook Center, originally Fallbrook Square, is a shopping center located on Fallbrook Avenue between Victory Boulevard and Vanowen Street in West Hills, Los Angeles, California. Fallbrook Center is a 75-acre (300,000 m2), 880,000-square-foot (82,000 m2), open-air shopping center with retailers including Wal-Mart, Trader Joe's, Home Depot, Target, Ulta Beauty, Bob's Discount Furniture, Furniture City, Crumbl Cookies, Panda Express, Sprouts Farmers Market, Ross Dress for Less, 24 Hour Fitness, It's Boba Time, Michael's, and Petco.
Santa Maria Town Center is an indoor shopping center located in Santa Maria, California. It is located on the junctions of Routes 135 (Broadway) and 166, and Cook Street and Miller Street. Anchored by Macy's and Edwards Theatres, Santa Maria Town Center is the only enclosed shopping center in Santa Barbara County, and is the largest in the Central Coast, totaling about 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) in area. It is home to a mix of 69 stores and eateries totaling approximately 25 acres (10 ha) of retail space, and features national retailers like Kay Jewelers, Bath & Body Works, Foot Locker, and GNC. The Town Center also features two three-level parking garages with 3,315 total parking spaces.
The Flower District of Downtown Los Angeles is a six block floral marketplace, consisting of nearly 200 wholesale flower dealers, located within the LA Fashion District. What started almost 100 years ago as a small flower mart near Santa Monica, California, has grown into the United States' largest wholesale flower district in its current downtown location. The Market is open very early in the morning, Monday–Saturday, and closes in the early afternoon. Every commercially available cut flower can be purchased there.
The Linda Vista Shopping Center is a neighborhood shopping center San Diego and one of the first in the United States, built in 1943. It was predated in California only by the Broadway & 87th Street shopping center in South Los Angeles opened in seven years earlier in 1936.
Los Altos Center is a regional shopping mall in the Los Altos area of northeastern Long Beach, California along Bellflower Boulevard, 4 miles south of Lakewood Center Mall and 5 miles east of Downtown Long Beach.
The late-Victorian-era Downtown of Los Angeles in 1880 was centered at the southern end of the Los Angeles Plaza area, and over the next two decades, it extended south and west along Main Street, Spring Street, and Broadway towards Third Street. Most of the 19th-century buildings no longer exist, surviving only in the Plaza area or south of Second Street. The rest were demolished to make way for the Civic Center district with City Hall, numerous courthouses, and other municipal, county, state and federal buildings, and Times Mirror Square. This article covers that area, between the Plaza, 3rd St., Los Angeles St., and Broadway, during the period 1880 through the period of demolition (1920s–1950s).
Panorama Mall is a mall in Panorama City, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California. It is an enclosed mall anchored by two large discount stores, Walmart and Curacao, aimed primarily at a Hispanic customer base.
Valley Plaza was a shopping center in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, one of the first in the San Fernando Valley, opened in 1951. In the mid-1950s it was reported to be the largest shopping center on the West Coast of the United States and the third-largest in the country. It was located along Laurel Canyon Boulevard from Oxnard to Vanowen, and west along Victory Boulevard. Like its competitor Panorama City Shopping Center to the north, Valley Plaza started with one core development and grew over time to market, under the single name "Valley Plaza", a collection of adjacent retail developments with multiple developers, owners, and opening dates.
Parmelee-Dohrmann was a Los Angeles–based chain of stores that sold fine china, crystal, glassware, silver, and objects of art.
The Broadway & 87th Street shopping center designed by Wisstein Bros. and Surval, was one of the earliest shopping centers in Los Angeles, built in stages between 1936 and 1939 at 8701–8765 South Broadway between 87th and 88th streets, in what is now termed the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood. Researcher and author Richard Longstreth calls it the first true neighborhood shopping center.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.
The Potomac Block was a commercial building with a historical role in the retail history of Los Angeles, at 213–223 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, on the west side of Broadway between 2nd and 3rd streets. It was developed by lumberyard and mill owner J. M. Griffith, designed in 1888 by Block, Curlett and Eisen in Romanesque architectural style and opened on July 17, 1890. Tenants included Ville de Paris, and City of London Dry Goods Co. It was the first time major retail stores opened on South Broadway, in what would be a shift of the shopping district from 1890 to 1905, from the 1880s-1890s central business district around Spring, Main, First and Temple streets to S. Broadway, and ever further south along Broadway.
A shopping court is a type of neighborhood shopping center that developed, particularly in Greater Los Angeles, in the 1920s. Most had a few boutiques, themed shops, and cafes, up to a dozen and sometimes included offices and studios. A linear walkway or patio connected the units, which was relatively new, as up to then, collections of shops under a management or coordination were connected by a public sidewalk, as in Westwood Village or Country Club Plaza. Patios of buildings in Mexico, Latin America and the Mediterranean inspired the design on the shopping court, as those regions also inspired much of the Southern California architecture during that era, e.g. Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. Shopping courts proliferated in the 1930s in affluent residential areas such as Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena, and in resorts like Palm Springs and Santa Barbara. They were limited in impact as the scale could not accommodate larger stores and store windows did not draw attention of passing motorists.