The Hawthorne Plaza mall has been closed since 1999 and in the time since then, has just been sitting eerily empty, save for the occasional film crew (it appeared most recently in Gone Girl). This week, though, the Hawthorne Planning Commission accepted a proposal from mall owners Charles Company to demolish the "ramshackle haven for feral cats and vagrants" and put in its place a kind of outdoor mall/luxury residential combination along the lines of the Americana at Brand or Paseo Colorado, the Daily Breeze reports.
This isn't the first time a revival of the mall site has been proposed. Three other plans have been floated over the years; disappointments included an unsuccessful push for SpaceX to move in and an failed move to build an outlet mall (now slated to rise on the Carson site that didn't become an NFL football stadium).
This latest redevelopment blueprint includes what the mall owners are calling a "power center" (which seems to just be an outdoor mall), office space, and residential units atop the compound's "walkable outdoor retail strips." Courtyards and parks would be interspersed throughout the retail area and on rooftops. In all, the new development would hold 600 residences, 500,000 square feet of space for retail, 800,000 square feet of office space, and almost 5,900 parking spots for cars.
The proposed overhaul at the mall is not a done deal yet: it still has to be approved by the full Hawthorne City Council, and the Charles Company hasn't revealed any tenants for all that space that a new complex might bring.
· Ambitious plans emerge for abandoned Hawthorne Plaza Mall [DB]
· Watch: Exploring the Spooky Abandoned Hawthorne Mall [Curbed LA]