History
In March 1967, members of the Segerstrom family, most notably, Harold (Hal) T. Segerstrom, Jr. and cousin, Henry Segerstrom opened a shopping center called "South Coast Plaza" in one of the family's lima bean fields in rapidly growing Orange County. Originally anchored by a May Company that had opened in late 1966 and Sears, the initial phase of the center was designed by Victor Gruen. It was built the same year as The Irvine Company's neighboring Fashion Island in Newport Beach.
The success of the center brought rapid expansion: an additional wing with Bullock's in 1973, I. Magnin in 1977, Nordstrom in 1978, and Saks Fifth Avenue in 1979. The opening of the Nordstrom store is considered a seminal event as it was the first Nordstrom store outside of the Pacific Northwest and marked the West Coast and later the nationwide expansion of its chain.
In 1986, the center began opening its largest expansion, with Nordstrom replacing its store with a new location twice the size of the original in May, and the addition of a free-standing wing across Bear Street, identified as "Crystal Court" and anchored by The Broadway and J. W. Robinson's, which opened in the Fall. These two stores were anchors at nearby Fashion Island, but were willing to cannibalize sales at that location due to the strong drawing power of South Coast Plaza. This signified South Coast Plaza's elevation from regional shopping center to national shopping destination. The expansion continued in fall 1987 with an enlargement of Bullock's and the redevelopment of the former Nordstrom as additional center space, including a Tiffany's that opened in Fall 1988. The Crystal Court standalone wing never performed as well as the original center, its separation due both to land restrictions and the fact that May Co. and The Broadway routinely refused to allow each other to build stores at their existing centers — which explains the proximity of so many competing malls throughout Southern California.
In 1991, the I. Magnin location was closed by I. Magnin's new owner, Federated Department Stores and reopened as the first standalone Bullock's Men's store, also owned by Federated. May Co. and Robinson's merged in 1993 to form Robinsons-May, retaining both locations as separate full-line stores, while the two Bullock's locations and Broadway store were all renamed Macy's in early 1996, with again like Robinson-May, separate stores being maintained on either side of Bear Street. In 1995, prior to the Federated Department Stores/Broadway Stores merger, Bloomingdale's was in negotiations to build a location at South Coast Plaza, but other anchor tenants would not give permission for its construction. When Federated merged all the stores into its Macy's West division in 1999, it opted to not convert Broadway's Crystal Court location to Bloomingdale's.
Another $100,000,000 renovation and reconfiguring of the center came in 2000, with Robinsons-May closing its Crystal Court location and expanding the original May Co. store. The separate Crystal Court name was dropped and the free-standing wing, now called the west wing, was joined to the original center by a 600-foot (180 m)-long pedestrian bridge across Bear Street. The west side was reoriented toward home furnishings, anchored by the former Broadway store, which was refurbished as Macy's Home and Furniture. The former J. W. Robinson's store was redeveloped as center space at the time, housing primarily Crate and Barrel, Borders Books and Music, and Sport Chalet.
In March 2006, the Robinsons-May store, historically the first store at South Coast Plaza as the May Company, was closed as part of its merger with Macy's and re-opened as Bloomingdale's in May 2007.
South Coast Plaza is still privately held by the Segerstrom family (and the second largest family-owned center in the United States behind the Mall of America), and so is one of the few shopping centers in the United States that have not been purchased by a Real Estate Investment Trust/REIT.
Sandra (Sandy) Segerstrom Daniels a Managing Partner of C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, founded the Festival of Children Foundation in 2002. The foundation hosts the annual Festival of Children at South Coast Plaza each September.
Festival of Children coincides with the foundation’s efforts to recognize September as National Child Awareness Month.
Read more about this topic: South Coast Plaza
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)