David Udoff fondly remembers how his mother drove him and his brother to Valley Plaza in her Avocado Dodge Dart.
Families would shop at retail stores that were once vibrant and bustling. They visit a Sears department store, a bakery and an electronic fortune teller in front of a drug store. They then enjoy a lunch of Salisbury steak and jelly platter at Schaber’s buffet restaurant.
“The good old Valley days,” the 67-year-old former North Hollywood and Toluca Lake resident said of the family outings in the 1960s.
Now, large swaths of the historic San Fernando Valley Mall are being demolished after neighbors complained for years that the vacant buildings and parking lots were in disrepair.
Opened in 1951, Valley Plaza is one of the earliest and largest open-air shopping malls on the West Coast and a major commercial center.
In its heyday, this sprawling complex of suburban buildings and modernist high-rises drew crowds, even including a visit by John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign.
Demolition began this week after a panel of Los Angeles city commissioners appointed by Mayor Karen Bass voted in August to declare much of the site a public nuisance.
The vote gave the green light to destroy six buildings in the square. Some buildings considered historic, including its iconic 12-story, 165-foot-tall tower, one of the first skyscrapers in Los Angeles, will be spared.
“It’s crazy that this is happening. This has been an eyesore in Silicon Valley for so long,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Silicon Valley Business and Industry Association. “We’re excited that we’re going to build something there that’s usable.”
The site has attracted squatters and nearby homeowners have expressed concerns about crime and potential fires.
Waldman, who lives nearby, said it was “sad” to see the mall deteriorate.
He said he expects the property to become a mixed-use commercial and residential space, much like what was done with the NoHo West development, which repurposed the site of the former Laurel Plaza shopping center and Macy’s department store.
But Waldman warned it could be an uphill battle.
“Building homes in Los Angeles is difficult, it’s expensive, and the city makes it difficult,” Waldman said. “I hope someone takes a chance. It’s an opportunity to help the community and make a profit at the same time.”
According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the influential regional mall was an early example of building entrances being reoriented to face large rear parking lots rather than streets and sidewalks, emphasizing vehicle access from newly constructed freeways.
“This is where we stand,” Jack McGrath, former president of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, said in a 2013 video series about Valley Plaza released by news outlet Patch.
In the video, McGrath described how thousands of people packed into the mall’s sprawling parking lot to watch Kennedy speak.
“The man was absolutely handsome, and more importantly, he had the best-looking tan I’ve ever seen on a man or politician,” McGrath said. “Those women were dumbfounded when they looked at this guy.”
The mall’s decline began with the rise of big-box retail stores and competition from other new shopping centers in Burbank and Sherman Oaks. Economic strife in the 1990s and devastation from the 1994 Northridge earthquake also took a toll, causing some businesses to close permanently.
In 2000, about 30 percent of the mall’s storefronts were vacant, and in recent years, film and television producers have used the space as a grimy, boarded-up backdrop rather than the iconic architecture once featured in Randy Newman’s 1983 music video for the anthem “I Love L.A.”
Piles of dirt, shards of concrete and other debris surrounded the property Thursday, with a bulldozer standing guard.
Fred Gaines, an attorney for The Charles Company, which owns the property and hired the demolition contractor, said there are no specific redevelopment plans for the site. He said future development will depend on how the city handles homeless encampments in the area.
“We would certainly look to the city to address this issue in the neighborhood and make it a viable site for development,” Gaines said.
Charles & Co. has had its own problems in recent years, with one of its owners implicated in a major corruption case in Los Angeles. Co-owner Arman Gabaee was sentenced to four years in prison in 2022 for making payments to county officials in exchange for leases and non-public information.
Udolph, a former Valley resident who now lives in South Florida, said he tried to move back to Los Angeles a few years ago but housing was too expensive. As housing prices rise in the Miami-area suburbs where he lives, he’s looking to resettle in a more affordable area in California or Oregon.
In August, he wrote a letter to Bass’s office urging the city to help guide development of the property into a cultural center or subsidize affordable housing.
“How things have changed,” Udolph said. “They should turn it into something really good.”
Times staff photographer Eric Thayer contributed to this report.
