A court order forced the owners of a massive, long-abandoned shopping mall south of Los Angeles to tear it down after decades of neglect, and the city says it is ready to move on.
Heavy machinery and demolition crews moved in on Tuesday to flatten Hawthorne Plaza, a 35-acre retail complex in Hawthorne, California, that once anchored the community but had sat empty and deteriorating since the late 1990s. The sprawling site covers roughly 10 square blocks in a city about 11 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, and its demolition marks the end of a structure that opened in 1977 as a major suburban shopping destination.
The wrecking crews did not arrive voluntarily. A court last year issued a permanent injunction ordering the mall's owners, The Charles Co. and its affiliate M&A Gabaee, to either redevelop or demolish the property by the end of August. The owners chose demolition, and The Sun reported that the teardown was underway as of this week.
Hawthorne Plaza opened with major anchor tenants that were household names at the time, JCPenney, The Broadway, and Montgomery Ward. But competition from nearby rivals like the South Bay Galleria and Del Amo Fashion Center drained its customer base. By the late 1990s, the mall was empty.
The property then sat idle for roughly two decades.
In 2017, plans surfaced to transform the site into a mixed-use development with more than 600 homes. Those plans were never carried out. The mall continued to decay, drawing concerns about trespassing, vandalism, litter, and threats to community safety. It became the kind of property that every city dreads, too big to ignore, too neglected to fix on its own, and owned by parties who showed no urgency to act.
The site did find occasional use as a film set. Hawthorne Plaza appeared in three Hollywood productions: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Gone Girl, and Minority Report. But a cameo in a movie is no substitute for a functioning commercial property that serves residents and generates tax revenue.
City Manager Vontray Norris framed the court-mandated demolition as a turning point. He said the order:
"provides a clear, enforceable schedule for the remediation of the Hawthorne Mall property."
Norris added a broader commitment from city hall:
"The City remains committed to utilizing all available legal avenues to pave the way for future development that will benefit residents and local businesses alike."
Those are welcome words, but the record here is worth noting. The 2017 redevelopment plan produced nothing. The owners let the property rot for the better part of three decades before a judge forced their hand. Hawthorne residents lived next to a blighted, 10-square-block eyesore while the owners and the city cycled through plans that never materialized.
What comes next for the 35-acre site remains an open question. No new development has been announced. The court order required demolition or redevelopment, the owners chose the easier option. Whether the city can attract a viable project, and whether The Charles Co. and M&A Gabaee intend to build anything, is unclear.
The teardown in Hawthorne is not an isolated event. A mall in Delaware filed a demolition permit this week after its anchor store closed, a pattern that has played out at malls across the country in recent years.
A Texas mall that had been open for more than 50 years also announced demolition plans earlier in the month. From coast to coast, the same forces, online retail, shifting consumer habits, and anchor-tenant departures, have hollowed out properties that were once community landmarks.
Pennsylvania's Monroeville Mall, famous as the filming location for Dawn of the Dead, faces its own demolition for a Walmart redevelopment. In Maryland, Eastpoint Mall shut down entirely, displacing its JCPenney anchor and roughly 100 shops.
The broader trend amounts to a nationwide reckoning. Big-name retailers have fled enclosed malls in waves, and the closures keep mounting with no sign of slowing down.
In Florida, Indian River Mall saw its Sears and Macy's stores fall to wrecking crews as the physical dismantling of American retail centers accelerated.
The Hawthorne Plaza story is a case study in what happens when private property owners refuse to act and local government lacks the tools, or the will, to force accountability. For nearly 30 years, The Charles Co. and M&A Gabaee held a 35-acre site in a densely populated area south of Los Angeles and did nothing productive with it. Residents dealt with the consequences: trespassing, vandalism, litter, and the slow decay of a property that once drew shoppers from across the South Bay.
It took a permanent injunction to produce the outcome that common sense demanded years ago. The court set a deadline. The owners complied, barely, and only under legal compulsion.
City Manager Norris now talks about future development that will "benefit residents and local businesses." Hawthorne's residents have heard that kind of language before. In 2017, they were promised 600 homes. They got nothing.
When a property owner can hold 10 square blocks hostage for a generation and walk away only after a judge intervenes, the system did not work. It just eventually stopped failing.