Expansion Under Way at Huntington Beach Mall

City officials and civic leaders met last Wednesday to celebrate the start of construction on the $17-million, third phase of Huntington Center’s expansion.

Huntington Center is a 58-acre regional retail complex in Huntington Beach, at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue. It was built in 1966 but is now owned by the MacDonald Group Ltd. of Century City, which is also developing the expansion.

Phase 3 includes addition of an 82,000-square-foot, two-level Mervyn’s department store, creation of the second-level Food Court on the mall wing approaching Mervyn’s, and installation of a fabric roof over the same wing.

Huntington Center contains 868,500 square feet of buildings. Among the anchoring stores are The Broadway, J C Penney and Montgomery Ward. Complementing these stores are 50 specialty shops and 14 exterior free-standing shops and/or building pads.

Millard Archuleta Associates AIA, Los Angeles, designed the new wing. Nuhahn Inc. of Harbor City is general contractor, and Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services in Los Angeles is handling leasing.

The building shell is due to be completed in August, and a grand opening is expected to be held in late October.