Crenshaw Mall Renovations Under Way
Ground was broken Thursday on a $100-million expansion and refurbishment of the Crenshaw Shopping Center, a major milestone in a 12-year struggle by black community leaders and the City of Los Angeles to revive the historic retail hub.
An upbeat crowd of several hundred neighborhood residents, business and civic leaders and politicians celebrated with music, food, speeches and the release of hundreds of red, white and blue balloons.
“All I want to say is, ‘Glory, glory hallelujah,” City Council President Pat Russell, who represents the Crenshaw area, told the cheering crowd gathered in the parking lot of the shabby-looking center at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards.
Mayor Tom Bradley, who like Russell received a standing ovation from the crowd, called the improvement project “historic in nature and size and in terms of this community.”
The Crenshaw Center, built in 1948, was the first multidepartment store, regional shopping center in the United States. But business has fallen in recent years, as many of the affluent black residents of the area drove past the center to shop at more modern centers on the Westside and in Fox Hills.
The new stylized, Art Deco center will preserve the architectural flavor of the original project in a modern, enclosed mall. Most of the smaller shops will be replaced by new construction, including 120 new shops. The May Co. and the Broadway store sections will be joined with the new mall, and a new Sears and a fourth major department store will be added. Major construction will begin early next year, with completion scheduled for October, 1988.
Efforts to revitalize the center had been slowed and frustrated by a number of obstacles. The effort received a major boost when shopping center developer Alexander Haagen, who has successfully redeveloped two other smaller centers in Watts and Southwest Los Angeles, signed on with the city in a joint venture.
Under the 50-50 partnership, Haagen and the city will split both the construction costs and the net proceeds from the center’s operations.
