South Coast Plaza Will Let Others Shine : Retailing: To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Costa Mesa shopping mall will shun self-congratulation by showcasing major local industries and charities in monthly salutes.
To celebrate the mall’s 25th anniversary, South Coast Plaza officials unveiled an ambitious schedule of monthly displays Wednesday to shift the spotlight from the county’s largest retailing center to major industries and charities in the area.
The program begins March 15, the date that the legendary marketplace opened in 1967 and went on to grow into one of the nation’s most prosperous shopping centers.
“We considered having a big party, a fund-raiser,” said Henry T. Segerstrom, managing partner of mall owners C.J. Segerstrom & Sons. “South Coast Plaza wanted to avoid a celebration that would be a pat on the back.”
So mall executives called a press conference at the tony Center Club, adjoining Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, to introduce officials from some of the industries to be showcased each month at the mall and adjoining Crystal Court and South Coast Village.
As Segerstrom explained it, executives decided that self-congratulation would be pointless and they would rather highlight the people in the county who made it possible. He credited South Coast Plaza’s success to the county’s population increase over the past quarter of a century. The celebration will open this month with a salute to the county’s $1-billion apparel industry. It will include participation from companies including St. John Knits Inc., Club Sportswear and Spot Sport, all in Irvine; Ocean Pacific Sunwear Ltd. in Tustin; Quiksilver Inc. and Gotcha Sportswear, both of Costa Mesa, and Vans Inc. in Orange.
In April, the mall will spotlight the county’s two largest newspapers, The Times Orange County Edition and the Orange County Register. National and international affairs will be featured in May with displays on the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, World Affairs Council, World Trade Council and Orange County Forum.
Succeeding months will honor athletics, science and medical research, tourism, higher education, humanitarianism, hospitals and business.
Jim Henwood, the mall’s general manager, said that the monthly salutes may take various forms, such as mall displays, presentations or one-time events. Final details are yet to be worked out, he added.
Segerstrom said he hopes the monthly showings will increase awareness that, despite the recession, “we have a lot to be proud of.”
Orange County’s Mall Sprawl
The South Coast Plaza complex, including Crystal Court and South Coast Village, is more than twice as big as the Brea Mall, the county’s second-largest shopping center. Here is how county malls compare in size and number of parking spaces:
Retail Space Parking Mall (in sq. ft.) Spaces South Coast Plaza 2,927,236 14,504 Brea Mall 1,300,000 6,115 Fashion Island/Newport Center 1,200,000 5,815 Buena Park Mall 1,200,000 5,500 MainPlace/Santa Ana 1,100,000 5,500 Westminster Mall 1,096,000 6,403 Mission Viejo Mall 999,390 5,040 Huntington Beach Mall 940,000 4,113 Laguna Hills Mall 868,797 4,400 Mall of Orange 828,886 4,700 Anaheim Plaza 778,869 4,546 Tustin Market Place 761,778 4,016 The City Shopping Center 625,628 5,700
Source: Los Angeles Times Marketing Research
Researched by DALLAS M. JACKSON / Los Angeles Times
