Development of a Town Center

“The Art and Science of Placemaking” is the ultimate stage of urban planning as we know it today.  But to begin with, in the 1950’s, the United States was experiencing urban sprawl, that is, people moving from cities to newly created suburbs.  Gas was 25 cents a gallon and the station wagon was the family car.  To capture this new market, entrepreneurs invented the Enclosed Mall.  And The Stonewood Center opened in 1958.

By the 60’s, with the baby boom, Shopping Centers prospered and by the 70’s and 80’s they had become power centers, with major departments stores and nationwide chains as well as local businesses, movie theatres and restaurants.  By the 90’s retail rents had stabilized and so had consolidation of ownership.

The original owner of Stonewood, Charles Cook, who had already made his fortune in Challenge-Cook Cement Mixers, died in 1989, and Stonewood was bought by Macerich, a company that specialized in the business of owning shopping centers. Among them were Lakewood and the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade.

The epitome of the type, The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota opened in 1992 and receives over 40 million visitors annually.  With almost 5 million square feet, the mall is located on the site of the former Metropolitan stadium where the Minnesota Vikings and The Minnesota Twins played, and it is completely underground.  

Following Parkinson’s Law, that just after an enterprise reaches ripeness it begins to decay, the 90’s now saw the beginning of an opposite trend: the Open Mall.  However, events in Downey were a few decades behind the nation: in 1989 Stonewood underwent a two-year year process of enclosure, and re-named itself The Stonewood Center Mall.

A far grander kind of project was on the drawingboards for Southern California.  The Grove opened in Los Angeles opposite the original Farmer’s Market, its stores and restaurants displayed as though they were part of a picturesque Italian hill town, with a free trolley car running on the cobblestoned main street. 

Today’s best example of urban planning for a mall is Victoria Gardens, which Brian helped develop.  Basically, his RJM Design Group decided to create an entire ersatz community in a vast open acreage, making it appear as though it had been there in Rancho Cucamonga for over a hundred years.  As a Brit, Brian and his fellows saw the American need and desire for roots and ancestry.  So they created an artificial history, that posited two founding brothers, a family dispute, water and irrigation development and finally, an open air town center.

Working with four different architects the company built out of a million and a half square feet on 147 acres, a pedestrian-oriented open air, mixed-use town center, with retail shops, but also services such as a library, a hospital, a performing arts center and a civic auditorium.

Using elements of historical architecture with a Spanish layering and tiles discovered from the Malibu Tile Company and landscaped like the Alhambra in Spain with water features for a xeriscape, Victoria Gardens fits perfectly into Southern California, as though it had always been there.

Keeping itself on the cutting edge, some issues Victoria Gardens constantly faces are public spaces, new trends in restaurants and retail storefronts, and signage that continues to carry out the theme of a Main Street Plaza.

Brian’s RJM Design Group and Forest City Enterprises have deserved major awards for its architecture and landscaping.  Located where the I-15 and the 210 converge, Victoria Gardens is just 45 miles away from Downey.