Demolition has begun on the historic Valley Plaza Mall in Los Angeles

David Adoff fondly remembers how his mother and brother would drive him to Valley Plaza in their avocado Dodge Dart.

Families will shop at a once dynamic and fast-paced selection of retail businesses. They will visit a Sears drugstore front, a bakery and an animated fortune telling machine. Then they’ll have a lunch of Salisbury steak and Jell-O platters in Schieber’s cafeteria.

The 67-year-old former North Hollywood and Toluca Lake resident said of the “good old valley days” his family left in the 1960s.

Now, the edge of the historic San Fernando Valley Mall is being torn down after years of complaints from neighbors that the accumulation of vacant buildings and parking lots has stalled.

Valley Plaza, which opened in 1951, was one of the first and largest open-air shopping malls on the West Coast and was a major commercial center.

In its later days, the sprawling complex of urban buildings and modern high-rises drew crowds and even visited John F. Kennedy during his 1960 presidential campaign.

The demolition, which began this week, comes after a committee of Los Angeles city commissioners appointed by Mayor Karen Bass voted in August to declare most of the site a public nuisance.

The vote gave the green light to demolish six buildings in the plaza. Some buildings considered historic, including the 12-story, 165-foot-tall tower — among the first skyscrapers built in LA — will be preserved.

“It’s crazy that this is happening. It’s been an eyesore in the Valley for a long time,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industries and Commerce Assn. “We’re glad we’re going to build something there that’s usable.”

The site occupied local properties, and nearby homeowners expressed concerns about crime and potential fires.

Waldman, who lives nearby, said seeing the mall deteriorate is “nice.”

He said he expects the property to become a mixed-use commercial and residential space, as was done in the NoHo West development, which redeveloped the former Laurel Plaza mall and Macy’s department store space.

But Waldman warned that it could be an uphill battle.

“It’s hard to build in L.A., and the city makes it difficult,” Waldman said. “I hope someone will take a chance. It’s an opportunity to help the community while also making a profit.”

The impressive regional shopping center was an early example of how building entrances were arranged to face large rear parking lots instead of sidewalks and culverts, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy, emphasizing vehicular access from newly constructed freeways.

“It was our surprise,” Jack McGrath, former president of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, said of Valley Plaza in a video series published by the Patch news site in 2013.

McGrath, in the video, described how thousands of people flocked to the mall’s sprawling parking lot to watch Kennedy speak.

“The man was absolutely beautiful, and most importantly, he had the best looks I’ve ever seen in a man or a politician,” McGrath said. “Women were thieves, look at this man.”

The mall’s decline began with the growth of big-box retail, as well as competition from other new malls in Burbank and Sherman Oaks. The economic crisis of the 1990s and damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake also took a toll, forcing some businesses to close permanently.

In 2000, the mall was about 30% vacant, and in recent years film and television producers have used the site as a bleak, boarded-up backdrop—rather than the majestic institution once featured in the music video for Randy Newman’s 1983 anthem “I Love LA.”

On Thursday, piles of trash, concrete shards and other debris surrounded the property, with bulldozers guarding it.

Fred Gaines, an attorney with Charles Co., the real estate and development company that owns the property, and was involved with the demolition contractor, said there is no specific redevelopment plan yet for the site. He said future developments will depend on how the city handles homeless shelters in the area.

“We will certainly look to the city to address this problem in the neighborhood and allow it to be a viable development site,” Gaines said. said Guinness.

Charles Co. has had its share of problems in recent years, as one of the company’s owners was embroiled in a major LA corruption case. Co-owner Armaan Gabi was sentenced to four years in federal prison in 2022 after paying county officials in exchange for leases and non-public information.

Adoff, a former Valley resident who currently lives in South Florida, said he tried to move back to L.A. a few years ago, but housing was too expensive. As prices rise in the Miami area where he lives, he is looking to relocate to a more affordable area in California or Oregon.

In August, he sent a letter to the boss’s office asking the city to develop the property into a cultural center or subsidized affordable housing.

“How things change,” Idoff said. “They should really do it a little better.”

Times staff photographer Eric Thayer contributed to this report.