Archinect - News

Horton Plaza redevelopment clears major financial hurdle, "rebirth" is imminent

2020-03-12T18:30:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based Stockdale Capital Partners, which purchased the property in 2018, said this week that it has closed a $330 million construction loan, meaning the first phase of the redevelopment project is fully funded on track for completion in early 2022.

Plans for the wholesale redevelopment of San Diego's beloved Horton Plaza, designed by the Jon Jerde, have taken a key step forward.

Los Angeles-based architects RCH Studios and EYRC Architects are the designers behind the revamp; RDC is the Architect of Record for the project.

Jerde asked to improve the Rose Bowl

2019-11-13T13:57:00-05:00

Los Angeles-based architecture firm Jerde has been tapped to reimagine the Rose Bowl Stadium property in Pasadena. [...] Jerde, which provided design services for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, has been tasked with re-envisioning the Rose Bowl campus to address issues including accessibility, parking, and programming possibilities.

The Rose Bowl stadium, nestled within Pasadena's lush Arroyo Seco Park, has been an iconic Los Angeles sports and entertainment landmark since its completion in October 1922. Despite its age, the venue still ranks among the largest stadiums in the world with a modern capacity of 92,542.

Third-biggest mall in North America makes its New Jersey debut

2019-10-28T13:30:00-04:00

Visitors finally took their first steps inside the American Dream mall on Friday. The mall, located by MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, was once called “the ugliest damn building in New Jersey and maybe America,” by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Construction has been on and off for several years, after hitting several road blocks in everything from funding to lawsuits from the NFL.

The American Dream complex is located at the Meadowlands in Bergen County, New Jersey. The mall is designed by GH+A Design and Adamson Associates Architects and will ultimately dedicate 55-percent of its floor area to entertainment uses and 45-percent to retail.

Eventually, the mall will contain a LEGOLAND theme park, a water park, an aquarium, a massive observation wheel, and a kosher food hall, among many other components.

Photo of the American Dream mall. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Brad Miller.

The 3 million-square-foot complex is set to become the third largest mall in North America, falling behind the Jon Jerde-designed Mall of America, the largest mall in the United States, and the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, the largest on the continent, designed by Canadian architect Maurice Sunderland.

Lawsuit could stop (or slow down) Horton Plaza demolition in San Diego

2019-10-17T09:15:00-04:00

Last week, Macy’s West Stores, Inc. filed suit against Stockdale, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm that took over the downtown property from Westfield in August 2018. The department store is asking a San Diego Superior Court judge to block the developer’s plan on grounds that it violates Macy’s lease agreement and an even more substantial contract, known as a reciprocal easement agreement. The latter document gives the retailer veto power over major property improvements.

A new lawsuit brought by Macy’s, a tenant at Horton Plaza, the spectacular postmodern shopping mall in San Diego designed by Jon Jerde in 1985, has cast doubt on plans for a significant re-do of the property.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image By Sandy Huffaker, Jr. Photography - The Jerde Partnership, Inc., CC BY 3.0

Under the proposed project, which has gained wide support among the city’s political leaders, the mall’s postmodern stylings would be ripped away and replaced with curtain wall glass, while the property itself would be reoriented toward co-working uses with the remaining retail spaces filled with tenants that might better serve those new users.

According to The San Diego Union Tribune, “interior demolition” of the project is already underway.

Plan to redevelop Jon Jerde's Horton Plaza moves forward in San Diego

2019-05-23T13:30:00-04:00

The San Diego City Council voted unanimously to approve “Campus At Horton” on Monday. It's a redevelopment plan that would turn Horton Plaza into a tech hub. Stockdale Capital Partners, an LA-based real estate firm, bought Horton Plaza from Westfield back in August with known intentions of redevelopment. When Stockdale announced the purchase, the firm said their new tech hub plan for Horton was expected to create 4,000 jobs, and generate $1.8 billion each year.

With the iconic Jon Jerde-designed Horton Plaza mall in San Diego poised for transformation, one of Southern California’s key works of postmodern urbanism is soon to be lost.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image ©Coolcaesar

In designing the superblock mall in 1985, Jerde, who was referred to as the Frank Gehry's “evil" twin in the Rem Koolhaas-produced Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, sought to reintroduce the communal act of shopping back into the city center. Designed as pop-pup historical context, Horton Plaza is organized around a central shopping courtyard framed by classically-inspired, multi-story facades.

Those colorful facades will soon give way to expanses of curtain wall glass and other contemporary finishes. Developer Stockdale Capital Partners aims to start construction later this year.

What will be the fate of Jon Jerde's iconic Horton Plaza?

2019-02-22T14:31:00-05:00

Preservation advocates, including Docomomo US, have come out in strong support of retaining the site's unique postmodern elements, writing letters and urging the new owner, Civic San Deigo, the local economic development entity, and the San Diego Historical Resources Board to evaluate the project further and consider its historic significance.

To some Horton Plaza may appear to be an odd mix match of colors and structural directions, but to others, this postmodern complex is an architectural relic that should be preserved. Opening its doors in 1985, the plaza was designed as a place that would help revitalize San Diego's downtown Gaslamp area during the mid-'80s. Although its overall appearance may not have screamed the traditional shopping center look, the plaza's opening drew in over 30 million visitors in its first year alone. With the success of the plaza's engagement, this allowed for the project's architect Jon Jerde and supergraphic designers Deborah Sussman and Paul Prejza to launch their careers in shopping mall design.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image By Sandy Huffaker, Jr. Photography - The Jerde Partnership, Inc., CC BY 3.0

Jon Jerde, a Los Angeles based architect, was commissioned by developer Ernie Hahn to...

Christoper Hawthorne on the recovery of public space in Los Angeles

2015-03-26T21:12:00-04:00

"The public sector stopped making public space a long time ago," Los Angeles architect Jon Jerde told Wired magazine rather matter-of-factly in 1999. [...] A little more than two decades later, there is something quaintly fatalistic about Jerde's attitude toward the frail state of public space. In Los Angeles, at least, it has returned pretty dramatically to health.

Alicia Eler's ode to Jon Jerde and the mall as "part of the American experience"

2015-02-23T13:49:00-05:00

I love the mall as much as I love the urban walking experience, museums and movie theaters. Today the stripmall is not just a part of my everyday life in Los Angeles [...] it is also a memory from my own suburban adolescence growing up in Illinois. Jon Jerde, the LA architect both celebrated and loathed for his role in spreading shopping malls across US suburbia, died this month. Some might scoff at his life’s achievement. I am not one of them.

Previously: Jon Jerde, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, has died

Jon Jerde, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, has died

2015-02-09T19:22:00-05:00

Jon Jerde, founder and chairman of the Venice, California-based Jerde Partnership, passed away today in his home in the Brentwood area in Los Angeles after a longterm illness. He was 75.

Born in Alton, Illinois on January 22, 1940, Jerde grew up in the oilfields of the West where his father worked as an engineer at Fluor. After his parents divorced in 1952, he and his mother moved to a garage apartment in Long Beach, California, a city he soon developed a connection with. While Jerde studied engineering at UCLA, a chance meeting in 1958 with Arthur Gallion -- dean of the USC School of Architecture -- led to Jerde studying architecture at USC after Gallion recognized his talent through his sketches.

Jerde led a multi-disciplinary team that created more than 100 urban places worldwide since The Jerde Partnership's inception in 1977. He developed the concept of "placemaking", which can be defined as designing memorable vibrant places, using entertainment and shopping as catalysts. Thi...