Cedar Hills Crossing, Beaverton, OR

 A dead mall

I love a small, community center sized mall.  I’ve found some great ones in the Town Center at Lake Forest Park, Harding Mall and New Landing Mall.  In the Portland, Oregon suburb of Beaverton, I had found another in Cedar Hills Crossing, and I recently paid it a visit.  And I’m glad I did.

1- Outside the main entrance is plenty of activity.  2- Stores on the mall's south end.  3- Some of the outdoor facing shops with only exterior entrances.  4- TJMaxx and Best Buy.  5- Cedar Hills Crossing's southeast exterior.  6- Shops in the outlot.

Today, Cedar Hills Crossing exists as more of a power center than a traditional shopping mall, though the indoor portion still exists and is open between Powell’s Books and Craft Warehouse.  These stores are joined by names such as Ulta, Ross, TJ Maxx and Best Buy all sporting their different corporate exterior templates, leaving Cedar Hills with no real design identity of its own.

Around Cedar Hills Crossing's main entrance.

As I approached the main entrance, I had high hopes that this center, despite its diminutive size, was still rather successful on the inside, judging by the full parking lot and dozens of shoppers walking the pavement along the front exterior.  To my own disappointment, what was just beyond those doors couldn’t be more different.

Cedar Hills Crossing Mallmanac ca. 2017. View the full PDF version here.

Immediately beyond the foyer, some children were playing a game of tag while their laughter echoed through the corridor.  There were no shoppers for them to run into, and the two or three stores open near the entrance displayed what must be local mom-and-pop nameplates.

The interior just inside the main entrance.

At the end of the corridor was a left-hand turn leading to the mall’s main concourse.  And it was completely lifeless except for the large and brightly lit mall entrance to Powell’s Books, where the scant number of fellow patrons seemed to be going to or coming from.

Cedar Hills Crossing's main corridor.

Cedar Hills seems to have undergone a recent refurbishment, with shiny new tiles and stylized words on the wall surrounding the old-school box landscaping interrupting the monotony.  In the facility’s center was the six-unit food court, which was completely vacated and looked like it has been for a long time.

In and around the vacant food court just off of the mall's center court.

Opened in 1969 as Beaverton Mall, Cedar Hills Crossing was built on the historic site of an early airfield.  Though only meager bits of information can be found on the mall’s original anchors and stores, at some time or another, the retail facility hosted names such as Tower Records and Game Trader.

1- The main rear entrance.  2- The Century Theaters still see plenty of activity.  3 & 4- Some of the small shops facing Cedar Hill Crossing's rear.

The mall was renovated in 2002 and subsequently was renamed Cedar Hills Crossing.  Not long after the renovation, the city of Beaverton proposed that a new road be built directly through the mall’s core.  The plans, however, were successfully averted.

Cedar Hills Crossing Mallmanac ca. 2021. View the full PDF version here.

The theaters located behind the main complex as well as the food court were added in 2004, with Powell’s Books finding their home two years later.  From older images, the interior portion continued to the northeast of its present end, with that space having been converted to exterior facing stores.  Unfortunately, it seems like the inevitable end game for Cedar Hills is for the rest of the interior concourses to see the same fate.

Scenes of a dead mall.

Cedar Hills Crossing official website