Panorama Mall, Los Angeles, CA

 A relic of retail

Deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley abutting Van Nuys Boulevard is a tired strip of a building.  Sporting the same Spanish architectural styles one would find in an eighties Taco Bell, there are no public doorways or even windows facing the busy thoroughfare.  In fact, there isn’t much to see at all from this vantage point.

1 to 3- Panorama Mall’s main entrance.  4- The food court entrance.  5 to 10- Wal-Mart, originally The Broadway.

On either end of the building colored in festive yet faded primary colors are signs that this isn’t just another forgotten mid-century shopping center.  The multi-level grey toned structure to the south and its smaller companion anchor to the north showing a Curaçao label scar reveal this to be an enclosed mall.

Panorama Mall lease plan ca. 1980. View the full PDF version here.

Just a short walk past the recently closed anchor store is the northern entrance with the name Panorama Mall displayed in funky old school lettering.  Just inside the glass doors, I found a dusty and faded attempt at recreating some sort of Latin American plaza.

1- Walmart facing Van Nuys Boulevard.  2 to 4- Panorama Mall’s façade facing Van Nuys.  5 to 7- The now vacant Curaçao store.  8- The north entrance to the main concourse.

But the colors had long since lost their shine and the cornices were dusty.  The main concourse was split by repeating columns painted in darker earth tones.  They topped out at arches spanning the distance between the storefronts and the pillars like some 2D version of the distinctive columns at The Boulevard Mall.  It was obvious that Panorama Mall had seen better days and I was absolutely loving it.

Panorama Mall pamphlet ca. 2007. View the full PDF version here.

I was disappointed, however, to see that the northern anchor Curaçao had vacated their long time spot for greener pastures in Northridge.  And, unfortunately, that end of Panorama Mall’s straight line corridor was where most of the storefronts had been left darkened.

A further walk beneath meager and grimy skylights brought me to center court.  Located at the junction of the northern entrance hallway and the main concourse, it consisted of a simple platform stage accessed by a small stairway boasting an elaborate railing.  But there were no performances that day in the nearly empty facility.

Panorama Mall lease plan ca. 2011. View the full PDF version here.

As I continued southward, the atmosphere became brighter as more occupied storefronts came into view close to the lone remaining anchor, Wal-Mart.  This location is significant in that it was both first Wal-Mart to open in Los Angeles as well as the first multi-level outlet in the chain.

1 & 2- The northernmost portion of the main corridor.  3 & 4- The former entrance to Curaçao.  5 to 10- Panorama Mall’s main concourse.

Just before Wal-Mart was the miniscule yet vibrant food court occupying the southern entrance hallway.  As I exited the doorways to the western parking lot, I was overtaken by dismay.  One of the features at Panorama Mall that I was really looking forward to seeing, the long abandoned Montgomery Ward still with its still intact nineties label, had been converted to piles of rubble just a few months prior.

Panorama Mall Mallmanac ca. 2016. View the full PDF version here.

Panorama Mall made its debut in 1955 as the open air Broadway-Valley Shopping Center.  On its southern end was a large Broadway store serving as the lone traditional department store anchor.  Joining The Broadway were other retail staples of the time such as Woolworth, Kinney Shoes and Lerner.

In the early sixties, The Broadway was joined by Montgomery Ward, Ohrbach’s and JW Robinsons, all of which built their stores on Panorama Mall’s periphery completely disconnected from the main complex.  By the middle of the decade the retail destination was redubbed as the Panorama City Shopping Center.

Panorama Mall pamphlet ca. 2022. View the full PDF version here.

As newer and flashier competition opened in the San Fernando Valley over the ensuing decades, Panorama Mall started to see a decline in its fortunes.  In the late seventies a new owner embarked on a reimagining of the center, enclosing the main concourse and implementing several million dollars of improvements.

The central area of the main concourse including center court.

However, while sales improved just after the refresh, by the late eighties Panorama Mall was experiencing further declines.  The Broadway had closed up shop after their acquisition by Federated Department Stores and was never converted to their flagship Macy’s brand before exiting.

Panorama Mall pamphlet ca. 2024. View the full PDF version here.

The store sat empty, along with the buildings once housing JW Robinson and Montgomery Ward, until the latter part of the nineties when Bentonville based Wal-Mart opened their innovative (at the time) new concept of the store not long after La Curaçao debuted their first location in the valley.

1 to 5- The southern half of Panorama Mall.  6 to 10- Wal-Mart’s mall entrance and the food court.

Panorama Mall’s most recent refresh was in 2005 and the interior definitely looks it.  Though there are a significant number of vacancies, I was glad to see a lot of foot traffic in at least half of the shopping center.  These modest facilities catering to a specific demographic seems to be disappearing and I hope that the little plaza at Van Nuys and Roscoe survives what looks to be oncoming gentrification.

Panorama Mall official website