San Antonio Shopping Center
San Antonio Shopping Center is an outdoor shopping mall located on El Camino Real at San Antonio Road in Mountain View, California. The shopping center consists of two areas, owned by two separate companies.
- The namesake San Antonio Shopping Center is a traditional outdoor power center anchored by Trader Joe's, Walmart, and a 24 Hour Fitness gym. It is owned by Federal Realty. In Late December 2019 the land that was home to Kohls, 24 Hour Fitness, JOANN Fabrics and sevral other businesses was sold to the Los Altos School District in late December 2019 for $155M for the businesses to eventually be demolished for a neighborhood school for students in the area.
 Sign at San Antonio Center in October 2022 | |
| Location | Mountain View, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°24′10″N 122°6′31″W |
| Address | 2550 W. El Camino Real |
| Opening date | 1950 |
| Developer | The Hahn Company |
| Management | Merlone Geier Partners |
| Owner | Federal Realty |
| No. of stores and services | 236 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 3 |
| Total retail floor area | 250,000 sq ft (23,000 m2) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Parking | 7,692 |
| Website | sanantoniocenter |
The Village at San Antonio Center is a mixed-use property with apartments, restaurants, and a Safeway supermarket. It is owned by Merlone Geier Partners.[1]
History
Starting in the 1950s, the center was an open-air shopping mall, originally featuring Rhodes and Sears, with a Mervyn's opening later. Over time, the mall was expanded, with the Rhodes converting to Liberty House and finally J.C. Penney and a Best catalog showroom. In the 1970s and 1980s, Atari Games (located nearby) used the Time Zone arcade at the shopping mall to play test all their arcade games. Most of the mall was demolished and partially reconfigured circa 1995 [2] to make way for Walmart and additional retail shops.
Sears closed its doors in 2010, three years after it had originally announced its departure.[3] Sears and the surrounding strip of retailers were replaced by phase one of The Village, consisting of a Safeway supermarket, apartments, retail, and restaurants.[4] A second phase, anchored by a Showplace ICON cinema, broke ground in 2015.[5]
In 2019, 9.65 Acers of the shopping center was sold to the Los Altos School district to build a new school intended to be closer to nearby students than Covington Elementary School. There were also plans to designate the land as a new site for the Bullis Charter School, which had 2 campuses with portable units serving as classrooms, housed at the district’s two junior high schools, Egan Junior High School and Georgina P. Blach Intermediate School. The original plan was to have the school open by 2023 but the COVID-19 pandemic has since delayed those plans.[6][7] In 2020 JOANN Fabrics,T-Mobile, GameStop, Luu Noodle, Sushi 88 and Ramen and Pearl Tea & Coffee Permanently closed and the building Currently Sits Vacant. In 2022 The 24 Hour Fitness Located at 550 Showers Drive Was Temporary Closed for Upgrades. It Reopened in November 2022 and the location at 2535 California Street Was Permanently closed and has sat vacant since. Kohl's is set to close sometime in spring 2023 and demolition is set for summer 2023. The new school is set to open for the 2025 - 2026 school year.
References
- "Discover Premium Retail Properties - Merlone Geier Partners". Merlonegeier.com. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
- "Shop Talk: Adventures in the pre-teen zone". Paloaltoonline.com. 1995-11-08. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
- Sears leaving San Antonio Shopping Center Archived 2006-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
- "Groundbreaking Kicks off Development of the Village at San Antonio Center - Mountain View, CA Patch". Archived from the original on 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
- Daniel DeBolt (2014-07-02). "Deal reached to save Mountain View's Milk Pail | News". Palo Alto Online. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
- "San Antonio Center". Federalrealty.com. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
- "Los Altos School District". www.mv-voice.com. Retrieved 2021-04-22.