Vacant malls repurposed for apartments, entertainment centers in Orange County (2025)

Once the spot for back-to-school shopping and weekend hangouts, malls in Orange County are now swapping their nearly empty shops with apartments and entertainment centers.

MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana is an example of a transformation that experts say malls are undergoing. Over the past few years, the mall has been transforming into a mixed-use destination where people shop, dine and even live with other malls following suit.

Thursday, the sound of an excavator echoed through what’s left of the Orange Mall. The mall shut down a year ago and now just two structures remain: the crumbling shell of JCPenney and an empty Sears.

“A lot of our residents have a lot of memories that are wrapped up in this amazing property, but unfortunately, with changes in the retail landscape, this has become a blighted building," said Aaron Shulze, economic development manager with the city of Orange.

Schulze says what was once a dying mall is now a site of transformation. The owner, Integral Communities, plans to redevelop JCPenney into a mixed-use space.

“Our plan is to bring residents here. We’re still working with the city, so it's a way off," said John Stanek, principal at Integral Communities.

Just 20 miles west, the Westminster Mall sits eerily quiet with most stores gone. The city is also eyeing redevelopment and proposals from the mall’s owners are under review

One of the proposals aims to add 3,000 residential units just cleared the planning commission and now heads to the city council. And it's not just there, dead and dying malls across the country are being reimagined

“Everything from Chula Vista to Brea to Crenshaw, I mean, you name a location, you can find some redevelopment activity centered around the mall," Said Scott Wild, consulting principal with John Burns Research and Consulting.

Wild, a real estate consultant, says malls aren’t dying, they’re evolving

"There's still experiences that people get when they go to the mall, it's a part of the landscape that I think is going to be here, but mixed-use portions of that are the way for the future, and I think that's what you should expect going forward," said Wild.

Nationwide, more than 200 malls have added housing on sites once home to department stores, according to Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones.

“And another 200 proposals, but of those proposals, they won't all get built. And that has to do with the financing and the uncertainty, especially right now for developers of construction costs," said Jones, who studies mall redevelopment.

Back in Orange, a small crowd watchedas demolition crews worked to tear down the old mall, marking a moment where the past and the future overlap.

“This is the first step in the revitalization of this area, that's important to our residents," said Shulze.

In 2023, MainPlace Mall used part of their parking lot to open an apartment community they are now working to transform a former Nordstrom building on the east side of the mall into a second apartment community and a new food district. Officials say we can expect them to open in 2028.