Beverly Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 View from the intersection of La Cienega Blvd. and 3rd St. |
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| Location | Los Angeles, California |
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| Opening date | March 1982 |
| Developer | A. Alfred Taubman, Sheldon Gordon & E. Phillip Lyon |
| Management | Taubman Centers |
| Owner | Taubman Centers |
| No. of stores and services | 160+ |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 |
| Total retail floor area | 883,000 sq ft (82,000 m2) |
| No. of floors | 8 |
| Website | Beverlycenter.com |
The Beverly Center is a shopping center in Los Angeles, California, United States.
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[edit] Description
The Beverly Center is a monolithic eight-story structure located at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, California, between La Cienega and San Vicente boulevards. Anchor tenants include Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and a 13-screen movie theater (originally a 14-screen multiplex). While the mall features staples of American retail—such as Banana Republic, Victoria's Secret and Forever 21—it is also home to several high-end designer boutiques, including Armani Exchange, Just Cavalli, D&G Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Ben Sherman, Diesel, Gucci, Dior, The Ferrari Store, and Hugo Boss, with True Religion to open soon. Along with the retail and designers' boutiques, Beverly Center offers guest service desk, valet parking, and taxi services. The mall also has several restaurants including Pinkberry and Wave Restaurant & Bar. The mall's Rooftop Terrace offers sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills, Downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Westside.
The Center's externally-visible escalators previously resembled similar escalators at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France; however, the escalators underwent renovation in 2007 and now have a significantly different appearance which affords visitors a significantly expanded view of the surrounding area, and hills.
[edit] History
The Beverly Center was originally opened in 1982 by developers A. Alfred Taubman, Sheldon Gordon & E. Phillip Lyon. (The site's former occupant was a small amusement park known as Beverly Park, featuring a ferris wheel, merry-go-round, and mini roller-coaster, and a pony ride known as Kiddyland.)
The mall's unusual shape and lack of street frontage along San Vicente Blvd is due to its location on top of the Salt Lake Oil Field. The western portion of the mall property contains a cluster of oil wells, all operated by Plains Exploration and Production, in a drilling enclosure that is active to this date.[1][2]
The opening of the mall featured the debut of the Cineplex movie theater, a multiplex movie theater initially boasting 14 screens, at that time the largest number of movie screens in any US multiplex. [1] The multiplex was launched on July 16, 1982, with the West Coast premiere of Miramax's The Secret Policeman's Other Ball which played on three of its fourteen screens. Even though the movie theater was located in Los Angeles, the opening was newsworthy enough to warrant a full article in the New York Times. [2] In the late 1980s, three smaller screens were removed on the main floor, so two larger auditoriums could be built on the roof.
The mall contained the USA's first Hard Rock Cafe, the third installment of the restaurant chain, following those in London and Toronto. The Beverly Center was originally anchored by Bullock's and The Broadway department stores, and in 1993 Bullock's opened a separate Bullock's Men's store, before both stores were renamed Macy's in 1996. The Broadway closed its location in 1996 when it was absorbed into Macy's and its former store was reopened as a Bloomingdale's in 1997.
In 2004, Taubman Centers, the public Real Estate Investment Trust and successor to A. Alfred Taubman's shopping center interests, purchased its partners minority investments stake in the property.
[edit] In popular culture
- The Beverly Center appears in the Brian De Palma film Body Double.
- The centre appears in a Season 1 episode of the popular television series The Colbys where it was shown to be called Bullock's Beverly Centre.
- Scenes from the movie Chopping Mall were shot at the Beverly Center in 1985.
- A chapter in the 1985 Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero is set in The Beverly Center.
- The Beverly Center was the setting of the 1991 film Scenes from a Mall starring Bette Midler and Woody Allen.
- While under construction, the Beverly Center was used as the backdrop for the 1976 film "Lipstick."
- The Beverly Center played a part of the plot near the end of the 1997 disaster thriller Volcano (film) starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche. A triage and childcare center for neighboring Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was set up in the mall's Hard Rock Cafe. This was evacuated when a geyser of lava erupted out of San Vicente Boulevard, threatening the structure and its occupants.
- Crispin Hellion Glover briefly references the Beverly Center in his song, Auto-Manipulator: "the fine clean girl at the Beverly Center..."
- Usher The R&B singer alludes to the paparazzi spotting him having an affair with a woman at the Beverly Center in his song, Confessions: "I was hand in hand in the Beverly Center like man not giving a damn who sees me."
- The Beverly Center appears numerous times in the animated cartoon Totally Spies!.
- On May 18, 2009, rap artist Dolla was fatally shot at the Beverly Center.
[edit] Tenant Directory
[edit] Anchors
- Bed, Bath & Beyond
- Bloomingdale's (163,000 sq ft.)
- Macy's (157,000 sq ft.)
- Macy's Men's Store (68,000 sq ft.)
- Beverly Center 13 http://www.beverlycenter13.com/
[edit] Food Specialty & Restaurants
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.startribune.com/business/22184939.html
- ^ Landsberg, Mitchell (August 6, 2001). "Decades-Old Oil Field Dies as Fairfax Area Mall Takes Shape". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/06/local/me-31204. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
