My look at Cupertino California in the 80s and a look at the dead Vallco Shopping Mall today... www.patreon.com/acesadventures Music by Luxury Elite www.bandcamp.com/luxuryelite
I worked at Grain D' Or back in the 90's at this mall: the bread/deli/coffee shop. It was STILL DEAD back then. The upper floor had most of the business, but the bottom floor was completely empty and filled with empty vacancies. There were only about 10 stores that were open at that time and the whole dang mall looked like a graveyard. The last place I remember was an Asian tea shop on the top floor that was really popular. Other than that, the whole mall was dead. No customers, no known places to eat, no nothing. I liked this mall though, but it's too bad there were no customers. The parking was horrible and it was in a really busy area. I don't understand why the people of Cupertino didn't give it a chance. I hated going to Valley Fair due to their parking situation, but this mall had potential. Too bad. It was a cool spot for younger people. I really wish Cupertino would've put more money into this mall...it was in a prime location and most people at that time HATED going to Valley Fair.
What's sad is that we lost our only mall and have to drive a couple miles out of town to get to the next nearest mall. JC Penney has closed a lot of stores, the Vallco one was one of the few left. Now, I have to drive 15 miles to get to the nearest JC Penney.
Theyre not gone forever they are forever imprinted in the past, If the universe was a book being written- that part of history will be there for the rest of time.
Ace's adaventures , Dan Bell, proper people , bright sun films, and the exploring crew all upload in the same day almost at the same time. *** Mind blown*** 🏃🤸💪👐
I feel like there's a special group of us who all are in the same avenue. Every channel you mentioned I follow. Would be fun for everyone to have a meet up one day in a dying mall and give it the excitement it once felt inside.
It was just a matter of time before I saw this mall featured in a Dead Mall video on RUclips. I've lived in San Jose all my life and I've gone to this mall quite a few times in it's heyday. It's hard to believe that back in the early to mid 1990's that this was the 'it' mall of the Santa Clara Valley and Valley Fair, which is located just 4 miles east on the same street, was the dying mall struggling to gain customers. Now it's done a complete 180 and then some. Valley Fair is expanding yet again and is slated to become the 15th largest mall in the US, while Vallco is being left to rot while the NIMBY citizens of Cupertino fight over what should be done with it as they have for the last 5 years now. It's very unlikely that the mall's current owners (Sand Hill), who just opened an outdoor shopping center a couple of blocks away, is going to want to sell it to a developer that wants to use it for retail so they can compete with them. Vallco started to decline rapidly in about 2002 or so, mainly due to then owner's greed and incompetency. A poorly conceived and downright ugly renovation turned the mall into an eyesore and the owners kept jacking up rents due to the cost which drove out many of the smaller shops (one of which was the old Sam's Grill which pissed me off because it was a very good family owned restaurant). In 2004-05 the mall shuttered off the lower floor and moved all the tenants up to the main floor. The mall's vacancy rate was about 50% at this time. Many of the tenants that moved out (such as Sam's Grill and Grain D'Or) were never re-leased to a new shop and sat vacant for the last 12 years. When the anchor stores started closing in 2014 the mall was barely 20% full if that. Greed wasn't just limited to the owner however. In 2000 or so when Emporium went bankrupt and the anchor space opened, Dillard's was supposed to come in and replace them. That would have made it the only Dillard's location in the Bay Area, but Macy's was somehow able to block the lease proposal. Macy's wanted to open a lower quality Clearance/Outlet location in it's space (probably due to them already having not one, but two locations over at Valley Fair already), but Vallco wouldn't allow it and worked out an agreement to open a normal location. So instead of getting an anchor that would have brought customers from all over to the Mall, they got stuck with yet another Macy's which literally every other Mall in the Bay Area had already. Vallco had (still has imho) a lot of potential. Vallco is in an extremely good location. Right off 280 and next to Apple's new campus. One of the things it had going for it back in the mid 90's was it had restaurants and amenities that Valley Fair didn't before it's 2002 remodel. Even afterwards, Valley Fair didn't have a Benihana, an El Torito's, or a TGI Friday's. Vallco did. Valley Fair didn't have a HUGE Tilt Arcade and several other entertainment attractions such as an Ice Rink, a Bowling Alley, and a Movie Theater. Vallco did. If the city of Cupertino somehow pulls it's head out of it's arse, maybe this mall can reopen with a new owner and return to it's former glory. As for the 1970's footage at the beginning, I'm pretty sure that is in fact Vallco based on the Sears facade and parking lot layout as well as the wooden decor which this mall was known for.
Bizz McTavish I'm very familiar with the bay area, and I used to visit Vallco mall alot in the 90's and even early 2000's. It's soo sad. The mall used to be amazing! It even used to have a Hot Topic and Claire's. The mall, the last time I saw it, about 2 years back, was sooo dead. Alot of stores were gone, and the mall has a very sad, gloomy feel to it now.
I remember when Vallco was built. It started off as the Sears store in the early 70s to replace the old one on West San Carlos east of Valley Fair that was closed after that neighborhood got a little seedy. Later they added Bullock's which tried expanding from LA into the Bay, but that expansion failed after a few years and they retreated, that space later became Emporium and then Macy's. While Bullocks was open they bridged across Wolfe Rd. and built the JC Penney which replaced the one which was at the north end of Westgate. I think it was around 77 or 78 when it was finally completed. The mall had these beautiful shiny wood floors that reflected light from the skylights and you could park underneath and be inside within a few minutes of leaving your car. It was the "place to be" on the west side. At that time, Vallco was in it's heyday as Valley Fair and Steven's Creek Plaza were both outdoor and showing thier age, Westgate was small and downmarket and everything else that could compete with it was far away. However, what killed it was when Valley Fair and Steven's Creek Plaza essentially leveled pretty much everything except for the anchor stores and built the new mall between them as well as a Nordstrom and then just went by the name Valley Fair. This occurred around 85 or 86. At that point, Vallco became a dead mall walking, as Valley Fair instantly became the new "place to be" on the west side and also drew in shoppers from all directions of its location as well, being at the intersection of 880 and 280. People west of Vallco who Valley Fair may have been out of range for, suddenly discovered the newly remodeled Stanford shopping Center. Westgate went from walking dead to somehow being a downmarket survivor leaving Vallco in a terrible bind. They tried expanding in the late 80s and by doing so removed many of the architectural features that set it apart and made it convenient. They filled the lower level parking with stores that few rented and replaced those beautiful wood floors with neutral colored off white tile that was probably cheaper to maintain, but just made the place look drab. Sears and Penny's actually kept the place going for 30 years, as it was the only reason left to go there. Every other store they had was also available at Valley Fair and usually a more upscale version of it as well, especially the Macy's that did not stock many of the in demand items that could be had at Valley Fair or Stanford . At the end of the day, there was probably nothing that could have been done at that point to bring it back to it's halcyon days. They were actually lucky to get those additional years that Sears and Pennys got them. Other similar new malls in the bay area were demolished in the mid 90s. Vallco was a consequence of "over-malling" more than anything else. Last time that I walked into the place was in 2011, long before Amazon was anything and it was a shell of itself with a high vacancy rate then.
@@kaiyotee2475 Glad that I could help. By the way the name Vallco Was an acronym that had to do with the organizations that initially funded that development in the 1960s. To my knowledge VA came from the company Varian and Associates. However, I don't remember where the other letters came from.
@@kaiyotee2475 Just found this. Ironically it pretty much says the same thing that I did but has more detailed sources. www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/history-of-vallco-westfield-owned-vallco-and-it-still-failed
I grew up going to Vallco mall. The first part of the video WAS actually Vallco mall. It just has changed so much and has gone through many transformations. Going from one story, to two stories, then back to one again. Just a ghost town now.
Gail Ivey came here to say the same thing. Why would he bother showing that if it wasn’t anyways? But yeah that’s Valco. The cafe on the over the road walkway is the giveaway.
I grew up in Cupertino in the 90s. I had my 5th and 6th birthdays at the TILT arcade in Vallco, which would involve pizza, games, and then skating at the rink that I think still might be there. I don't know if it is because I was a kid or not, but I remember thinking the pizza ws incredible. My parents would take me and my brother to the Fresh Choice often, and sometimes Benihana. There was also a pretzel shop we loved going to. I would always go to Legends to geek out as well. Many years later, around 2015, I lived across the street at the apartments they built there. I would sometimes go over to the Subway and get a sandwich, when all that was left was the generic food court, the AMC, and the Dynasty restaurant.
A shame this is the only dead mall really left here in the Bay Area. And even this one is mostly already closed. Sucks to be a fan of vintage/dead mall esthetic in a place where everything gets torn down and poor people get kicked out due to the high cost of living thanks to the techies.
Oh man, you have to know the significance of that clip from the 80s. Note that the people filmed in the video were speaking Japanese; this was the 80s and Japan was pretty much going to take over the US economically with brands like Toyota, before the bubble bursts and Lost Decades. Japanese tourists went to places with a large Japanese American pop. like Cupertino and Little Tokyo in droves and were buying everything. And now, if you look at the seafood restaurant and listen, you can hear Chinese tourists speaking in the background. History just repeats itself, it seems.
True. I lived nearby(literally blocks away) tour buses would pull into the parking lot of the sears and Japanese tourists would pour out and start taking pictures like it was an attraction. Mariani orchards still surrounded the mall and they would dry split apricots in our church parking lot.
@@sew_gal7340 I went ahead and removed my comment for you but I still stand by my statement that Japanese culture is superior to any other Asian culture including most European ones. They aren't the ones eating bats at "wet markets". Also I am not Japanese but am able to objectively look at cultures and data to make a judgement.
I’m from San Jose I went there with my friends in 2017 to photograph the dead mall. we Ended up getting kicked out by security after one of them started smoking weed inside 😅🤣
0:56 *Actual* mall music for our inspiration! It's a rare treat to hear the real thing! I think we're even getting to hear the ever-present early-80's organ store music, there, too!
I love all the Dead Mall Series out there. They truly bring back memories of my childhood; even with the malls Ive never went to. But guys, is it me or isnt it sad to see our old stomping grounds be abandoned and/or destroyed? Its like apart of me is being ripped out when I see where all of our historical malls are going. Think about it, they are our youth memorials! And once there gone all we will have left is just memories and moments....
The 1980 footage most definitely covers Vallco; no other indoor malls were built in Cupertino. Additional (awesome) footage of the featured shoppers show them entering the Wolfe Creek Cafe, which was a restaurant in Vallco at the time and discussed in the Stanford Daily Archive from Feb. 1980. Also, the shoppers are seen in front of Azuma Japanese Cuisine, which is in the same business park and remains today.
I live in the area and have watched that place turn into a ghost town over the years. Putting the Theaters there was like a last ditch effort to get it going again. Nope!
There was a initiative on the ballot in Cupertino that the mall owners got on the ballot. The voters could decide if they would be allowed to repurpose the mall...the voters said no.
The developer has a reputation for not following through on promises, promising things he cannot deliver. The residents did not want 20 MILLION square feet of OFFICE SPACE where the mall is, so we said, no. The developer's answer was then to leave the mall to fall into decay to "punish" the voters. Residents would like to see the mall revitalized as a retail center, but the developer owner does not want to do that.
I believe this mall also had an ice rink .I skated there alot in 84-85 if I remember correctly . I had no idea this mall was dead .I haven't lived in the bay area since 1986.very sad.
I visited this mall in my teens. I remember it as being small and dark, and somewhat redundant with Valley Fair down the road. There was a bridge that connected two parts of the mall, and it had shops in it, iirc, which was very innovative at the time.
That was a nice mall...back then. Later, a series of owners expanded and remodeled the vallco mall. Each change made it worse and less attractive. Now it is just a wreck; nothing is left. All the stores are gone.
Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that the old video footage you showed IS in fact from Vallco Fashion Park in 1980. The mall looks very different now, but those stores were all inside it back then.
I have such fond memories of Vallco. From the anchor tenants like JCPenny, Macy's, and Sears, to the smaller stores like KB Toys, Comic Legends, Famous Footwear, restaurants like Fresh Choice, Sam's Grill, TGI Friday's (where I had several birthdays as a kid, one time crying when the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to me). But my absolute favorite place was the Toy Train Operating Society, a model railroad club with a large O-scale layout (as well as smaller layouts for 1, S, and HO scale) that dazzled me then just as much as it did when I last visited it in 2014. I also loved Pretzel Time, especially getting an ICEE. Tilt Family Fun Center closed before I got super into arcades, but I was always marvelling at the claw machines near the mall entrance. There was also this one store selling kids' shoes that also sold Thomas Wooden Railway toys. Then there was Village Rugs, where we got the rugs that have graced our family room over the years (we knew the owner personally). And finally, towards the end of Vallco's life, I remember when the Hallmark Store became Inside Line Racing, an RC racing place for amateur and professional RC car drivers. After Vallco bit it, they moved to the old thrift store at Westgate Mall, but didn't last long, and are now out of business entirely.
I worked at the Emporiun-Capwells store from before the store open from being a Bullock's. I loved that mall and our EC store was beautiful. I open that dept store in 1984 and worked there until late 1988. So sad I loved my Vallco. Still have the T shirt we were all given when we opened there.
Thanks for the shout out for TTOS-Golden State Division. We're still around, although we cannot find a permanent home in the Bay Area. We set up our modular O-Gauge trains at local shows and hope to do so again once the COVID threat is over. We had lots of fun running our trains for the public.
Maybe, however Cupertino is largely Asian. The Asian population has grown here tremendously in the past 30 years or so. They could easily have been residents. The street I grew up on is now 95% occupied by Asians.
This mall is right next to the computer companies- people would come from all over for sales conferences and other meetings and walk to the mall just to see it. I would expect that was some companies' Asian sales force or some such. Especially that Sears entrance (where they are in the parking lot)- is where people would walk from the companies nearby - Apple, Four Phase, Tandem etc.
Actually this is one mall i went to during my trip to the bay area back in August 2012 when my cousin treated us go the benihana for dinner n this mall was so outdated but looks nice from outside
I was astonished when I first discovered that this mall even existed and I live in San Jose. Only reason I know about it is because of eating in Benihanas restaurant which is across the street from it.
Benihana was actually a part of the mall, which is an oddity considering you had to leave the main mall area to head outside into the parking lot just to get to the door on another side of the same connected structure
Omg the footage!!The game store with not ONE video game in sight...wow.The retro Sears really got me though.It was total childhood.That was great-loved it!
The early 80s was not nice to us little girls when it came to fashion, lol. Too much ruffles and lace. As usual great video and looking forward to more content! Congrats on your promotion! 😁
Hi there, that mall footage you show at the beginning actually IS Vallco from the 80s. Why do you think that wasn't Vallco? It was. Vallco had 3 anchor stores (iirc)- Sears, Penneys and Emporium. I believe the Sears and Penneys were on opposite sides of the mall with Emporium in the middle.
I was suprised to see the healthy greenery. It always so sad to see a dead or dying mall. I went to my local mall today, "Harrisburg East Mall," In Pennsylvania. Boscov's is gone. Most of the stores are open. There was a very small amount of shoppers. Also the "Chambersburg Mall," here is closing. I remember when I earned my weekends off. My hours were 6 til 215. I felt like I had a 3 day weekend all the time! Again, congratulations with your promotin, Anthony. Proud Patreon Supporter
Jennifer Jones I want to go to one! at times I think would be awesome to travel back in time to the 60s, 70s, and 80s just to shop at cool stores that are not heard of these days. like that game store, a game store today would have all video games and no board games
Mike's Explorations every once in awhile a couple pop up around the state of Utah, in fact, an antique and collectable store opened up in an old Payless shoes down the street from my house where I grew up in the 90s. Payless closed that location in 1993 I think. It's now a carpet store. Fun places to browse for sure.
Jennifer Jones Antique and specialty collector stores are awesome, but very rare here in Alabama. I go to a vintage record store in Watercolor, Florida, when I get a chance. it's the only true record store I've ever seen.
Mike's Explorations omg, there is still a vintage record store still in operation just 1 mile south of downtown, they have been there since 1981, a former radio dj owns the shop. One of my old neighbors still owns an antique store. Neat!
It's one of the dead malls that I been to... along with Redlands (closed in 2011 but still standing) It was just dead, lots of people visit Vallco for a walk... but not shopping. The very last time I been to Vallco was 3 years before demolition. To be honest though, the Dynasty Seafood place was awesome back then, when I celebrated my granny's 80th birthday back in August 2012. It's the only Vallco restaurant I been to. Nothing else. Although I seen the Tatami place, a Japanese fast food, Kula Sushi was popular back then... Here's a fun fact: My mother used to work at Vallco as a portrait photographer. It's very surprising how my mother met her husband back in 96, when he graduated from Cal Poly, SLO with a Computer Science major. She didn't tell me what's the name of the store she worked at. If you are born before 1996, and you been to Vallco, plz name me that photography store... I think they closed that store back in 2000...
That brownish marble shiny square pillar used to be where i played hide n seek with my cousins during halloween events and we would run around it in circles. The gold banisters were where i wished i was tall enough to climb over and fall to the first floor (thank goodness they were really tall because i was super determined to get over it!)
I remember Vallco Shopping Mall when on Saturday, January 5, 1985 I was going to get my ears pierced for the second time and I was a coward of the pain so I got a hold of almost 200 mil of 151 proof rum. I was 24 at the time and I had just a little breakfast. I got so fuckin shit-faced and I just came to to find in the back room with a bunch of security guards and they called the sheriff to take me home. And I never got my ears pierced. I was stupid and I could have gotten into great danger!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey!, you should come to the Albany, NY area and visit our 2 dead malls. We have Via-Port Rotterdam & Clifton Park Center. Both of these malls are subject to over malling the area with Crossgates Mall in Guilderland and Colonie Center in Colonie. Clifton Park is less of a dead mall but ViaPort is just sad. Its only anchor is KMart and NYS Dpt of taxation and finance
This mall was located in a part of town where there wasn't a lot of traffic. I remember thinking that there used to be no traffic on Wolfe Rd and Steven's Creek (on that part). It's kind of a weird part of town where there's a lot of sleepy suburbia around this area, but not a lot of traffic or other building to keep it afloat (like Santa Row and the Valley Fair Mail, which are located right across the street from each other -- it's like a mega gathering place, while Vallco just wasn't).
I grew up in Sunnyvale during the 80s and I remember when we would drive out to this mall. We always called it the "big mall" and if I was lucky I got to go ice skating
I'm only 17 years old but I've been to Vallco Mall a handful of times, once to JCPenny and a few times to various restaurants that used to be there including Dynasty (at 5:00; it was a spectacular restaurant that my family and friends went to several years ago), Tatami (went to a party there put on by my mom's work friend) and Fresh Choice. The mall had always seemed empty to me.
I just came back to San Jose for my 40 year high school reunion and I stayed at a hotel right near the mall and it’s really sad because the entire mall has been torn down with the exception of the building where JC Penney was which is where the Benihana and the ice rink and the bowling alley are
Not too long ago around 2015 I used to go to this mall a lot for a specific comic shop but now I’ve heard it’s even more dead than I remembered, the food court and the sears area and comic shop is all gone which was still there when I went.
If you could go into the Omaha area that their are two dead malls to Explorer such as Crossroads Mall where it has the two large tents in the center that the food court is on the upper level that is closed up now. Also Mall of the Bluffs in my home town of Council Bluffs Iowa that has only one anchor store left that is a Dillard's.
so crazy, i used to visit that mall quite frequently. lived down the street. it was never a very busy place. The weekends showed some life and of course christmas was a busy time.
Being a resident of the area, it's surreal thinking about what this place was once like. Even back in the early 2000's, there were enough places around to sustain it enough to have some business. I remember getting shoes here, having dinner with family in Dynasty, and going to the AMC theater every now and then whenever we had free tickets. But the deeper I explored into the mall when I was young, the more dire things got because I remember seeing a what looked to be a closed 80's diner across from the cookie shop. From then on, things seriously went downhill. The anchors eventually left, and the few brave souls like an indoor RC track place never lasted long enough to be successful. I remember wandering the place after the fact, seeing all of the closed stores, the quiet atmosphere, and the lonely food court in the back of one of its wings without any light or people, and empty reminder of what was once there. To think they erected these massive walls to prevent people from going further into the place. A sad tale indeed. And it's weird too considering the Cupertino are is where both of Apple's headquarters are located, has a bustling population since its school system attracts so many people (for some reason. I was never a fan of it myself), and is virtually surrounded by these successful, trendy places and eateries where young adults go.
@@mfuji02 the owners wanted housing in that place, people refused to let them have it citing that housing prices in the area would drop, so the developers passive aggressively let the mall deteriorate while giving the semblance of "trying to keep the mall open" while they waited for justification to tear the entire thing down to build what they wanted. It's a lot more controversial than most people know about what happened, from what I've heard anyway
It was a thriving mall until the last owner couldn't afford to keep it up and raised lease rates on the tenants, not to mention several of the anchor stores were struggling at the time. When the current owner took it over, his plan was to demolish it, so he jacked up the rates high enough to make the rest of the tenants leave. There is currently still an AMC theater there still in operation.
Plus the fact that the wealth in the area skyrocketed due to it being almost in the center of Silicon Valley. Other malls focused on high end stores while Vallco catered to the middle class. Sadly it seems like most of the middle class has been driven out of the area. I grew up in Cupertino in the 90s and spent a lot of time at that mall. Really depressing to see it now.
Let me know when you get to New Jersey. Our local mall Newport Centre is thriving if you want to do a comparison. The Macy's there is the fourth most profitable store in the chain. If you come I'll treat you to dinner and beers at the Irish pub nearby
I got to see a lot of Vallco in the late 90s and early 2000’s. Saw a lot of shops come and go. Got to see the ground floor when it still had shops. Lotta good memories there.
R. I . P. Vallco. You will always remain in my childhood memories.
I worked at Grain D' Or back in the 90's at this mall: the bread/deli/coffee shop. It was STILL DEAD back then. The upper floor had most of the business, but the bottom floor was completely empty and filled with empty vacancies. There were only about 10 stores that were open at that time and the whole dang mall looked like a graveyard. The last place I remember was an Asian tea shop on the top floor that was really popular. Other than that, the whole mall was dead. No customers, no known places to eat, no nothing. I liked this mall though, but it's too bad there were no customers. The parking was horrible and it was in a really busy area. I don't understand why the people of Cupertino didn't give it a chance. I hated going to Valley Fair due to their parking situation, but this mall had potential. Too bad. It was a cool spot for younger people. I really wish Cupertino would've put more money into this mall...it was in a prime location and most people at that time HATED going to Valley Fair.
These places make me feel quite sad - all those people, shoppers and staff, gone forever like they were never there.
What's sad is that we lost our only mall and have to drive a couple miles out of town to get to the next nearest mall. JC Penney has closed a lot of stores, the Vallco one was one of the few left. Now, I have to drive 15 miles to get to the nearest JC Penney.
I agree
@@gailivey2015 At least Valley Fair is close by. It's one of the largest malls in the country.
@@gailivey2015 Bruh i live near Eastridge mall and will still drive the extra 15 minutes to get to valley fair...its the greatest mall ever
Theyre not gone forever they are forever imprinted in the past, If the universe was a book being written- that part of history will be there for the rest of time.
Ace's adaventures , Dan Bell, proper people , bright sun films, and the exploring crew all upload in the same day almost at the same time. *** Mind blown*** 🏃🤸💪👐
Lol:)
I feel like there's a special group of us who all are in the same avenue. Every channel you mentioned I follow. Would be fun for everyone to have a meet up one day in a dying mall and give it the excitement it once felt inside.
Cam Q hahahah that sounded funny, but I'd like that.
Love Dan Bell's film 🎥 brand of entertainment 👍🏻
my first thought was the 'apes together strong meme.'
infamous crime locations is also a cool guy to check out.
It was just a matter of time before I saw this mall featured in a Dead Mall video on RUclips. I've lived in San Jose all my life and I've gone to this mall quite a few times in it's heyday. It's hard to believe that back in the early to mid 1990's that this was the 'it' mall of the Santa Clara Valley and Valley Fair, which is located just 4 miles east on the same street, was the dying mall struggling to gain customers. Now it's done a complete 180 and then some. Valley Fair is expanding yet again and is slated to become the 15th largest mall in the US, while Vallco is being left to rot while the NIMBY citizens of Cupertino fight over what should be done with it as they have for the last 5 years now. It's very unlikely that the mall's current owners (Sand Hill), who just opened an outdoor shopping center a couple of blocks away, is going to want to sell it to a developer that wants to use it for retail so they can compete with them.
Vallco started to decline rapidly in about 2002 or so, mainly due to then owner's greed and incompetency. A poorly conceived and downright ugly renovation turned the mall into an eyesore and the owners kept jacking up rents due to the cost which drove out many of the smaller shops (one of which was the old Sam's Grill which pissed me off because it was a very good family owned restaurant). In 2004-05 the mall shuttered off the lower floor and moved all the tenants up to the main floor. The mall's vacancy rate was about 50% at this time. Many of the tenants that moved out (such as Sam's Grill and Grain D'Or) were never re-leased to a new shop and sat vacant for the last 12 years. When the anchor stores started closing in 2014 the mall was barely 20% full if that.
Greed wasn't just limited to the owner however. In 2000 or so when Emporium went bankrupt and the anchor space opened, Dillard's was supposed to come in and replace them. That would have made it the only Dillard's location in the Bay Area, but Macy's was somehow able to block the lease proposal. Macy's wanted to open a lower quality Clearance/Outlet location in it's space (probably due to them already having not one, but two locations over at Valley Fair already), but Vallco wouldn't allow it and worked out an agreement to open a normal location. So instead of getting an anchor that would have brought customers from all over to the Mall, they got stuck with yet another Macy's which literally every other Mall in the Bay Area had already.
Vallco had (still has imho) a lot of potential. Vallco is in an extremely good location. Right off 280 and next to Apple's new campus. One of the things it had going for it back in the mid 90's was it had restaurants and amenities that Valley Fair didn't before it's 2002 remodel. Even afterwards, Valley Fair didn't have a Benihana, an El Torito's, or a TGI Friday's. Vallco did. Valley Fair didn't have a HUGE Tilt Arcade and several other entertainment attractions such as an Ice Rink, a Bowling Alley, and a Movie Theater. Vallco did. If the city of Cupertino somehow pulls it's head out of it's arse, maybe this mall can reopen with a new owner and return to it's former glory.
As for the 1970's footage at the beginning, I'm pretty sure that is in fact Vallco based on the Sears facade and parking lot layout as well as the wooden decor which this mall was known for.
Bizz McTavish I'm very familiar with the bay area, and I used to visit Vallco mall alot in the 90's and even early 2000's. It's soo sad. The mall used to be amazing! It even used to have a Hot Topic and Claire's. The mall, the last time I saw it, about 2 years back, was sooo dead. Alot of stores were gone, and the mall has a very sad, gloomy feel to it now.
I remember when Vallco was built. It started off as the Sears store in the early 70s to replace the old one on West San Carlos east of Valley Fair that was closed after that neighborhood got a little seedy. Later they added Bullock's which tried expanding from LA into the Bay, but that expansion failed after a few years and they retreated, that space later became Emporium and then Macy's. While Bullocks was open they bridged across Wolfe Rd. and built the JC Penney which replaced the one which was at the north end of Westgate. I think it was around 77 or 78 when it was finally completed. The mall had these beautiful shiny wood floors that reflected light from the skylights and you could park underneath and be inside within a few minutes of leaving your car. It was the "place to be" on the west side. At that time, Vallco was in it's heyday as Valley Fair and Steven's Creek Plaza were both outdoor and showing thier age, Westgate was small and downmarket and everything else that could compete with it was far away.
However, what killed it was when Valley Fair and Steven's Creek Plaza essentially leveled pretty much everything except for the anchor stores and built the new mall between them as well as a Nordstrom and then just went by the name Valley Fair. This occurred around 85 or 86. At that point, Vallco became a dead mall walking, as Valley Fair instantly became the new "place to be" on the west side and also drew in shoppers from all directions of its location as well, being at the intersection of 880 and 280. People west of Vallco who Valley Fair may have been out of range for, suddenly discovered the newly remodeled Stanford shopping Center. Westgate went from walking dead to somehow being a downmarket survivor leaving Vallco in a terrible bind.
They tried expanding in the late 80s and by doing so removed many of the architectural features that set it apart and made it convenient. They filled the lower level parking with stores that few rented and replaced those beautiful wood floors with neutral colored off white tile that was probably cheaper to maintain, but just made the place look drab. Sears and Penny's actually kept the place going for 30 years, as it was the only reason left to go there. Every other store they had was also available at Valley Fair and usually a more upscale version of it as well, especially the Macy's that did not stock many of the in demand items that could be had at Valley Fair or Stanford .
At the end of the day, there was probably nothing that could have been done at that point to bring it back to it's halcyon days. They were actually lucky to get those additional years that Sears and Pennys got them. Other similar new malls in the bay area were demolished in the mid 90s. Vallco was a consequence of "over-malling" more than anything else. Last time that I walked into the place was in 2011, long before Amazon was anything and it was a shell of itself with a high vacancy rate then.
@@kennethsouthard6042 wow. thanks. i'm writing something that involves valco in 2012, so this comment really helped provide some background.
@@kaiyotee2475 Glad that I could help. By the way the name Vallco Was an acronym that had to do with the organizations that initially funded that development in the 1960s. To my knowledge VA came from the company Varian and Associates. However, I don't remember where the other letters came from.
@@kaiyotee2475
Just found this. Ironically it pretty much says the same thing that I did but has more detailed sources.
www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/history-of-vallco-westfield-owned-vallco-and-it-still-failed
I grew up going to Vallco mall. The first part of the video WAS actually Vallco mall. It just has changed so much and has gone through many transformations. Going from one story, to two stories, then back to one again. Just a ghost town now.
Yes, that was Vallco Mall at the beginning. I could walk it blindfolded and tell you where all the stores were that I loved.
Gail Ivey came here to say the same thing. Why would he bother showing that if it wasn’t anyways? But yeah that’s Valco. The cafe on the over the road walkway is the giveaway.
I grew up in Cupertino in the 90s. I had my 5th and 6th birthdays at the TILT arcade in Vallco, which would involve pizza, games, and then skating at the rink that I think still might be there. I don't know if it is because I was a kid or not, but I remember thinking the pizza ws incredible. My parents would take me and my brother to the Fresh Choice often, and sometimes Benihana. There was also a pretzel shop we loved going to. I would always go to Legends to geek out as well. Many years later, around 2015, I lived across the street at the apartments they built there. I would sometimes go over to the Subway and get a sandwich, when all that was left was the generic food court, the AMC, and the Dynasty restaurant.
A shame this is the only dead mall really left here in the Bay Area. And even this one is mostly already closed. Sucks to be a fan of vintage/dead mall esthetic in a place where everything gets torn down and poor people get kicked out due to the high cost of living thanks to the techies.
See, something good can come out a stalking video. Man that guy was really into that Asian girl!
Wish it were the 90s or 80s again
M&N Distribution I know, right!? Me too #bornin80
80s in that mall was so much fucking fun.
Oh man, you have to know the significance of that clip from the 80s. Note that the people filmed in the video were speaking Japanese; this was the 80s and Japan was pretty much going to take over the US economically with brands like Toyota, before the bubble bursts and Lost Decades. Japanese tourists went to places with a large Japanese American pop. like Cupertino and Little Tokyo in droves and were buying everything. And now, if you look at the seafood restaurant and listen, you can hear Chinese tourists speaking in the background. History just repeats itself, it seems.
I figured they were Japanese- the woman with the white pants, dark shirt, and dark longish hair looks just like my mom did in the 80s.
True. I lived nearby(literally blocks away) tour buses would pull into the parking lot of the sears and Japanese tourists would pour out and start taking pictures like it was an attraction. Mariani orchards still surrounded the mall and they would dry split apricots in our church parking lot.
@@SuckerFreeGear STOP. Your racism is too much for this video which was supposed to feel good
@@sew_gal7340 I went ahead and removed my comment for you but I still stand by my statement that Japanese culture is superior to any other Asian culture including most European ones. They aren't the ones eating bats at "wet markets". Also I am not Japanese but am able to objectively look at cultures and data to make a judgement.
No wonder malls are failing, it is stupid you can't video in a mall 😖
Sean Wheat I agree screw the douchebag security
I’m from San Jose I went there with my friends in 2017 to photograph the dead mall. we Ended up getting kicked out by security after one of them started smoking weed inside 😅🤣
You say the video at the beginning was NOT the Vallco mall but it for sure WAS....brought back good memories!
0:56 *Actual* mall music for our inspiration! It's a rare treat to hear the real thing! I think we're even getting to hear the ever-present early-80's organ store music, there, too!
Remember when most malls had both a B. Daltons and a Walden books!!
Yeah I loved that and they had Software etc too
I love all the Dead Mall Series out there. They truly bring back memories of my childhood; even with the malls Ive never went to. But guys, is it me or isnt it sad to see our old stomping grounds be abandoned and/or destroyed? Its like apart of me is being ripped out when I see where all of our historical malls are going. Think about it, they are our youth memorials! And once there gone all we will have left is just memories and moments....
amen WOL! my bboy crew used break dance battle & hang out in vallco in the 80s it was a magical fun place RIP
I know....thats how a lot of old people feel when they see a lot of what they used to know die out or going away...its sad
Ace, this video is rad. I have never been to an American mall because I'm from Europe, but I'm so fascinated by all dead mall vids.
The 1980 footage most definitely covers Vallco; no other indoor malls were built in Cupertino. Additional (awesome) footage of the featured shoppers show them entering the Wolfe Creek Cafe, which was a restaurant in Vallco at the time and discussed in the Stanford Daily Archive from Feb. 1980. Also, the shoppers are seen in front of Azuma Japanese Cuisine, which is in the same business park and remains today.
Congratulations on your promotion
Vallco was a fantastic mall back in the day. Thanks for this video, I no longer live in the Bay Area and it's sad to see this.
I remember going there as a teenager in the early 2000s, it was even going down hill back then. Now it’s all demolished but wow what a throwback!
I live in the area and have watched that place turn into a ghost town over the years. Putting the Theaters there was like a last ditch effort to get it going again. Nope!
Used to go there all the time through the 90”s through to the very end, it died a slow death just like many Bay Area malls are dying right now.
That mall is so dead I wonder if it is about to be repurposed or is headed to the wrecking ball.
There was a initiative on the ballot in Cupertino that the mall owners got on the ballot. The voters could decide if they would be allowed to repurpose the mall...the voters said no.
The developer has a reputation for not following through on promises, promising things he cannot deliver. The residents did not want 20 MILLION square feet of OFFICE SPACE where the mall is, so we said, no. The developer's answer was then to leave the mall to fall into decay to "punish" the voters. Residents would like to see the mall revitalized as a retail center, but the developer owner does not want to do that.
Gail Ivey maybe someone else will buy it and do something different with it.
I believe this mall also had an ice rink .I skated there alot in 84-85 if I remember correctly . I had no idea this mall was dead .I haven't lived in the bay area since 1986.very sad.
SHPco.com/active_projects/pipeline_v.php
Sand Hill Property Co.
RevitalizeVallco.com
I visited this mall in my teens. I remember it as being small and dark, and somewhat redundant with Valley Fair down the road. There was a bridge that connected two parts of the mall, and it had shops in it, iirc, which was very innovative at the time.
I'm older than you are. . . This mall was THE place to go before Valley Faire was revamped.
That was a nice mall...back then. Later, a series of owners expanded and remodeled the vallco mall. Each change made it worse and less attractive. Now it is just a wreck; nothing is left. All the stores are gone.
You could definitely tell the first half was 80s. The one guy was smoking inside the mall. I remember seeing that a lot in the malls in the 80s.
Love that clip from the 80s. I think I grew up in the wrong decade. I seriously have a thing for the 80s.
xD u did I was there fun times no gansta thug bs -_-
the mall was pretty dead even back when shopping malls were booming.
Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that the old video footage you showed IS in fact from Vallco Fashion Park in 1980. The mall looks very different now, but those stores were all inside it back then.
I have such fond memories of Vallco. From the anchor tenants like JCPenny, Macy's, and Sears, to the smaller stores like KB Toys, Comic Legends, Famous Footwear, restaurants like Fresh Choice, Sam's Grill, TGI Friday's (where I had several birthdays as a kid, one time crying when the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to me). But my absolute favorite place was the Toy Train Operating Society, a model railroad club with a large O-scale layout (as well as smaller layouts for 1, S, and HO scale) that dazzled me then just as much as it did when I last visited it in 2014. I also loved Pretzel Time, especially getting an ICEE. Tilt Family Fun Center closed before I got super into arcades, but I was always marvelling at the claw machines near the mall entrance. There was also this one store selling kids' shoes that also sold Thomas Wooden Railway toys. Then there was Village Rugs, where we got the rugs that have graced our family room over the years (we knew the owner personally). And finally, towards the end of Vallco's life, I remember when the Hallmark Store became Inside Line Racing, an RC racing place for amateur and professional RC car drivers. After Vallco bit it, they moved to the old thrift store at Westgate Mall, but didn't last long, and are now out of business entirely.
I worked at the Emporiun-Capwells store from before the store open from being a Bullock's. I loved that mall and our EC store was beautiful. I open that dept store in 1984 and worked there until late 1988. So sad I loved my Vallco. Still have the T shirt we were all given when we opened there.
Thanks for the shout out for TTOS-Golden State Division. We're still around, although we cannot find a permanent home in the Bay Area. We set up our modular O-Gauge trains at local shows and hope to do so again once the COVID threat is over. We had lots of fun running our trains for the public.
The first part with the Asian people- maybe tourists?
904 CZV ya know, that is always one constant, even now, the Asian tourists. Pretty cool though!
Maybe, however Cupertino is largely Asian. The Asian population has grown here tremendously in the past 30 years or so. They could easily have been residents. The street I grew up on is now 95% occupied by Asians.
True, I always forget that aspect about California (and I’m Asian!). Lol.
This mall is right next to the computer companies- people would come from all over for sales conferences and other meetings and walk to the mall just to see it. I would expect that was some companies' Asian sales force or some such. Especially that Sears entrance (where they are in the parking lot)- is where people would walk from the companies nearby - Apple, Four Phase, Tandem etc.
Lol no way! There are places where the Asian population has grown over 90%, like in AZ.
If you come to Columbia SC then I'd be happy to help you tour Dutch Square Mall and Columbia Mall.
I'm surprised this is still open.
There is still a movie theater in operation there.
People in the 80's sure loved their White pants xD
Wow! This is crazy! I went here in 2012 and it was about half empty.
Actually this is one mall i went to during my trip to the bay area back in August 2012 when my cousin treated us go the benihana for dinner n this mall was so outdated but looks nice from outside
Love the 80’s mall footage! Any plans to revisit fairgrounds square mall in Reading Pennsylvania? There’s more employees than customers in that mall
That track at the end sounds like cruel summer
Yes a new dead malll
I was surprised to see a Cartier in a “lower class” mall.
it was a high class mall once.
That mall started to die when the pet store closed.
I was astonished when I first discovered that this mall even existed and I live in San Jose. Only reason I know about it is because of eating in Benihanas restaurant which is across the street from it.
Benihana was actually a part of the mall, which is an oddity considering you had to leave the main mall area to head outside into the parking lot just to get to the door on another side of the same connected structure
Always great to see you in my sub box Ace! Glad you got out of Buffalo to document your travels
Omg the footage!!The game store with not ONE video game in sight...wow.The retro Sears really got me though.It was total childhood.That was great-loved it!
tilt was downstairs & the hugest arcade around before the bowling alley took over
Great video, I love the old clips!
The early 80s was not nice to us little girls when it came to fashion, lol. Too much ruffles and lace. As usual great video and looking forward to more content! Congrats on your promotion! 😁
Jennifer Jones lol .
Explore with Rick lol, don't forget the garanimals shirts too!
bumblethebee20 haha yes !💪
bumblethebee20 how bout that helmet hair? Lol shapeless clothes too. At least by the late 80s, we had day glo everything. Lol
Jennifer Jones ain't gonna lie I use to have a bowl haircut.
Hi there, that mall footage you show at the beginning actually IS Vallco from the 80s. Why do you think that wasn't Vallco? It was. Vallco had 3 anchor stores (iirc)- Sears, Penneys and Emporium. I believe the Sears and Penneys were on opposite sides of the mall with Emporium in the middle.
Depending on when that video was shot, Bullock's was in the location before Emporium.
I can almost see the radio shack near the penny's lower floor entrance. That brought me back.
I was suprised to see the healthy greenery. It always so sad to see a dead or dying mall.
I went to my local mall today, "Harrisburg East Mall," In Pennsylvania. Boscov's is gone. Most of the stores are open. There was a very small amount of shoppers.
Also the "Chambersburg Mall," here is closing.
I remember when I earned my weekends off. My hours were 6 til 215. I felt like I had a 3 day weekend all the time! Again, congratulations with your promotin, Anthony.
Proud Patreon Supporter
Suze Glesky Thanks Suze, i am bummed I couldn’t see more of this place
Did you make any vidieos about digging out you home from the new york snow dump2018
What kind of shop was that during the 80s footage with C3PO and a clone head? awesome footage. I saw a game store that looked awesome too
Mike's Explorations my guess maybe a collectable and hobby shop?
Jennifer Jones I want to go to one! at times I think would be awesome to travel back in time to the 60s, 70s, and 80s just to shop at cool stores that are not heard of these days. like that game store, a game store today would have all video games and no board games
Mike's Explorations every once in awhile a couple pop up around the state of Utah, in fact, an antique and collectable store opened up in an old Payless shoes down the street from my house where I grew up in the 90s. Payless closed that location in 1993 I think. It's now a carpet store. Fun places to browse for sure.
Jennifer Jones Antique and specialty collector stores are awesome, but very rare here in Alabama. I go to a vintage record store in Watercolor, Florida, when I get a chance. it's the only true record store I've ever seen.
Mike's Explorations omg, there is still a vintage record store still in operation just 1 mile south of downtown, they have been there since 1981, a former radio dj owns the shop. One of my old neighbors still owns an antique store. Neat!
It's one of the dead malls that I been to... along with Redlands (closed in 2011 but still standing)
It was just dead, lots of people visit Vallco for a walk... but not shopping.
The very last time I been to Vallco was 3 years before demolition.
To be honest though, the Dynasty Seafood place was awesome back then, when I celebrated my granny's 80th birthday back in August 2012. It's the only Vallco restaurant I been to. Nothing else. Although I seen the Tatami place, a Japanese fast food, Kula Sushi was popular back then...
Here's a fun fact:
My mother used to work at Vallco as a portrait photographer. It's very surprising how my mother met her husband back in 96, when he graduated from Cal Poly, SLO with a Computer Science major. She didn't tell me what's the name of the store she worked at. If you are born before 1996, and you been to Vallco, plz name me that photography store... I think they closed that store back in 2000...
Thank you. Legends of Sports & Fantasy. Bought my first anime VHS and plamodel there. Aug. 1997
That brownish marble shiny square pillar used to be where i played hide n seek with my cousins during halloween events and we would run around it in circles. The gold banisters were where i wished i was tall enough to climb over and fall to the first floor (thank goodness they were really tall because i was super determined to get over it!)
I remember Vallco Shopping Mall when on Saturday, January 5, 1985 I was going to get my ears pierced for the second time and I was a coward of the pain so I got a hold of almost 200 mil of 151 proof rum. I was 24 at the time and I had just a little breakfast. I got so fuckin shit-faced and I just came to to find in the back room with a bunch of security guards and they called the sheriff to take me home. And I never got my ears pierced. I was stupid and I could have gotten into great danger!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey!, you should come to the Albany, NY area and visit our 2 dead malls. We have Via-Port Rotterdam & Clifton Park Center. Both of these malls are subject to over malling the area with Crossgates Mall in Guilderland and Colonie Center in Colonie. Clifton Park is less of a dead mall but ViaPort is just sad. Its only anchor is KMart and NYS Dpt of taxation and finance
This mall was located in a part of town where there wasn't a lot of traffic. I remember thinking that there used to be no traffic on Wolfe Rd and Steven's Creek (on that part). It's kind of a weird part of town where there's a lot of sleepy suburbia around this area, but not a lot of traffic or other building to keep it afloat (like Santa Row and the Valley Fair Mail, which are located right across the street from each other -- it's like a mega gathering place, while Vallco just wasn't).
I grew up in Sunnyvale during the 80s and I remember when we would drive out to this mall. We always called it the "big mall" and if I was lucky I got to go ice skating
I'm only 17 years old but I've been to Vallco Mall a handful of times, once to JCPenny and a few times to various restaurants that used to be there including Dynasty (at 5:00; it was a spectacular restaurant that my family and friends went to several years ago), Tatami (went to a party there put on by my mom's work friend) and Fresh Choice. The mall had always seemed empty to me.
I remember Vallco a lot. I went there several times there and I really liked the place a lot and I was really impressed by Vallco's design.
I just came back to San Jose for my 40 year high school reunion and I stayed at a hotel right near the mall and it’s really sad because the entire mall has been torn down with the exception of the building where JC Penney was which is where the Benihana and the ice rink and the bowling alley are
Just across the highway from the brand new Apple Park
Not too long ago around 2015 I used to go to this mall a lot for a specific comic shop but now I’ve heard it’s even more dead than I remembered, the food court and the sears area and comic shop is all gone which was still there when I went.
If you could go into the Omaha area that their are two dead malls to Explorer such as Crossroads Mall where it has the two large tents in the center that the food court is on the upper level that is closed up now. Also Mall of the Bluffs in my home town of Council Bluffs Iowa that has only one anchor store left that is a Dillard's.
Anthony can you tour Chicago area malls like Westfield Hawthorn and Woodfield
so crazy, i used to visit that mall quite frequently. lived down the street. it was never a very busy place. The weekends showed some life and of course christmas was a busy time.
Wow so different with people in it.i did security when just bay club,amc theatre and dynasty restaurant were the only places left
That mall started fading in the 90s. The movie theater will close 3/22/18
If were here in AZ right now, you would be dealing with sunny days in the 70s.
They should have just re-purposed that whole mall for office space for Apple.
Omg, At one time, this mall had a Cartier. Now, all that reminds is a chic vacant store front. Damn thats harsh.
Initial Demolition has begun on this mall on Oct.-11-2018
Go to Chesterfield Mall while in St. Louis!
Thad U I agree, Thad. Went last year and it was nearly closed then. Not sure what's left now - been curious since then.
This mall isn't as old as you say it is. I am 16 and I remember and when this mall was busy and still had big name stores there.
As soon as my other youtube channel gets monetized this summer, I will be donating some of that to patreon, I so want to help. (I do storytelling) 😀
Ngl tho that Dynasty place was amazing back then
"Cupertino"? Maybe Apple can take it over?
I could give you two Massachusetts malls to hit and who to casually flip off.
Guy is freakin smoking in the mall!!!!
Reminds me of Western Plaza in Amarillo.
I never seen this footage
This mall reminds me of stranger things 3
I used to play video games at the Tilt
In the 80s it was alot of stalking one lady lol
Who keeps farting in the speaker?
Cupertino?! My Iphone5 (current phone) had the weather for that town on it!
Apple's Headquarters is across the street from this mall.
Epic
Backrooms 3:42
Miss this mall in 90s
Being a resident of the area, it's surreal thinking about what this place was once like. Even back in the early 2000's, there were enough places around to sustain it enough to have some business. I remember getting shoes here, having dinner with family in Dynasty, and going to the AMC theater every now and then whenever we had free tickets. But the deeper I explored into the mall when I was young, the more dire things got because I remember seeing a what looked to be a closed 80's diner across from the cookie shop.
From then on, things seriously went downhill. The anchors eventually left, and the few brave souls like an indoor RC track place never lasted long enough to be successful. I remember wandering the place after the fact, seeing all of the closed stores, the quiet atmosphere, and the lonely food court in the back of one of its wings without any light or people, and empty reminder of what was once there. To think they erected these massive walls to prevent people from going further into the place. A sad tale indeed.
And it's weird too considering the Cupertino are is where both of Apple's headquarters are located, has a bustling population since its school system attracts so many people (for some reason. I was never a fan of it myself), and is virtually surrounded by these successful, trendy places and eateries where young adults go.
vallco owners jacked up the rent & destroyed it
I miss going to Valco, I used to watch movies there and my dad would take me and my brother to the RC racing store. Good times...
@@mfuji02 the owners wanted housing in that place, people refused to let them have it citing that housing prices in the area would drop, so the developers passive aggressively let the mall deteriorate while giving the semblance of "trying to keep the mall open" while they waited for justification to tear the entire thing down to build what they wanted. It's a lot more controversial than most people know about what happened, from what I've heard anyway
go ice skating
My childhood.
I wonder what the story is with this mall. It looks relatively new.
It was a thriving mall until the last owner couldn't afford to keep it up and raised lease rates on the tenants, not to mention several of the anchor stores were struggling at the time. When the current owner took it over, his plan was to demolish it, so he jacked up the rates high enough to make the rest of the tenants leave. There is currently still an AMC theater there still in operation.
Gail Ivey There’s also a Chinese restaurant, a handful of small shops, and a surprisingly nice bowling alley in operation.
Plus the fact that the wealth in the area skyrocketed due to it being almost in the center of Silicon Valley. Other malls focused on high end stores while Vallco catered to the middle class. Sadly it seems like most of the middle class has been driven out of the area. I grew up in Cupertino in the 90s and spent a lot of time at that mall. Really depressing to see it now.
The AMC theatre closed down a few months back, sorry.
New Jersey
Today is my birthday January 12th
Sarahjean Tipton happy birthday! :)
Happy Birthday!
Let me know when you get to New Jersey. Our local mall Newport Centre is thriving if you want to do a comparison. The Macy's there is the fourth most profitable store in the chain. If you come I'll treat you to dinner and beers at the Irish pub nearby
Swansea Mall in Swansea Massachusetts!!!
One anchor left too. I shot pictures here back in April, its still kinda off the map!
When you went to Vallco, the AMC there was still open. That theater closed on March 22 of this year, so that mall is now completely abandoned.
I got to see a lot of Vallco in the late 90s and early 2000’s. Saw a lot of shops come and go. Got to see the ground floor when it still had shops. Lotta good memories there.