| Beverly Center | |
 View from the intersection of La Cienega Blvd. and 3rd St. |
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| Facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | Los Angeles, California |
| 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 | 3 |
| Total retail floor area | 900,000 ft² |
| No. of floors | 8 |
| Website | Beverlycenter.com |
The Beverly Center is a shopping center in Los Angeles, California, United States.
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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. It serves the entire Los Angeles area. Its anchor tenants include Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and a 13-screen movie theater. 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, Diesel, Gucci, Dior, and Hugo Boss. The mall's Rooftop Terrace offers sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills, Downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Westside. Currently, the mall caters to the upscale customer and mostly contains stores and boutiques that are more expensive than those in a typical American mall. The externally-visible escalators of the center previously resembled similar escalators at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France; however, the escalators are currently being renovated, and by the end of 2007, will have a significantly different and more modern appearance.
History
Formerly, this site was a small amusement park featuring a ferris wheel and pony rides known as Kiddyland. The Beverly Center was originally opened in 1982 by developers A. Alfred Taubman, Sheldon Gordon & E. Phillip Lyon. The mall contained America's first Hard Rock Cafe, the second ever after the London original. The Beverly Center was originally anchored by Bullock's and The Broadway department stores, 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 by 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.
Local competitors
Located just a mile away is The Grove at Farmers Market. Opened in 2002, The Grove provides some competition to the Beverly Center; however, its retailers are tailored more to the upper middle-class market, while the Beverly Center targets the more upper class tourist and West Los Angeles markets, and thus they complement each other. This can also be said for other shopping centers in the area such as Westfield Century City and the Westside Pavilion, which all draw different crowds from different places.
In popular culture
- 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 paparazi 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."
Tenant Directory
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.)
- Mann Beverly 13 Theatres
- Sony Style
Food Specialty & Restaurants
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