Westfield Valley Fair facts for kids
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| Location | San Jose, California, USA |
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| Address | 2855 Stevens Creek Boulevard San Jose, CA 95050 |
| Opening date | 1986 |
| Developer | The Hahn Company |
| Management | Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield |
| Owner | Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield |
| No. of stores and services | 236 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4 |
| Total retail floor area | 2,200,000 sq ft (200,000 m2) |
| No. of floors | 2 (3 in Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Macy’s) |
| Parking | 8,500 |
Westfield Valley Fair, often called Valley Fair, is a large and fancy shopping mall in San Jose, California. It's located in an area known as Silicon Valley. This mall is owned by a company called Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. You can find it on Stevens Creek Boulevard, which is a popular shopping street in both San Jose and Santa Clara.
Westfield Valley Fair is one of the biggest malls in the United States. It also makes a lot of money, with some of the highest sales per square foot in California. The mall has 273 stores, a large food court with seventeen places to eat, nine restaurants, and three big department stores.
Contents
History of Valley Fair Mall
Westfield Valley Fair is special because it started as two separate shopping centers. The first one, called Valley Fair Shopping Center, opened in 1956 in San Jose. It had a Macy's store and about 40 other shops.
Next to it, in Santa Clara, was another outdoor shopping center called Stevens Creek Plaza. It had stores like The Emporium and I. Magnin. Because of this, the current mall still shares its sales tax money between the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara. Both cities also help manage the mall.
Merging Two Malls into One
In 1986, a company called The Hahn Company bought both shopping centers. They combined them into one large, two-story indoor mall. This new mall was simply called "Valley Fair" and quickly became very successful.
Later, in 1987, a Nordstrom store joined the mall. The I. Magnin store closed in 1992. The old Emporium store became a second Macy's location in 1996, selling men's clothing and home goods. The building where I. Magnin used to be had different stores over the years, like Sports Authority. Eventually, it was torn down and replaced by a Showplace ICON movie theater in 2019.
New Owners and Renaming
In 1998, Westfield America, Inc. (which is now part of the Westfield Group) and The Rouse Company bought Valley Fair together. Westfield then bought out Rouse in 1999. In 1998, the mall's name changed to Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair. However, the "Shoppingtown" part was dropped in 2005.
Mall Upgrades and New Stores
The mall started a big expansion project in 2001. This project added a new dining area on the second floor, 80 new stores, and three large parking garages. The Nordstrom store also moved to a new, bigger location with three levels.
The second part of the expansion changed the old Nordstrom store and food court into 30 more shops. This included a new section of stores facing Forest Avenue. A Cheesecake Factory restaurant was also added.
In 2013, the mall had another major remodel. The "Dining Terrace" (food court) was updated with new local and national restaurants. Many stores also moved around. The Nordstrom store was completely redesigned and added two new restaurants inside. The lower level of the Nordstrom wing became a "Luxury Collection" area. Here, you can find high-end stores like Balenciaga, Mulberry, Saint Laurent Paris, Bottega Veneta, Versace, Giorgio Armani, Tory Burch, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Prada. These joined existing luxury stores like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co..
A Mall Divided by City Rules
In 2012, the city of San Jose raised its minimum wage to $10 USD an hour. However, the city of Santa Clara did not. This created an interesting situation that the NPR Planet Money team called "A Mall Divided." Workers on one side of the mall were paid $2 less per hour than those on the other side.
For example, a Gap clothing store was located right on the border between the two cities. This meant the store had to either keep track of how much time its employees spent in each city or pay all its employees the higher San Jose minimum wage. The Gap store chose to pay all its employees the higher wage.
Future Expansion Plans
In 2007, Westfield announced big plans to make the mall even larger. These plans included adding new anchor stores like Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus, 100 more shops, and a huge parking structure for 3,000 cars. The city of San Jose approved this expansion in November 2007.
In 2015, Westfield shared a new plan for a $1.1 billion expansion. This plan included a new three-level Bloomingdale's department store and a Showplace ICON luxury movie theater. It also added over 500,000 square feet of new shop space, which meant more than 100 new stores. There would also be an outdoor restaurant area facing Stevens Creek Boulevard and over 3,000 new parking spaces.
The latest expansion, including the new Bloomingdale's, officially opened on March 5, 2020. Several new stores opened in the months after, like bigger Apple and Tiffany & Co. flagship stores. A large Eataly Italian marketplace, covering 51,000 square feet, is also planned to open in 2021.
See also
In Spanish: Westfield Valley Fair para niños
