Multi-story strip malls - does your city have them? Or is this uniquely Los Angeles

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Slightly off-topic but how common is it in your part of the US or Canada to refer to these as a shopping plaza? Or even just a plaza? One of my friends is more apt to say that than I am, for example, like when giving directions, she'll say "Yeah, it's in that plaza where the boba time is..."

I hear shopping plaza or plaza more commonly here too. Much more so than strip mall at least.

[Urbanguy]

I don't think these are unique to LA at all. I've seen these types of places in Honolulu & even Las Vegas.

[EastSideHBG]

I always thought that these were kind of weird but most of that is probably just because we don't really have these in this part of the U.S.; when I saw one in person for the first time I didn't quite know how to feel ha ha

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Slightly off-topic but how common is it in your part of the US or Canada to refer to these as a shopping plaza? Or even just a plaza? One of my friends is more apt to say that than I am, for example, like when giving directions, she'll say "Yeah, it's in that plaza where the boba time is..."

In Harrisburg, PA many people referred to them as "plaza" and the official names reflected as such also e.g. Uptown Plaza. But when I moved to the Philly area I don't recall hearing that term again.

[Steely Dan]

at first i didn't think we had anything like this in chicago, then i remembered Plaza del Lago, a shopping center in the burb i grew up in that had some 2-story sections with apartments above the stores.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0870...7i13312!8i6656

but it's not a true strip mall, and being built in 1928, it certainly WAY pre-dates the era when this style of retail became the de facto norm in the US. it is said to be one of the oldest shopping centers in the nation to be designed around the use of the car, which makes sense because it's located in chicago's old money north shore burbs, and mass car ownership probably occurred there earlier than most other places in the nation.



there's another one like it from the 1916 up in Lake Forest called Market Square, said to be THE oldest shopping plaza in the nation to be designed around the use of cars. again, north shore burb, old money, very early adopters of mass car ownership.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2522...7i13312!8i6656




but in modern day chicago, the 2-story strip mall is a rare beast indeed. i can't even think off a single one of the top of my head.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by Urbanguy

I don't think these are unique to LA at all. I've seen these types of places in Honolulu & even Las Vegas.

I feel like in most of the US, it's generally 1 story only and has copious more parking. In LA, these are in the core, and to be honest, they usually only have a few parking spots compared to say, vast suburban strip malls. Toronto is the only other city I can think of aside from LA that has a lot of 3 story strip malls.

Beverly Grove


Koreatown


I used to live right next to this one - IDK why, but there is a gritty charm to these places in LA even though they are ugly. At night though, they light up with neon and give a little bit of LA's sleazy signature glitz.

[woodrow]

I think the first first designed shopping district planned around cars is the Country Club Plaza, in Kansas City. It too, was in an affluent part of the city. It is kinda like a bunch of strip malls strung together. Parking is largely hidden behind the store fronts - https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0412...7i16384!8i8192

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I feel like in most of the US, it's generally 1 story only and has copious more parking. In LA, these are in the core, and to be honest, they usually only have a few parking spots compared to say, vast suburban strip malls. Toronto is the only other city I can think of aside from LA that has a lot of 3 story strip malls.

There's kind of an irony too, in that in many little strip malls in LA, there's only a few parking spaces, so, if a particular little strip mall has a very popular restaurant, there won't be any parking at the actual strip mall. So, something built for auto-centricity isn't all that accommodating for the auto, and you end up parking on the street several blocks away and walking.

Like Jitlada. In the 2 or 3 times I've eaten there, I've never been able to park there. Or the Mario's on Melrose and Vine (my first introduction to Peruvian food, and then I "discovered" other Peruvian places).

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I used to live right next to this one - IDK why, but there is a gritty charm to these places in LA even though they are ugly. At night though, they light up with neon and give a little bit of LA's sleazy signature glitz.

Right? And if you squint your eyes a little bit, you can almost imagine yourself being in an Asian city, which many westerners say are ugly anyway. To me they're at least very functional, and pedestrians dodging cars are part of the Asian city experience, no?

Some few other examples of a multi-story strip mall are in what's been dubbed Sawtelle Japantown; back in the 90s, for some reason my Japanese female friend would drag me to a hair salon there that she liked going to "because they know how to do Japanese hair."

It was somewhere in here, as I recall:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0384...4!8i8192?hl=en

And then of course there's this one, where'd we go to the Japanese market and get a can of UCC coffee: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0390...7i16384!8i8192

Edit: I realize a Dutch friend who visited my partner and me a few years ago said that in many places we went, he felt like he was in Asia. I didn't ask him to elaborate; I just assumed it was all the Asians he saw... but maybe he was thinking about some of the built environment too?

[SFBruin]

It seems to me that having a multi-level shopping center is not unique to LA, but that the particular format maybe is somewhat regionalized (maybe not).

[pj3000]

Definitely in Miami

Pretty sure I've seen these in the DC area

[muertecaza]

This one from metro Phoenix is hell on earth:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3979...7i16384!8i8192

Here's another one that seems more typical with others in this thread:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4483...7i16384!8i8192

Edit: this one in Tempe near ASU is not too bad, it inverts it so parking is on the interior:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4221...7i16384!8i8192

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

This one from metro Phoenix is hell on earth:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3979...7i16384!8i8192

Here's another one that seems more typical with others in this thread:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4483...7i16384!8i8192

Dayum. These look bleak AF. Not that strip malls generally at the most exciting thing. But these especially. Wow.

[memph]

Kitchener has one in its downtown

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4480...7i16384!8i8192


Most of what suburban toronto has is not so LA-esque in architecture (and more office/residential on upper floors) but still multi-story

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7065...7i16384!8i8192
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4664...7i16384!8i8192

[jbermingham123]

I see these up in Stockton and Sac all the time

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Slightly off-topic but how common is it in your part of the US or Canada to refer to these as a shopping plaza? Or even just a plaza? One of my friends is more apt to say that than I am, for example, like when giving directions, she'll say "Yeah, it's in that plaza where the boba time is..."

I've heard "plaza" used in the names of some shopping centers in Houston (Meyerland Plaza comes to mind), but I don't remember ever hearing the word used generically.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I've heard "plaza" used in the names of some shopping centers in Houston (Meyerland Plaza comes to mind), but I don't remember ever hearing the word used generically.

Interesting...

Now my next question. How do you guys say it? "Plah-zuh" or "Plazz-uh"?

We here say the former... well then of course there are the Spanish speakers that actually pronounce it the way it's supposed to be pronounced in Spanish.

[llamaorama]

I see these occasionally in Houston and I know I've seen them in Dallas and San Antonio.

They may not be as common as in Southern California but they aren't actually that rare.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Now my next question. How do you guys say it? "Plah-zuh" or "Plazz-uh"?

We here say the former... well then of course there are the Spanish speakers that actually pronounce it the way it's supposed to be pronounced in Spanish.

I was actually going to ask that in my post but decided not to.

I suppose most people here would say plah-zuh, except the large Hispanic population who say plah-suh. I find myself occasionally saying plazz-uh. Probably a bit of Canadian influence from living in Toronto a gazillian years ago. It took me awhile to stop pronouncing Mazda as mazz-duh because Canada was the first place I had ever heard of the brand.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I was actually going to ask that in my post but decided not to.

I suppose most people here would say plah-zuh, except the large Hispanic population who say plah-suh. I find myself occasionally saying plazz-uh. Probably a bit of Canadian influence from living in Toronto a gazillian years ago. It took me awhile to stop pronouncing Mazda as mazz-duh because Canada was the first place I had ever heard of the brand.

There's a huge upscale mall in Orange County called South Coast Plaza; I once heard a midwestern transplant call it South Coast Plazz-uh and it threw me off.

And I guess a Spanish speaker would say "plah-sah," which I do hear.

[memph]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I feel like in most of the US, it's generally 1 story only and has copious more parking. In LA, these are in the core, and to be honest, they usually only have a few parking spots compared to say, vast suburban strip malls. Toronto is the only other city I can think of aside from LA that has a lot of 3 story strip malls.

Beverly Grove


Koreatown


I used to live right next to this one - IDK why, but there is a gritty charm to these places in LA even though they are ugly. At night though, they light up with neon and give a little bit of LA's sleazy signature glitz.

Montreal has a fair bit in a similar style to Toronto as well.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.61921...7i16384!8i8192
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.57974...7i16384!8i8192
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.42882...7i16384!8i8192
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.54034...7i16384!8i8192

[sopas ej]

Has anyone referred to strip malls as "mini-malls"?

It seems the term mini-mall was used a lot here in LA during the 1980s.