Arden Fair is a two-level regional shopping mall located on Arden Way in Sacramento, California, United States. It consists of over 150 tenants, encompassing over 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m2) of retail space.[2][3] The mall features the traditional retailers Macy's and JCPenney as anchor stores. It is locally owned by Fulcrum Property and operated by Centennial Real Estate Company.
History
Arden Fair was originally built in 1957 as a single-level outdoor mall with Sears as the original anchor, despite being physically separated from the rest of the mall.[4]Hale's, the second original anchor, opened four years later in 1961, which was later converted to Weinstock's. By the 1970s, Arden Fair was converted into an indoor mall.[5]
In 1989, Homart Development completed a major structural renovation and physical face-lift of the mall, which more than doubled its size. It added a second story, a food court and brought the first Nordstrom department store to Sacramento. The old Sears building was gutted as part of the expansion and Sears was relocated to a new building that finally connected the store to the mall. In 1994, JCPenney opened up as the mall's fourth anchor, replacing a United Artists movie theater that was relocated to Market Square at Arden Fair, an entertainment and retail complex next door to the mall (the movie theater was shuttered in 2019).[4] In 1996, Weinstock's was converted to the present-day Macy's as part of Federated Department Stores' (now Macy's, Inc.) acquisition of Broadway Stores, Inc in 1995.
In early 2004, KCRA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, opened "The KCRA 3 Experience", an in-house studio that was located on the second floor of the mall where shoppers got a behind-the-scenes look of how a newscast was put together and a chance to be on TV. Over the years, Walt Gray, Patty Souza, Adrienne Bankert and Eileen Javora broadcast the news every Monday-Friday at Noon.[6] KCRA discontinued the in-house studio and closed it in late 2008, replacing it with a Verizon Wireless phone store.[7]
The dawn of the early 2020s saw several storied traditional department store retailers update their brick-and-mortar formats after being encroached upon to a degree by several digital retailers in recent years in addition to the COVID pandemic.
In May 2020, Nordstrom, which also retains an additional outpost in nearby Roseville, announced plans to shutter along with several additional locations as a direct result of pulling back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]
In January 2021, Sears announced it would shutter as part of an ongoing decision to eliminate its traditional brick-and-mortar format.[9][10]
In August 2023, Fulcrum, the mall's owners, had purchased both the aforementioned vacant Nordstrom and Sears outposts with the primary intent of introducing a variety of new modern national retailers.[11]
In April 2024, it was announced that Uniqlo and H&M would open their first Sacramento locations at Arden Fair, both of which opened on September 13 and September 26, 2024, respectively. In the case of H&M, it is their first Sacramento proper location and third Sacramento area location overall, with locations already in Folsom and Roseville. H&M replaced spaces vacated by Loft, New York & Company, and longtime tenant Lane Bryant, which had operated in the same spot since the 1960s.[12][13]
On June 17, 2024, Fulcrum transferred management duties of Arden Fair from Macerich to Dallas-based Centennial Real Estate Company.[14]
