Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza

Before Los Angeles and a private developer collaborated to put a major shopping mall within walking distance of her Baldwin Hills home, Deirdre Hill did her shopping across town. She still does--three years after the $120-million Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza first beckoned the affluent residents of the nearby hilltop neighborhoods. Hill said she still makes the trek because the May Co. and Broadway stores at the plaza failed to sufficiently upgrade their merchandise and facilities.

When I was a kid, I had a map with a dotted line for the Beverly Hills Freeway. It was going to run just south of my East Hollywood neighborhood, plowing through the Fairfax district on its way to the sea, bulldozing a mansion or two along the way. It was never built, of course. Another dotted line on that same map marked the Century Freeway, Interstate 105, which was built. Caltrans cut a gaping no-man's land through South L.A. and Lynwood years before construction began, and so fostered crime and urban decay.

With thousands of jobs and millions of dollars at stake, Crenshaw community leaders are demanding that blacks be given preference in the construction and operation of the new Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza, a $120-million shopping mall in the predominantly black area. The joint venture by Los Angeles and the Alexander Haagen Co.

Magic Johnson Theaters was a blockbuster business story in the mid-1990s, the feel-good saga of a plucky underdog's climb to the top of the heap. Since Johnson and his partner sold their ownership stake in 2004, time and circumstances have been less than kind to the cineplex at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. But new owners for the mall and new operators for the theaters have big plans to rejuvenate the venture. The undisputed success ? considered improbable by many at the time ?

Long-awaited work to modernize Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Los Angeles and jettison its static 1980s vibe will begin by the end of the year, the mall's owners said Thursday. First up is a $30-million major upgrade, which owners Capri Capital Partners unveiled to community leaders Thursday. The overhaul will be followed by a more ambitious development program intended to add housing, a hotel and an office building. Tree-lined sidewalks would link the 43-acre property with a new light-rail station that the city is building.

Until recently, Cheryl Brooks was often plagued by the feeling that she was locked out of a good job. The 22-year-old, black, single parent was working as a security guard at the construction site gate at the $120-million Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. And as the higher-paid, male construction workers showed up for work, she was there to let them in. "The guys kept telling me they needed more women to work on the construction site, they kept asking me to apply. So I decided to do it," she said.

Developer Alexander Haagen has ousted the manager of the newly refurbished Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and replaced him with a management team that includes the daughter of county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, a longtime friend. The removal of Louis George, a black, and the selection of Janice Hahn Baucum, a white, to be co-manager of the mall has sparked an outcry by the leaders of three civil rights organizations.

After a disappointing holiday season, the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and the Fox Hills Mall have set their sights on what they hope will be the next sure-fire promotion of foot traffic--celebrations to honor Black History Month. Both malls have scheduled major art exhibitions, inviting artists from across the country to display their work. More than 60 artists will be on hand to kick off Fox Hills Mall's African-American Artists Celebration today through Sunday.

To show Federated Department Stores that Crenshaw district residents are serious about wanting a quality department store in their neighborhood, about 200 patrons of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza took to the streets Saturday morning. They want Federated to replace the soon-to-be-closed Broadway there with a Macy's or a similar, high-quality store.

It stands, appropriately enough, at the heart of the five-mile Crenshaw corridor, a mix of Art Deco and sleekly modern architecture that seems strikingly at odds with the small, mostly mom-and-pop storefronts that surround it. It is a socioeconomic crossroads where the varied neighborhoods that make up the city's last predominantly African American district converge: affluent Baldwin Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, Ladera Heights, Leimert Park and West Adams.

The former Magic Johnson Theaters at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza will be taken over by upscale theater operator Rave Motion Pictures. Dallas-based Rave will manage the 15-screen multiplex in the South Los Angeles mall after a $10-million renovation of the complex is completed in May, owners of the mall said Monday. In Los Angeles, Rave currently operates the Rave 18 at the Howard Hughes Center (which was formerly known as the Bridge). Rave, founded in 1999, owns or manages 61 theaters with about 1,000 screens in 20 states.

Long-awaited work to modernize Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Los Angeles and jettison its static 1980s vibe will begin by the end of the year, the mall's owners said Thursday. First up is a $30-million major upgrade, which owners Capri Capital Partners unveiled to community leaders Thursday. The overhaul will be followed by a more ambitious development program intended to add housing, a hotel and an office building. Tree-lined sidewalks would link the 43-acre property with a new light-rail station that the city is building.

Crenshaw Boulevard has long been known as main street for southwest Los Angeles, home to religious institutions and block after block of shops, including the landmark Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping mall. The car has always been king on Crenshaw -- so much so that police over the years have cracked down on weekend cruising that many consider a rite of passage. But now, city officials want to make Crenshaw more pedestrian friendly as well, and in the process draw more customers to the boulevard.

Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, a shopping mainstay of South Los Angeles that has seen its share of ups and downs across six decades, has been sold for $136 million to a Chicago real estate investor that plans to improve and expand it. Capri Capital Advisors on Wednesday said it acquired the 860,000-square-foot mall at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. and Crenshaw boulevards from Hager Pacific Properties, an Encino investment firm. The price is twice what Hager paid for the property in 2003.

It's 8:30 on a weekday morning at the Wal-Mart in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, and the lawn and patio furniture department is crowded. No big sale is going on, just the usual discount prices, yet women and men are cheering. "Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, so we tell them," they singsong loudly in unison, sounding like a pep rally at a black college basketball game. "We are the Wal-Mart, mighty, mighty Wal-Mart ..." Mighty, indeed.

The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping mall has changed hands for the second time in four months. In a deal announced Monday, privately held real estate company Hager Pacific Properties acquired the property for $38 million in cash and assumed $30 million of debt from Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc., the largest shopping center operator on the West Coast. The deal gives Encino-based Hager a 850,000-square-foot enclosed mall near Martin Luther King Jr.

It's 8:30 on a weekday morning at the Wal-Mart in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, and the lawn and patio furniture department is crowded. No big sale is going on, just the usual discount prices, yet women and men are cheering. "Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, so we tell them," they singsong loudly in unison, sounding like a pep rally at a black college basketball game. "We are the Wal-Mart, mighty, mighty Wal-Mart ..." Mighty, indeed.

Expanding its reach into urban markets, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened the doors of a new store Wednesday at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, taking the place of a Macy's that closed nearly four years ago. Eager customers, who lined up for the store's 7:30 a.m. opening, said the three-story Wal-Mart would be a welcome addition to an area that has long suffered from a lack of discount shopping.

Macy's, the department store giant, gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars in unsolicited grants to four community groups active in the Crenshaw area less than three weeks before abruptly closing its store at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. Leaders of at least three of those organizations said Thursday that they suspect the $360,000 given in grants Dec. 17 was either money to keep them from speaking out against the closure, or a gift to ease the conscience of Macy's executives.