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The Maryland-based Rouse Corporation, known for their innovative suburban planning of the 1960s and "festival marketplaces" geared to revive urban cores, commissioned Santa Monica architect Frank Gehry to design Santa Monica Place. In the view of architect Michael Bendar, Gehry and Rouse "...succeeded in creating an urban shopping place of distinct quality that draws upon the forces of the surrounding context. On a two-block site located between an existing open-air shopping center and a Sears store and one block from the ocean, Gehry placed two new department stores at the site's diagonal corners and two parking garages at the other two diagonal corners. This plan enabled him to extend the three-story pedestrian space to the street to create primary entrances with secondary entrances on the cross-axis." Bendar praised Gehry's design for "...establishing a special relationship with the Pacific Ocean." (See Michael J. Bednar, Interior Pedestrian Places, [New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1989], p. 62-63.)

In 2007, the mall was more than half-empty of stores.

Santa Monica considered demolishing the mall in 2005. Advocates for demolition could not create a suitable alternative at this time.

PCAD id: 2387