Hawthorne city officials are fed up with the owners of long-vacant Hawthorne Plaza and have obtained a permanent court injunction requiring them to either redevelop or demolish it by August 2026.
The sprawling mall, once the pride of the South Bay city in Los Angeles County, has been empty for two decades. It is so decrepit that it has served as a post-apocalyptic setting for music videos by stars such as Drake, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
Its derelict presence has long been a source of complaints among residents, and last week the city acted by securing the injunction. It follows a nuisance abatement action brought by the town “after years of inaction by the property’s owners, the Charles Co., and its affiliate M&A Gabaee,” the city said in a statement.
Mark Gabaee, listed as the owner by real estate data provider CoStar, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The main entrance to Hawthorne Plaza in January 1997.
(Bob Chamberlin/The Los Angeles Times)
The mall on Hawthorne Boulevard, which closed in 1999, has been a source of ongoing community concern due to trespassing, graffiti, trash and safety issues, the city said.
“Redevelopment of the site is considered critical to the economic recovery of the City’s downtown and will also provide relief to surrounding neighborhoods,” the city said.
It was a long fall for the mall, which opened in 1977, featuring performances by the Hawthorne High School Band and a local Boy Scout color guard. It had its own mascot, named “Nate Hawthorne,” The Times reported.
At its peak, Hawthorne Plaza had 130 stores, but by 1997, only 73 remained.
It still looked like a proper mall when scenes from the 2002 movie “Minority Report” starring Tom Cruise were filmed there, but it later took on a vacant, broken and graffiti-covered appearance that made it appealing to music video makers and trespassing dead-mall enthusiasts.
The Los Angeles Board of Commissioners of Building and Safety voted last month to declare buildings in another formerly beloved mall owned by the Charles Co. a nuisance. City Councilman Adrin Nazarian supported the nuisance declaration for Valley Plaza in North Hollywood, which dates to the 1950s and was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
“Once, this shopping center was a source of pride to our community,” Nazarian said. “Now it’s become a blight on the neighborhood and a constant danger to the public.”
Charles Co. co-founder and co-managing partner Arman Gabaee was sentenced in2022 to four years in prison for bribing a Los Angeles County official in what prosecutors described as one of the biggest corruption cases in L.A. history.
He admitted giving a county official dozens of cash payoffs during furtive meetings in cars, restaurants and men’s rooms while reaping lucrative real-estate leases in return.
