The Brief

The long-vacant Hawthorne Plaza mall has been a problem in the South Bay for years, according to city authorities, residents and business owners near the sprawling property.

Instead of attracting shoppers, the mall in the city’s downtown is a magnet for trespassers, accumulated trash and occasional fires.

And now the city is forcing developers to do something about it.

This summer, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered owners of the 900,000-square-foot property to secure the site and step up safety measures while devising a plan to either turn it into something the community can use or demolish it.

The owner must break ground by late August 2026.

“With our luck, they'll build high-end condos, but they need to put units in there that people can afford,” said Ronald Robinson, an airline employee who used to live near the shuttered mall.

The latest turn in the story of Hawthorne Plaza highlights what’s happening in L.A. County and across the country as shopping centers that were once hives of commerce and social connection are abandoned and left to decay.

Often these properties turn into eyesores that can negatively affect the health, safety and property values of their neighborhoods.

“The mall property takes up several blocks of the city’s civic center and has a tremendous negative economic impact on a small city,” Hawthorne City Attorney Robert Kim told LAist, adding that some residents who live nearby say they fear going out at night.

West Hollywood-based property development firm The Charles Company owns the Hawthorne mall property. The firm also owns several abandoned buildings in North Hollywood's Valley Plaza shopping center, which L.A. officials recently declared a public nuisance, giving the city authority to demolish the dilapidated structures.

In 2021, the city of Hawthorne filed a lawsuit against the company, arguing it violated zoning laws by illegally renting out parking spaces to Tesla and Amazon, and failed to fix dozens of code violations, including health and safety hazards like missing floors, mold and human waste.

In legal filings, the mall owners denied most of the city's allegations and argued that Tesla and Amazon were legitimate tenants rather than illegal renters. The Charles Company blamed “unauthorized trespassers” for damage and safety issues.

A faded Hawthorne Plaza parking sign along Hawthorne Boulevard

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

)

Court injunction 

After a hearing this summer, Superior Court Judge Steve Cochran issued an injunction requiring the owners to secure the Hawthorne mall site and plan for next steps.

Work on the site has to begin by Aug. 31, 2026.

The judge ordered The Charles Company to put more fencing around the mall and to maintain on-site security and daily cleaning crews. Cochran also said the company has to test the buildings for asbestos.

“Aside from the injunction and court action, the city is limited in its authority on this particular site, because the property is privately owned,” Kim, the city attorney, said. “And historically, the owners have not worked with us to find solutions for the unhoused frequenting their site.”

In July, the company told the court it was working on several concepts for the Hawthorne Mall, including one that would make it into a modern retail center.

Property manager Yuri Martinez told LAist the company is “deeply committed to revitalizing underperforming sites” and looking forward to sharing its vision.

If the 2026 deadline passes without substantial progress at Hawthorne Plaza, the city can request a court-appointed receiver to take control of the property.

Status review hearings are scheduled for the judge to monitor The Charles Company’s compliance with the order. The firm’s co-founder, Arman Gabaee, is serving a four-year federal prison sentence for bribing an L.A. County real estate official between 2010 and 2017.

The scheme included attempting to secure a $45 million county lease for the Hawthorne Mall property itself, according to court documents.

According to prison records, Gabaee is scheduled to be released from a halfway house next month.

The parking garage at the former Hawthorne Plaza has been fenced off with barbed wire to keep out trespassers.

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

)

A once-popular mall

The Hawthorne Plaza mall opened in 1977 on what was previously a blighted commercial lot. In its heyday, the two-story enclosed shopping center was home to 130 retail stores.

“This was a shopping mecca for minorities,” said Robinson, who lived in the neighborhood in the 1980s. “This was one of the few malls that Latinos and Blacks could go to and feel comfortable they had some place to shop.”

Robinson, a 47-year employee at American Airlines, regularly visits his union office for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, right across the street from the now-empty mall.

When LAist visited the site recently, the 35-acre property was mostly desolate and boarded up. The sprawling parking garage is covered in barbed wire and large signs warning against trash dumping.

But there seemed to be little evidence of trespassing or other nuisance activity in and around the building — just an abandoned shopping cart and a few graffiti tags.

Several people hanging out near the train tracks told a reporter that the newly-constructed fencing near a portion of the mall deters most trespassers. That fencing went up within the past month, Hawthorne officials confirmed.

Nearby business owners said the dormant property had long cast its shadow on the block.

“It’s been like that for more than 20 years,” he said Juan Hernandez has owned a boots and western wear shop on the opposite side of Hawthorne Boulevard, called Botas Huentitan, for the past 18 years. “They really need to do something about it.”

His business survives mostly by selling leather goods to tourists staying at hotels near LAX, Hernandez said.

The street is often empty, aside from when one of the nearby schools or the city jail lets out.

“It’s really sad to have it like that,” he said of the mall. “We need to bring more business.”

The shopping center used to be a point of pride for the community, said Pamela Fees, vice president of the Hawthorne Historical Society.

“Back when that mall was built, community members felt like they wanted to spend their tax dollars in Hawthorne,” she said.

But circumstances changed for Hawthorne Plaza when more shopping centers emerged in the region as competitors. It also suffered from the downturn in the area’s aerospace industry and was damaged during the 1992 riots, according to news reports.

By the mid-1990s, nearly 1-in-4 storefronts at the mall were vacant. JCPenney left in 1998 and the mall closed altogether the next year.

A faded Montgomery Ward department store sign at Hawthorne Plaza. The department store shuttered in 1997.

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

)

Broken promises 

The Charles Company bought the property in 2001 for $7 million, according to property records.

Since then, several redevelopment proposals for Hawthorne Plaza have come and gone, Hawthorne officials said. The company proposed a mixed-use housing project there in 2008, but that plan fell apart after the owners changed their minds, city officials said.

“There had been numerous proposals from the owner that were accepted by the city but never materialized,” Kim said.

In late 2016, the firm filed new development plans with the city to begin work on a $500 million overhaul. The City Council approved them, but nothing happened. So in 2018, the city canceled the plans.

The Charles Company then leased the building to L.A. County, as part of the bribery scheme for which Gabaee was convicted.

Over the years, the mall’s interior was used as a filming location. In the 2002 film Minority Report, Hawthorne Plaza still looked onscreen like a functioning shopping center. But it’s been used for its dilapidated apocalyptic look in 2014’s Gone Girl, 2020’s Tenet and a host of music videos by artists, including Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

Skateboarders, graffiti taggers, photographers and others seeking a glimpse of a decaying mall have trespassed inside, some documenting the mall’s interior and posting videos on YouTube and social media platforms.

An unhoused person's belongings in a shopping cart outside of the Hawthorne Plaza parking garage.

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

)

Regional enforcement crisis

Throughout L.A. County, local governments are struggling to hold absentee landlords responsible for dilapidated nuisance properties. In Los Angeles, city leaders are pushing to streamline the city’s convoluted process they say involves too many departments.

“Our nuisance abatement process is among the most confusing and contradictory processes we have in the city,” council President Marqueece Harris Dawson said.

Early last year, the L.A. City Council asked the L.A. City Attorney’s Office to produce a report on the administration, enforcement, governance, implementation and oversight of nuisance abatement proceedings in city’s legal codes.

The City Attorney’s Office did not produce that analysis. So, last Wednesday, several council members introduced a motion demanding it be released within a week.

The city attorney did not meet that deadline, and the office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment on the public nuisance report.

L.A. Councilmember Adrin Nazarian said the city’s current process involves too many people in too many offices and takes too much time.

“We need to simplify the process so the City can take action when these properties become a problem, not months or years later,” Nazarian said.

Nazarian led a recent move to declare abandoned Valley Plaza buildings in North Hollywood a public nuisance. The property is located in his council district.

“If we have to get a court injunction, we will, but we’ve chosen the route we think will get us the quickest results,” he said. “Different enforcement approaches work better in different situations.”

Earlier this year, a California state lawmaker introduced a bill that would place a vacancy tax on landlords who let commercial buildings sit empty for more than six months a year. Business and landlord groups have universally opposed the legislation.

In Hawthorne, the director of the historical society said the organization gives museum tours twice a week, and most guests ask about the future of the Hawthorne Mall.

“Many people either remember the mall or they’ll see it,” Fees said. “Either way, they ask what the status is and they’re all anxious to see something happen. We’re not sure if this will make something happen or not.”

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.

“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “It’s just not a good combination.”

Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.

“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.

Murky water use 

Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.

Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.

They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.

In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.

The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.

A shift to vulnerable regions

California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.

But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.

“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”

Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water-use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”

Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.

Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.

Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”

In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.

“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley, which draws from the strained Colorado River. 

Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.

In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”

Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”

New laws v. Big Tech

Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Now, Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.

It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins in places like the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers OK it.

“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”

Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.

“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.

“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”

Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.

Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.

“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.

“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.

“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”

Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.