Rebuilding Riverside Plaza

Last summer, the early stages of demolition began at the Riverside Plaza.

This past week, the last remaining buildings — outside of the spared Harris-Gottschalks department store — were finally brought down. A noteworthy change to Riverside’s oldest mall, which originally opened as an outdoor mall in three stages between June 1956 and September 1957 and was enclosed during a 1983/84 renovation.

Demolition should end any day now, and by February the centerpiece of the plaza’s new face is scheduled to begin going up: a 16-screen Signature movie theater.

The start of theater construction should be followed closely by a Main Street-styled row of shops and restaurants to include Cold Stone Creamery and Chipotle, said Bill Kenney, project developer.

The theater and many of the retailers will be open by fall 2004, he said.

Riverside Press-Enterprise – December 6, 2003

Now, the real work begins to transform the site into a 500,000 sq. ft. outdoor shopping plaza — ironically, similar to how the Plaza was prior to an add-a-roof renovation in 1984.

Related

• Riverside Press-Enterprise – Plaza demolition nearly complete (Dec. 6)

Gallery: Riverside Plaza v1 & v2 – 1956 to 2003

Sources: Riverside Press-Enterprise (RDP-19560627, RDP-19561114, RIE-19570930, DE-19661013, PE-20031206); NOTE: Published dates for some online versions of newspaper articles cited may not match their archival source date.

2024 PAGE UPDATE: Added newspaper citation/insert; added original opening timeframe; added photo gallery; removed outdated links to newspaper article.