Shopoff Plots Housing, Hotel, Retail at Westminster Mall

The former Westminster Mall is headed for new life as a mixed-use development from Shopoff Realty Investments.

Bolsa Pacific, the planned replacement for the shopping center that closed last fall, will rise on 83.3 acres in Westminster, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. Earlier this week, Shopoff Realty acquired the remaining components of the mall site after spending the past four years assembling parcels of property there.

Plans for Bolsa Pacific call for 2,250 residential units in a combination of for-sale homes and rental units — some market-rate and some affordable; about 220,000 square feet of retail; a 120-room hotel; and 15 acres of parks and public open spaces. Renderings from architecture firm AO depict multiple multifamily buildings rising up to eight stories.

Shopoff is currently in the process of securing entitlements for the Bolsa Pacific project with approval expected sometime this year. Demolition of the Westminster Mall is slated to start this year with construction of the new development expected to begin late this year. A Target will continue to operate at the site.

Shopoff began its acquisition of the Westminster Mall site in summer 2022 with 26 acres of land formerly home to a Sears and a Macy’s. The Irvine-based real estate firm had previously announced plans for a smaller mixed-use project on that section of the mall site; that proposal called for 1,065 residential units, 102 townhomes, a 175-room hotel, 25,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants and a 2.5-acre park.

The reimagining of the Westminster Mall is one of several large mixed-use developments planned to replace aging shopping centers in Orange County.

Last September, the Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously to approve a development agreement for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons’ The Village Santa Ana, which will rise at the South Coast Plaza retail complex site in Santa Ana. A month earlier, a joint venture between Pacific Retail Capital Partners, Lyon Living and Silverpeak acquired Lakewood Center in Lakewood for $332.1 million with plans to turn the roughly 2-million-square-foot shopping center into a mixed-use community similar to The Grove.

— Chris Malone Méndez