Fashion Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fashion Island is a large, upscale open-air shopping mall located in Newport Beach, California. Its unique ambiance uses Spanish-style architecture to create a warm, luxurious environment that many find enjoyable. As a result, it is very popular despite being quite close to mega-mall South Coast Plaza, with which it shares many stores.
Fashion Island is a local hangout of sorts and in that role is frequently mentioned in popular shows such as The O.C..
Stores are exclusively upscale, and the food court has many locally-based stores and fewer franchise operations than food courts elsewhere. Newport Center Drive, a circular road, embraces Fashion Island and gives it the "island" name. Newport Center, an upscale office park, is on the other side of Newport Center Drive surrounding Fashion Island.
The Irvine Company owns Fashion Island, and its executive offices are in Newport Center.
History
The mall was commissioned by the Irvine Company as part of Newport Center, and opened in 1967 with four department stores Buffum's, Robinson's, The Broadway, and J.C. Penney. These four initial buildings were designed by architects William Pereira and Welton Becket, and were flanked by several smaller stores. The Spanish architectural theme which would later define the mall was evident in the Robinson's building. A few years later, Bullock's Wilshire and Neiman Marcus were added. In the early 1980s, J.C. Penney moved out, and the building it occupied was reconstructed and reopened as "Atrium Court", which contained numerous smaller shops and a food court on the lower level.
The southwest entrance to Robinson's features a bronze wind-chime sculpture by mural artist Tom Van Sant, installed in September of 1966, that was recorded by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest wind chime.
In 1988, the center underwent a major expansion, adding the Island Terrace Food Court, an eight-screen movie theater, and three new avenues of shops, all of which converge in a circular courtyard with an animated fountain that shoots jets of water up to 30 feet high. This fountain is known as the "Iris Fountain" because of the radial-leaves pattern of its marble lining coupled with the jets of water that suggests the iris plant.
Federated stores which owned Bullock's Wilshire closed the chain in the early 1990s, and the store was replaced with an I. Magnin. When Federated shuttered the I. Magnin chain, the store was replaced again by Macy's. The Broadway, also owned by Federated was done away with in the mid-1990s, and was replaced by one of the first Bloomingdale's stores on the West Coast.
The large courtyard outside the Broadway/Bloomingdales building is occupied annually by an immense Christmas tree, which is usually the tallest in the nation. The trees are taken from a private timber area near Mount Shasta, and shipped to Fashon Island in several pieces, which are then re-assembled using steel rods and a large crane.
