Arden Fair

Arden Fair was originally built in 1957 as a single-level outdoor mall with Sears as the original anchor, despite being physically separated from the rest of the mall.[4] Hale's, the second original anchor, opened four years later in 1961, which was later converted to Weinstock's. By the 1970s, Arden Fair was converted into an indoor mall.[5]

In 1989, a major structural renovation and physical face-lift occurred by Homart Development, which more than doubled the size of the mall. It added a second story, a food court and brought the first Nordstrom department store to Sacramento. The old Sears building was gutted as part of the expansion and Sears was relocated to a new building that finally connected the store to the mall. In 1994, JCPenney opened up as the mall's fourth anchor, replacing a United Artists movie theater that was relocated to Market Square at Arden Fair, an entertainment and retail complex next door to the mall.[4] In 1996, Weinstock's was converted to the present-day Macy's as part of Federated Department Stores' (now Macy's, Inc.) acquisition of Broadway Stores, Inc in 1995.

In early 2004, KCRA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, opened "The KCRA 3 Experience", an in-house studio that was located on the second floor of the mall where shoppers got a behind-the-scenes look of how a newscast was put together and a chance to be on TV. Over the years, Walt Gray, Patty Souza, Adrienne Bankert and Eileen Javora broadcast the news every Monday-Friday at Noon.[6] KCRA discontinued the in-house studio and closed it in late 2008, replacing it with a Verizon Wireless phone store.[7]

The dawn of the early 2020s saw several storied traditional department store retailers update their brick-and-mortar formats after being encroached upon to a degree by several digital retailers in recent years in addition to the COVID pandemic.

In May 2020, Nordstrom, which also retains an additional outpost in nearby Roseville, announced plans to shutter along with several additional locations as a direct result of pulling back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]

In January 2021, Sears announced it would shutter as part of an ongoing decision to eliminate its traditional brick-and-mortar format.[9][10]

In August 2023, it was reported that Macerich, the mall development firm, had purchased both previous outposts with the primary intent of introducing a variety of new modern national retailers.[11]

• Arden Fair Official Site