Carousel Mall

Difficulties in returning the mall to its prior state include the further decline of the original San Bernardino downtown area with redevelopment work yielding mixed results, easier development opportunity elsewhere in the city, and legal issues from past redevelopment deals.

There have been efforts in the late 2000s and early 2010s to create positive interest in San Bernardino's downtown region from various agencies and businesses: the reconstruction of the aging I-215 freeway corridor, the reopening of the former CinemaStar facility as a Regal Cinemas Theater, as well as the San Bernardino Express Rapid Transit project completed in 2013 and 2014 have created some interest in the Downtown area, but the surrounding vacancies of business centers and towers around the Carousel Mall remain considerable opposition to a comprehensive revitalization effort.

San Bernardino still has viable business property and open lots in the more suburban/industrial-centric University District in the north, as well as its current business corridor on Hospitality Drive at the southern border of the city that is more accessible to Loma Linda and Redlands residents. In addition, stores present at Inland Center are not interested in occupying additional retail space that's less than two miles away in an economically depressed area. While Inland Center does have an anchor vacancy (most recent being Sears), a new anchor is more likely to build new on an empty lot than to take up aging facilities.

Commercial developers have made offers in the last two decades for various greyfield plans concerning the property, including rehabilitating it, razing it, or a mixed-use plan to build commercial and residential facilities. Most planning has been turned down by the City of San Bernardino, Mission Native Americans, various financial institutions, and holding corporations, all of whom have a controlling stake in the mall's development from prior years of investment into the property, forming an effective stalemate on future changes. Most recently, City of San Bernardino's bankruptcy proceedings have complicated matters further[4] in addition to the State of California's decision to close Economic Redevelopment Agencies and seize funding from the organizations statewide.[5]

The Carousel Mall's failure is best understood in the context of California Redevelopment. First passed in the 1950's as an anti-slum policy, the State of California pioneered the concept of tax-increment financing to promote a modern post-war economy. In reality, very few redevelopment projects succeeded (a notable example is San Francisco's Embarcadero Center), but most became tax-redistribution schemes. The trend accelerated after the passage of Proposition 13. San Bernardino's mall then matched the strategies of contemporaneous failed malls such as the Long Beach Plaza and the Plaza Pasadena. The idea was to condemn grandfathered low property-tax rate properties and redevelop them as retail centers that would concentrate local sales taxes. The lax oversight of local redevelopment agencies also lead to insider deals favorable to redevelopers.

As of August 22, 2017, the mall is closed to public access. The mall once housed more than 300 San Bernardino County employees from different departments. As of 2010, excluding office space, about seventeen retail stores inside the mall were still open for business, including an AM Radio Station and a Jackson Hewitt Tax Center (as of 2012 The Jackson Hewitt Tax Center has closed). The remaining businesses are independently owned, including four operating restaurants.[2] San Bernardino City Unified School District moved its office out of the mall in 2012.

The land on where this mall sits is owned by the city. The carousel from which the mall derived its name was sold by the city in 2018. One part of the property is not owned by the city: a building that formerly housed Gottschalks.[6] On the evening of May 15, 2022, the mall sustained unknown damage due to a vagrant fire.

On July 20, 2022, city leaders approved a plan to demolish the buildings on the 43-acre property and sell the property.[7] On October 14, 2022 Lincoln Property Company withdrew from the project to redevelop the mall site.[8]

On October 27, 2022, a scrapper was found dead after being electrocuted while he attempted to steal copper wiring from a substation.[9]

Demolition of the mall began in April of 2023 with a November completion date. The City of San Bernadino plans to redevelop the area with office, retail and housing projects. [10]

• Central city mall history