Ken Dorfman has been going to Valley Plaza since he was 16 — back when Victory and Laurel Canyon was still a bustling corner in the San Fernando Valley.
There was a Bob Burns restaurant where the food was hearty, the prices were low, and parking was always easy. After grabbing a bite, he’d head to Gold’s Gym for a workout or swing by Quality TV, the appliance store owned by the man who would later become his father-in-law, where he worked for a time.
“It was a great place,” said Dorfman, now 81 and still living in the nearby NoHo Arts District. “And then it just started to deteriorate.”
Today, most of what he remembers is gone. The multiplex movie theater is shuttered. Longtime retailers have vanished. Valley Plaza — once one of the San Fernando Valley’s most iconic shopping destinations — is now a shadow of its former self in North Hollywood. This week, the city declared six buildings on the site a public nuisance, clearing the way for demolition.
The decision marks a turning point in the decades-long decline of Valley Plaza. For such residents as Dorfman, it’s not just a bureaucratic milestone, it’s a farewell to a place that shaped daily life and neighborhood identity for generations.
‘You could get pretty much anything there.’
Valley Plaza wasn’t flashy. It was functional, and deeply woven into the fabric of the East Valley. When it first opened in 1951, developers dubbed it the largest shopping center on the West Coast, and longtime residents said it lived up to that hype.
“That was a pretty big deal for East Valley because the only other thing we had was May Company,” said Lorraine Matza, who has lived a mile and a half from the shopping center for nearly 60 years. “We really didn’t have any other large stores at that time over here.”
She remembers the Sears store that stretched an entire block along Victory Boulevard. Inside, you could find gardening tools, refrigerators, power saws, clothing, exercise equipment — just about anything a household might need.
But it wasn’t just the big stores that drew people in. There were small, independent shops tucked between them: a maternity boutique where she shopped while pregnant with her third child, a bead store across the way, and a Hughes Market that hosted pancake breakfasts to raise money for the local Girl Scouts.
“You would meet friends there because if you lived in the neighborhood, that was sort of the place to go,” Matza said.
Lionel Mares, who grew up nearby, remembered family outings to the movie theater at the plaza and trips to Sears with his parents.
“There was more human activity and the park was cleaner,” he said. “But now, it looks abandoned and empty. The park is overrun and it looks in terrible condition.”
Even earlier memories linger. Walter Hall, a 40-year resident of the neighborhood, recalled visiting his favorite barber shop on Sylvan Street. One of his neighbors once told him about the day President John F. Kennedy and Jackie stopped at the shopping center during a campaign visit.
“It was a central destination,” Dorfman said. “I believe at one time it was one of the largest malls around.”
From anchor to eyesore
But over time, the plaza started to fall apart.
Some trace the unraveling to the early 1990s, when a national recession, coupled with the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake, took a lasting toll on the area.
The center sustained damage, and several retailers either shuttered or never returned. What followed was a string of stalled promises and unrealized plans.
In the early 2000s, developer J.H. Snyder unveiled a sweeping vision to transform Valley Plaza into a mixed-use urban center, evicting tenants in anticipation of new construction.
But the project never materialized. Ownership eventually changed hands, and empty storefronts were left to languish.
“The developers of the project, for whatever reason, got stopped in the middle after half of the businesses had already been moved out,” he said. “And they just boarded up shops and nobody wanted to move in there.”
Others point to the closure of Sears as the beginning of the end.
“That was such a mainstay of that area,” Matza said.
In its place came such big-box retailers as Burlington and Target, which continue to operate today. But the surrounding mom-and-pop shops struggled. Many eventually shut down, unable to compete with rising rents and online shopping.
Over time, vacancies spread. Storefronts were boarded up. Restaurants burned and never reopened. Graffiti took over. Squatters moved in.
“The vast majority of that place is just full of mold and bugs and rats,” Dorfman said. “It’s urban blight. That’s what it is –- it’s urban blight.”
Retail industry experts said Valley Plaza’s decline reflects national patterns reshaping how Americans shop.
“When malls and shopping centers have historically been developed it has always been with an anchor tenant or a grocer,” said Craig Rosenblum, principal and grocery retail analyst at Columbus Consulting.
But that model no longer holds. While spending on groceries has spread to Walmart and Target, major-chain pharmacies, specialty markets like Whole Foods and Sprouts and dollar/discount stores, department-store-style anchor tenants have lost their exclusivity. That’s left mall and strip-center owners with a Gordian Knot of a retail puzzle.
“This combined with omni-channel retail (a strategy that allows shoppers to move between online and in-store experiences) like Amazon has made it difficult for the strip malls/centers to continue to thrive,” Rosenblum said.
Still, many residents said Valley Plaza’s downfall felt less like a retail trend and more like an open wound that never healed.
“I moved to North Hollywood 24 years ago and the properties near Victory/Laurel Canyon have been an eyesore for as long as I can remember,” said Jennifer Clark, who spoke during Tuesday’s Board of Building and Safety Commissioners meeting. “It has been used as a filming location for scenes that show dilapidated buildings, run down spaces, dirt, grime and most recently as a wasteland in a dystopian future in a post nuclear society.”
The city steps in
After years of inaction, the city is now intervening. On Tuesday, Aug. 19, the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners voted to declare six Valley Plaza buildings a public nuisance, following a push by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian’s office.
“These ruined buildings have cast a pall on the entire community, depressing commerce for our small businesses, degrading the quality of life for an entire neighborhood, and creating a real danger for the community,” said Nazarian, whose district covers the area surrounding Valley Plaza, including North Hollywood and nearby neighborhoods.
Nazarian’s office said the city tried to work with the property owner — The Charles Company — for years, urging them to develop or sell the site.
Instead, officials said, they were left to respond to fires and safety threats, placing financial and public safety burdens on the city.
According to Nazarian’s office, within an hour of his departure from Valley Plaza after holding a press conference there on Tuesday, a local television crew recorded multiple people entering and exiting through a breach in one of the buildings. The Los Angeles Fire Department also responded to a medical emergency call inside the structure.
“The people of North Hollywood have waited too long,” Nazarian said. “Enough is enough.”
The owner defends its record
But the property owner’s attorney said the city’s move was both late — and unnecessary.
Fred Gaines, a lawyer who represents The Charles Company, said the owners applied for demolition permits in September 2024, but the city had failed to issue them.
“So we were a little taken aback by the city rushing in to seek this order to declare the property a nuisance and to seek demolition when all they had to do was issue us the demolition permits and we would demolish it right away,” he said.
Gaines acknowledged the site’s deterioration, but said broader conditions have made it nearly impossible to attract investors or redevelop the land.
“There is a significant and what has become permanent homeless encampment immediately adjacent to this property in the park along the freeway,” Gaines said. “Until that gets cleared up, no one is going to step up and redevelop this property.”
The company once pitched a mixed-use housing project for the site, Gaines said, but couldn’t secure financing due to “the crime and homelessness problem in that area”. For now, no new redevelopment is planned.
A space still worth something
Despite the decline, many in the community still believe the property has potential — and still holds meaning.
“It’s prime real estate,” Dorfman said. “ And I say that because I’m a broker and I would love to get that listing, but nobody’s going to give it to me.”
He pointed to the area’s microclimate — cooler summers, milder winters, and cleaner air — as part of its appeal. It also sits near a major transit hub, with access to DASH buses, Metro lines and regional rail systems that connect riders across Los Angeles and beyond.
“There is no way in the world that that cannot be some of the most valuable real estate in the entire county,” he said.
Mares envisioned a revitalized plaza that prioritizes green space and neighborhood-friendly businesses.
“I think a park / green space would be helpful for the community. A well-maintained park,” he said. “In terms of development, I think that small businesses could benefit from it. I’d like to see more small businesses like coffee shops, ice cream shops, etc…”
For Matza, what’s gone can’t be fully recaptured, but what comes next still matters.
“I think if the land is open, it will be easier to build something there,” she said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to low income housing. I wouldn’t be opposed to temporary residences for the unhoused.”
She’s not making grand demands, just hoping the area can finally see some care and improvement.
“Any of that would be fine,” Matza said. “It’s certainly better than what there is now.”