Heavy machinery and work crews rolled onto the site of the long-dead Hawthorne Plaza this week, marking the start of demolition at a shopping center that has sat empty since the late 1990s. Sky5 footage captured the equipment moving in at the 35-acre property, which stretches along Hawthorne Boulevard from 120th Street to 126th Street in Hawthorne, California.
The teardown comes after owners were ordered to begin demolishing the property by August 14, 2026, according to city officials cited by KTLA. City officials obtained a permanent court injunction in 2025 requiring redevelopment or demolition by the end of August 2026, giving property owner The Charles Co. and its affiliate M&A Gabaee a hard deadline after nearly three decades of inaction. Demolition logistics will include strict measures to manage local traffic and minimize community impact, per the same report.
A Mall That Opened Big and Died Slow
Hawthorne Plaza opened in 1977 and once struggled to compete with other South Bay malls before its decline accelerated. The mall formerly housed J.C. Penney, The Broadway, Montgomery Ward and smaller retailers, and it closed in 1999 after years of dwindling occupancy. According to CBS News, the property housed 134 stores when it opened in 1977, but South Bay aerospace job cuts, crime, and damage from the 1992 Los Angeles riots dragged occupancy down to 87 stores by 1994 before its final anchor store closed in 1998.
M&A Gabaee purchased Hawthorne Plaza in 2001, and developers unveiled plans in 2017 for a mixed-use development that promised more than 600 housing units, about 500,000 square feet of commercial space, office space, and commercial amenities including a grocery store, food hall, gym and movie theater. That planned development never materialized, according to KTLA. City officials had actually cleared the path for redevelopment years earlier: the Hawthorne City Council approved the Hawthorne Specific Plan in March 2016, granting by-right zoning for a mixed-use project of up to 500 high-end housing units on the site, as reported by Bisnow.
Bribery Scandal Shadowed the Site
Part of what stalled progress traces back to a federal corruption case involving The Charles Co. co-founder Arman Gabaee, who was sentenced in December 2022 to four years in prison and fined $1.15 million after pleading guilty to bribing a Los Angeles County real estate official to secure a $45 million lease at Hawthorne Plaza, according to the Commercial Observer. Gabaee had paid monthly cash bribes over seven years to the official before an FBI sting caught him.
The city eventually turned to the courts. In November 2021, Hawthorne filed a nuisance abatement lawsuit against The Charles Co. and M&A Gabaee, alleging health and safety hazards including missing floors, mold, and human waste, as well as illegal parking space leases to Tesla and Amazon, as detailed by LAist. That litigation followed hundreds of administrative citations the city had already issued. The resulting 2025 Los Angeles County Superior Court permanent injunction required the owners to install perimeter fencing, deploy security cameras and four night guards, conduct daily cleaning, and perform asbestos testing ahead of demolition or groundbreaking.
City Says the Clock Finally Ran Out
Community members had long raised concerns about trespassing, vandalism, litter and safety issues at the site, per KTLA. Vontray Norris said the court decision provides a clear, enforceable schedule for remediation of the Hawthorne Mall property, and city leaders said redevelopment is essential to revitalizing downtown Hawthorne and easing the burden on nearby neighborhoods. Norris also said the city remains committed to using all available legal avenues for future development benefiting residents and local businesses.
The stakes behind that deadline were significant. A statement from the City of Hawthorne noted that under the 2025 court injunction, if the developer failed to begin redevelopment or demolition by August 31, 2026, the city could petition the court to place the property in receivership, according to The Real Deal. Receivership would have stripped the owner of control over the property entirely.
From Hollywood Backdrop to Public Safety Headache
In its abandoned state, Hawthorne Plaza built an unlikely second life as a filming location. The mall was featured in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Gone Girl, per KTLA, and its gutted interior also drew productions including Christopher Nolan's Tenet and Tom Cruise's Minority Report, along with music videos for Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Drake, and Travis Scott, according to LAist.
That cinematic notoriety didn't offset the real-world toll of a quarter-century of vacancy. City filings and public safety records show the abandoned mall generated repeated police and fire calls over its 25-year vacancy, including a January 2022 fire triggered by trash accumulation in an underground parking garage, as reported by CBS News.
Part of a Wider Pattern for the Owner
Hawthorne Plaza isn't the only Charles Co. property that has landed in a city's crosshairs. In August 2025, the Los Angeles Board of Building and Safety Commissioners unanimously declared six vacant buildings owned by The Charles Co. at North Hollywood's Valley Plaza a public nuisance due to fires and squatting, leading to city-ordered demolition, a case Hoodline covered as it unfolded. Wrecking crews began work at that site earlier this month, following the same pattern of municipal enforcement now playing out in Hawthorne.
