Stanford Shopping Center

Stanford Shopping Center is a fancy outdoor shopping place located on Route 82 (El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. Even though it is close to Stanford University, the university only owns the land, not the shops or buildings inside. The shopping center and the nearby Stanford University Medical Center are part of the city of Palo Alto, not the area called Stanford, California.

The shopping center covers a big space of 1,347,935 square feet (125,227.3 square meters) and has four big stores: Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. You can find many famous brands there, such as Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Frette, and the very first Victoria's Secret store ever opened.

History

In 1954, construction began on a place that used to be vineyards owned by Leland Stanford. Nine buildings were built to hold 45 different shops. The Roos Brothers clothing store was the first shop to open in September 1955, and Blum's restaurant opened later in October 1956, finishing the center. Important people, including the board of trustees Chair Lloyd Dinkelspiel and university President J. E. Wallace Sterling, were there for the opening, and Shirley Temple Black cut the first slice of a big nine-tiered cake. The famous San Francisco store The Emporium and the luxury store I. Magnin & Co. were the first big stores there.

The center did very well and became an important source of money for the university. Over the years, more stores joined, like Macy's California in 1961 and Saks Fifth Avenue in 1962. In 1972, a store called Bullock's from Los Angeles opened but closed 11 years later. It was replaced by Nordstrom in 1984, and Neiman Marcus joined in 1985.

Some changes happened in the mid-1990s: Saks Fifth Avenue closed in 1994, I. Magnin became a Macy's Men's store in 1995, and The Emporium turned into Bloomingdale's in 1996. In 1997, the space where Saks Fifth Avenue was split into two new stores: Crate & Barrel and an Andronico's gourmet market. Andronico's closed in 2011 and was replaced by The Container Store in 2013.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford Shopping Center, along with six other malls owned by the Simon Property Group, closed from March 18, 2020, to March 29, 2020.

Later years

Over the years, the shopping center has changed with new shops and buildings. Since 1991, it was managed by the university through a company called Stanford Management Company. In 2003, the university sold the center for $333 million to Simon Property Group, but the university still owns the land and gets rent from the company.

In 2012, a store called Bloomingdale's planned to move to a bigger, new building. This moved happened in 2014, and the old building was torn down to make space for new shops. A new area with many stores opened in 2016, including a big Anthropologie shop and a restaurant.

In 2019, plans were made to replace an old building with a new gallery and restaurants. This work started in 2021 and continued into that year.