Inside Santa Monica’s ghost town mall where empty stores are shocking tourists

The 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Place should be among the most popular malls in the country — in reality its a deserted strip of empty storefronts.

Just a few blocks from the iconic Santa Monica Pier, the Promenade’s vacancy rate has been reported at 25%, although shoppers who spoke to The California Post guessed it was closer to 50%.

“It’s nice and quiet and relaxing,” said Kevin Taylor, visiting from England with his wife, “but you’ve got to add businesses, or there’s no point in coming.”

Watch our special video on the ghost town mall in the player for more.

At the turn of the century, the Promenade was one of the most exciting destinations in Los Angeles, not just for tourists, but for local young families, and even celebrities. One shopper recalled seeing Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Joe Montana during visits.

The Promenade and Santa Monica Place’s popularity first dipped around 2018, at least partly due to the homeless issue in the area, according to multiple sources.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the looting of several stores around the same time crushed any chances of a rebound, and the unhoused in Santa Monica increased 15% in 2023 alone, according to a press release from the city.

A Santa Monica city study on foot traffic in the area saw a decline from 875,000 in July of 2017 to half of that seven years later. 

The famed publicist Michael Levine, a former Santa Monica resident who authored the book “Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards,” sent an exclusive statement to the California Post calling the current Promenade “heartbreaking.”

“When you tolerate small signs of disorder — graffiti, loitering, unchecked vagrancy — you send a signal,” he said. “And people respond to signals. Customers go elsewhere. Businesses close. Investors retreat.”

Representatives for the mall declined to be interviewed, as did officials from Santa Monica, but they provided information on multiple improvements in the works.

A substation for the Santa Monica Police Department, which has doubled the number of officers patrolling the area, will soon open on the ground floor of Santa Monica Place.

The city is also investing $60 million in street improvements, and already planted fresh landscaping at the 4th/5th Street off-ramp entering the Promenade area.

Santa Monica is not only lifting restrictions on alcohol permits, music and even arcade games, hoping to lure more businesses back, city officials are also planning a music festival with Coachella producers Goldenvoice, and have already been hosting monthly social events.

“They’ve done a lot to improve the place,” said Nick Paschal, who has lived in Santa Monica since 2010. “Look around and you see games for kids to play, and things for people to do. Having more events to bring people in will help with bringing more stores back.”

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