Arcadia’s Westfield Santa Anita Mall recently sold for $537.5 million, making it the largest mall transaction in the U.S. since 2018. 

The sale was announced on Aug. 25 by the mall’s owner, Paris-based mall company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), centered around the “radical reduction of its financial exposure to the US.” URW has yet to disclose the identity of the buyer but has stated that the new owner is a commercial real estate investor who owns other assets in Southern California. 

As one of the world’s largest property owners, URC owns multiple malls and other assets in Europe and the United States with a collective value of approximately $55 billion. Some of its other assets include the former Promenade Mall in San Fernando Valley, California, and Palisade at Westfield UTC in San Diego, California, both of which were recently sold by the company in its plan to unload its assets in the United States. 

Westfield Santa Anita was opened in 1974 and is about 1.5 million square feet and is 96% leased, with 130 stores, ranging from clothing stores like Lululemon, Zara, and PacSun, to restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-a. It currently has 23 buildings and is located next to the famed Santa Anita Race Track. Westfield Santa Anita is considered the most popular of the Westfield chain. Other shopping centers in the chain include Westfield Century City and Westfield Topanga & The Village.

The Westfield Santa Anita Mall has been an important establishment in Arcadia, especially for Arcadia High School (AHS) students, who visit the shopping center frequently. No significant changes have been announced for the mall yet, but AHS students have expressed interest in the transaction and how this could potentially affect them. 

Sophomore Elizabeth Lee said, “I didn’t know about this whole thing at all – it will be pretty interesting though, to see what the new owners are gonna do with the place and if the stores or the layout are going to change.”

When asked about what changes she hoped to see implemented, Lee responded, “I spend a lot of time at the mall – it’s where my friends and I go whenever we want to hang out locally. It gets a little boring sometimes, so I would like to see some different stores and maybe some new structures.”

Arcadia’s Westfield Santa Anita Mall has remained an important and iconic part of the city since its founding, and it is hoped that the new owners will continue to improve the establishment.