Montebello Town Center opened in 1985 on a hill above the Pomona Freeway, on ground that had once been an oil field. Long skylights let the daylight in.
By 1990 tall trees and benches lined its corridors under old-fashioned street lamps.
The mall waited 16 years for its fourth department store, and by 2010, renamed The Shops at Montebello, it drew hundreds of fans to the first Disney store in a new interactive design.
By 2019 it ran Music Mondays and made its holiday tree lighting a silent disco. The Disney store closed in 2020 and never reopened. In 2025 Forever 21 closed too. That leaves the store Forever 21 gave up, and what will fill it.
Montebello Town Center opens on the hill
Montebello Town Center opened on September 20, 1985, at the north end of Montebello, California.
The Pomona Freeway ran below the hill, which had once been part of a Chevron oil field.
Inside, two floors of shops stretched beneath long skylights that brought daylight to the landscaping.
Reflective glass and masonry framed the four principal entrances.
Los Angeles firm Gruen Associates designed the exterior in rough split-faced block with a terra-cotta-and-sand palette.
At the start, Mervyn's and May Company were in place; JCPenney was due on October 2.
JCPenney closed its Montebello and Monterey Park stores when it picked the new center.
In the food court, a large Marie Callender's shared the trade with 15 other places to eat.
Around the three department stores, about 70 specialty shops were expected for the start, and 90 percent of the space had been committed before the doors opened.
The fourth department store took 16 years
The 1985 plan left room for a fourth anchor, roughly 100,000 square feet in size.
By 1990 the mall had 168 smaller shops, the count the full plan had called for, and it was still looking for that fourth department store.
Customers came from southeast Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Valley.
Inside, tall glass ceilings lit a two-story mall where trees, benches, and old-style lamps gave the walkways a period Main Street feel.
The food court occupied a three-level atrium with a wall of glass facing outside.
The tenant mix ran from Motherhood Maternity and Lotus to Dark Alley, with its posters and party goods, and a pet shop selling puppies, kittens, and guppies.
In 1998 the mall stayed open through an interior renovation, with much of the work done after business hours.
Restrooms and the food court were reworked, the landscaping changed, and new floors and lighting went in.
The fourth store arrived in 2001, when Macy's opened a 144,000-square-foot building of its own at Montebello Town Center, 16 years after the mall's first day.
Mervyn's gives way to Forever 21
That Macy's had the name to itself for five years.
In 2006 the Robinsons-May chain was converted to Macy's, and the old May Company building, a Robinsons-May by then, became a second Macy's.
By 2007 the 2001 store had been turned into Macy's Home.
Mervyn's went in 2008, when the chain was liquidated.
In December of that year Forever 21 secured the Montebello lease, one of 15 Mervyn's locations it picked up in the same deal.
By February 2010 the fashion chain was trading in the building Mervyn's had opened with the mall.
The entrances and common areas were redone in the same stretch, and the work was complete by January 2011, when the big stores were Macy's, Macy's Home, JCPenney, and Forever 21.
The center had a new name by then too: by December 2009 it was calling itself The Shops at Montebello.
Disney's new store and a bigger H&M
Disney had signed a 10-year lease at the mall in 2006.
On June 29, 2010, it reopened that store as the first of its new interactive design, with a Disney Princess castle and an interactive mirror, a Cars area, and a theater where visitors chose Disney clips to play on a curved 12-foot screen.
Hundreds of fans came to the relaunch, which brought Disney Channel performers and Toy Story characters to Montebello, and the store became the model for a wider rollout of the format.
Simon took over leasing and management in February 2011 for an institutional owner, and by 2012 the mall belonged to a UBS property fund.
During the Simon years the food court was rebuilt with a closer link to the mall, outdoor seating, and a steel frame for LED signs.
H&M was rebuilt and enlarged: its new footprint replaced 12 former tenant spaces, a two-story addition went up, and the work was finished by November 2017.
Pacific Retail Capital Partners took over management in January 2019.
At a mid-tier mall competing with online shopping, it put money and events behind reasons to visit, from Music Mondays and Wellness Wednesdays to a silent-disco holiday tree lighting.
The Disney Store closes and the mall is sold
Pandemic restrictions shut the Disney store in March 2020. UBS later said Disney stopped paying rent that month; the store never reopened.
That December the mall held its Santa visits and tree lighting online, with about 140 tenants working under a 20 percent capacity limit.
Disney left the space in April 2021.
Fashion Nova and The Children's Place were among other tenants UBS also took to court over lease disputes.
In July, UBS sued Disney for nearly $275,000 in unpaid rent; that dispute was later settled.
In April 2022, after about 10 years of UBS ownership, Bridge Group Investments and its affiliates, backed by Steerpoint Capital, bought the mall for more than $80 million.
The new owners set out to fill its large spaces with entertainment and restaurants.
That July the building still ran as a full two-level mall.
JCPenney held the west end of both floors and Macy's the east, with Forever 21 and Macy's Home between them, and the food court sat downstairs near H&M. The upper level had a Build-A-Bear Workshop, an FYE, a BoxLunch, and a Kids Foot Locker, and families had the Montebello Bus Lines Kids Play Area.
Round1 approved for the old Forever 21
Forever 21 put its Montebello store into its 2025 store-closing program, with the closing sale set to begin in February, and the store closed that year.
It left about 82,000 square feet of the old Mervyn's building empty.
In May 2025 Bridge Group Investments renamed itself Mershops and announced upgrades across the property.
That December a $28 million investment in the mall was announced, naming Round1 and Yard House as planned additions.
In September 2026 the Montebello Planning Commission approved Round1 for about 43,000 square feet on the upper level of the former Forever 21.
The approved plan pairs arcade games and Japanese-market machines with billiards, karaoke, and private party rooms, plus a Japanese food hall seating about 281.
The city left construction and opening dates to be announced.
The mall is open every day, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, under Mershops ownership and Spinoso Real Estate Group management.
Macy's and JCPenney are its anchors, and H&M is trading.
Its 2026 calendar ran from Lunar New Year in Center Court in February to a YMCA Touch-A-Truck in the food-court parking lot in May, a World Cup watch party in June, and a Hispanic Heritage celebration in September.
A tree lighting is set for November 22.
In 1990, five years in, the mall was still hunting for a fourth department store.
Two department stores hold its ends now, and the upper floor Forever 21 left behind is approved for Round1's arcade games and a Japanese food hall.
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