40 and coasting

South Coast Plaza, which turned 40 years old this year, resides at the center of art and commerce for the city of Costa Mesa.

Four decades ago, it didn’t reside at the center of much of anything.

The shopping center, which opened March 15, 1967, is the largest mall in California and one of the most luxurious, with world-renowned architecture, a wide array of jewelers and several high-end boutiques.

Before it broke ground nearly half a century ago, though, there wasn’t much in the area around Bristol and Bear streets aside from a dirt field, lima bean patches and a few open roads.

The 405 Freeway, today a staple of life in Southern California, didn’t exist in finished form when South Coast Plaza opened its doors in 1967.

The Westin hotel across Bristol Street hadn’t broken ground yet. The Orange County Performing Arts Center and South Coast Repertory were decades away.

Like Fashion Island, a Newport-Mesa rival from the start, South Coast Plaza has helped to change the community around it.

But along the way, it’s reinvented itself as well, constantly bringing in new shops and improving its design.

“South Coast Plaza is not a static achievement,” said Henry Segerstrom, the co-founder of South Coast Plaza and one of its managing partners.

“It is a living, changing response to the demographic changes of our market area. We respond to the community, and we try to lead the community,” he said.

In honor of South Coast Plaza’s 40th anniversary, the Daily Pilot took a closer look at six of its main attractions.

SEARS

The earliest aerial photos of South Coast Plaza make it look like a trading post on the frontier — a compact structure surrounded by cars, and then surrounded by unadorned fields. Nearly everything in the mall has changed since then, but one anchor store has stuck it out all 40 years: Sears, which dominated the original mall along with the now-defunct May Co.

Unlike most of South Coast Plaza, which specializes in luxury goods, Sears is blue-collar to its core, offering tools, appliances, auto parts and other home essentials.

Spokesman Chris Brathwaite said the store continued to thrive because, even while the rest of the mall grew more upscale, the expanding community in central Orange County made construction a priority.

“As more homes are being built, as more families are moving to the area, they need those products for their homes,” he said.

 CAROUSEL COURT

Perhaps the most eye-catching part of South Coast Plaza’s interior is Carousel Court, featuring an old-fashioned carousel with 20 aluminum horses and two dragon sleds. The carousel, built in 1972, offers $1 rides and spins more than 300,000 children each year, with Disney tunes, Dixieland jazz and other American standards providing a soundtrack.

Carousel Court, located between the Puzzle Zoo toy shop and the Disney Store, provides a center for family activity at the mall; in recent years, it’s hosted the annual Festival of Children, which raises funds for children’s charities across the country.

 NORDSTROM

When Nordstrom opened at South Coast Plaza in May 1978, it was the Seattle-based clothing retailer’s first California location. The mall and city treated the opening as a major event, with the mayor hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The chain has become a common sight in malls around the state since then, but nearly 30 years after its ribbon-cutting, the Costa Mesa store remains the most profitable of the 101 Nordstroms in the country.

Corporate spokesman Michael Boyd attributed its success both to location and to an affluent clientele that has stayed loyal over the years.

“It’s a great market with a lot of customers who love fashion,” he said.

 WEST WING

Nearly two decades after South Coast Plaza’s founding, the mall had already gained a reputation as the premier shopping destination in Orange County, but Segerstrom still looked to expand. His answer came in 1986, as the mall opened an adjacent complex of shops on the other side of Bear Street — initially dubbed “Crystal Court,” although officials refer to it now simply as South Coast Plaza West.

Whatever its name, the west wing of South Coast Plaza drew a prestigious first crowd of tenants. The Broadway and Robinson’s served as anchor stores, while other charter retailers included the New York-based bookstore Scribner’s, the clothing stores Daniel Cremieux and Alcott & Andrews, and the Australian-themed shop Koala Blue, co-owned by pop star Olivia Newton-John.

 BRIDGE OF GARDENS

South Coast Plaza has often prided itself on getting Southern California exclusives — and not all of them are retail stores. Shortly before the millennium, Henry Segerstrom became acquainted with Kathryn Gustafson, a world-famous landscape designer whose other projects include work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the city entrance of Marseilles, France. Segerstrom had been looking for someone to design a pedestrian bridge to connect South Coast Plaza to its Bear Street side, and he enlisted Gustafson to create her first project in Southern California.

The 600-foot-long Bridge of Gardens, made of stainless and galvanized steel with birds sculpted on the sides, celebrated its grand opening in September 2000. Two years later, the Segerstroms realized just what a find they had in Gustafson — the Paris-educated designer was appointed to create the Princess Diana memorial fountain in Hyde Park, London.

 BLOOMINGDALE’S

South Coast Plaza has celebrated its 40th birthday in a number of ways this year. The mall neared completion of a massive $155-million interior renovation in the fall, putting in new floors, remodeling several stores and installing a glass observation elevator that’s scheduled to begin operating this week. In October, the Italian Trade Commission helped to host “Italy at South Coast Plaza,” a monthlong event featuring Italian food, culture and fashion.

In the meantime, South Coast Plaza realized a longtime dream. The mall had competed with Fashion Island for Orange County’s first Bloomingdale’s location in the mid-1990s, and the Irvine Co. came out on top when negotiations stalled in Costa Mesa. In May, South Coast Plaza finally opened its own Bloomingdale’s — but it hardly looked like a runner-up. The 300,000-square-foot flagship store is the clothing retailer’s largest in Southern California.

SOUTH COAST PLAZA BY THE NUMBERS

YEAR OPENED: 1967

TOTAL AREA: 128 acres, with 2.8 million square feet of retail and dining space

ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES REVENUE: $1.4 billion

ESTIMATED ANNUAL NUMBER OF VISITORS: 22 million

NUMBER OF DEPARTMENT STORES: 7

NUMBER OF PARKING SPACES: Approximately 12,750

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MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.