Coddingtown Mall


Coddingtown Mall is one of two enclosed shopping malls in Santa Rosa, California. Opened in 1962, the mall is anchored by JCPenney, Macy's, Nordstrom Rack, Target, and Whole Foods Market. It is fully owned and operated by Codding Enterprises.

History

Coddingtown Mall was built in 1962 by Hugh Codding. Originally an open-air mall, it was enclosed in 1979. The expansion also added Liberty House, which was converted to Macy's in 1984. In 1996, Macy's moved to a spot previously occupied by The Emporium. As a result, Gottschalks moved into the former Liberty House/Macy's building. Codding sold a 50% share of the mall to Simon Property Group in 2005. After the sale to Simon, many merchants criticized Simon for failing to bring chain stores to the mall. A Ralphs supermarket in the mall was demolished in 2008 for a Whole Foods Market, whose opening was ultimately delayed until 2010, and Gottschalks closed in 2009.
In November 2012, the former Gottschalks building was demolished to make way for a Target store, which opened in 2014. Mall officials announced in 2015 that a new building for Nordstrom Rack would replace the section housing merchants including Bank of the West and Baskin-Robbins, several of which were moved to new units. Nordstrom Rack opened in 2016.
In December 2017, the mall returned to fully local ownership after the Codding family business repurchased the 50% stake in the shopping center previously owned by mall giant Simon Property Group.

In popular culture

In 1997, the San Francisco-based band Primus released the song "Coddingtown" as part of the Brown Album. According to the song, "you can get it all down there from tennis balls to glue".