In the 1970s, Standard Insurance Company developed a large tract of land along the Sunset Highway near 185th Avenue. The name of the development is a hybrid of the Middle English term and tenas from the Chinook Jargon. The latter term translates as small and the former as creek, giving the term tanasbourne the meaning of small, pretty creeks. Standard developed an indoor mall at the site, with the mall opening in 1975. In 1976, a library was opened in the community, and in 1990 the city of Hillsboro took over those operations and maintained the branch until 2007, when it was closed and a new main branch of the Hillsboro Public Library was opened farther west. In 1983, the county approved a master plan created by Standard to develop at Tanasbourne. Hillsboro annexed much of the Tanasbourne area in 1987. The next year plans were announced for an expansion of the old mall along with construction of new retail buildings in the area. The mall was never expanded. Hillsboro started working to designate the area as a town center within Metro's planning framework in 1996. The Streets of Tanasbourne lifestyle shopping mall opened along Cornell Road in October 2004 after original approval for the project in 2000. Hillsboro is in the process of planning a major redevelopment of the area.
Tanasbourne Mall
In 1974, construction began on a $6 million shopping mall to be named Tanasbourne Town Center, located on the east side of Northwest 185th adjacent to the Sunset Highway. This two-story, mall was completed in 1975 by owners Standard Insurance. The original tenants included a library, a day care, professional offices and a three-screen movie theater named Town Center Cinemas. A TriMetpark-and-ride lot was constructed adjacent to the mall. Tanasbourne Town Center also had an official alternative name of Tanasbourne Mall, which was commonly used by the public. In 1988, plans called for developing a shopping area around the mall that would have more than, including the mall. The mall would also be renovated as part of the plan that included Standard selling part of their development, including the mall, to Pacific Rim Development Corporation. In 1990, a new outdoor shopping center was opened across 185th Avenue from the indoor mall. Many of the mall's tenants, such as anchors Safeway and PayLess Drug, moved to the newer shopping center, creating vacancies in the enclosed mall. The old building was torn down in 1993 and replaced with an outdoor shopping center that includes Target. One of that shopping center's original anchors was a Mervyn's, but it closed in 2006, with the space then divided for use by two smaller stores.
