By Sara Beth Williams–
Over the last five decades, the corner of Sunrise Boulevard and Greenback Lane has transformed dramatically, rising up from cow pastures into a bustling indoor mall.
Construction began on the building that would become known as Sunrise Mall in 1972, Citrus Heights Historical Society President Larry Fritz said, transforming what was once pastures into an indoor mall with four main anchor buildings ranging from 160,000 square feet to 276,400 square feet.
“I believe they started in December of 1969 and finished in phases; the first store opened in spring of 1972, and it took about eight to 10 months for all the stores to open by the end of 1972,” Fritz said, adding that he and his friends would regularly run through the fields before construction began.
Half of the 103 stores in Sunrise Mall held a grand opening in April 1972, according to a historical presentation put together by the Citrus Heights Historical Society in 2022 for the Sunrise Mall’s 50th anniversary. Advertisements promoted the mall as “The Dawning of a New Shopping Experience.”
JCPenney remains today as the only original anchor store left inside the skeleton of Sunrise Mall’s deteriorating building. Today, JCPenney owns 18 acres of the property and has posted banners saying they are still open amid an exodus of dozens of stores over several years.
Kay Jewelers, which is also still open inside Sunrise Mall today, remains as the only other original store that opened when the mall opened in 1972, according to a list of original tenants.
The third longest store to operate at Sunrise Mall, which is still in Citrus Heights but no longer at the mall, is See’s Candies. The popular candy store opened when the mall opened, Fritz said. See’s Candies left its prominent corner location next to Macy’s Women’s in July of 2023 amid a slew of other store closures. The candy store closed in 2022 and relocated to the nearby corner of Sunrise Boulevard and Uplands.
The Historical Society noted in its 50th anniversary presentation that both Baskin Robins and the United Artist Cinema theater lasted almost 50 years, having remained in the mall from 1972 until 2021.
Other original tenants included Sears, McCurry Photos and Gifts, Baskin-Robbins, Doctor Scholl’s Shoes, Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor, Hallmark Cards, Orange Julius, Walden Books, multiple gift shops, several other shoe stores, several toy stores, women’s and men’s wear stores, music stores, photo stores, and more.
“When they first built the mall, they were taking a bit of a risk building a mall that size, with that few people in the surrounding area,” Fritz said, adding that it was a huge draw to people.
Real estate developer James J. Cordano brought five shopping centers to the Sacramento area, beginning with Country Club Center in 1952. Sunrise Mall was his fifth Sacramento center, the Historical Society wrote. When it was completed in 1972. Cordano purchased about 100 acres from the Donahue family for the project. The Donahue family had owned the land for almost 100 years prior.
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Local resident Ted Mitchell, whose family owned over 100 acres on Greenback Lane in the 1970s across the street from where the mall is today, said in a documentary about his life that there was “very little” development until the mid-1950s.
Until the Sunrise Mall project was successfully approved, much of the development was limited to auto mechanics and gas stations, Mitchell said.
Prior to Macy’s moving to Sunrise Mall from across the street, Liberty House was the anchor store in the center of the mall building. Weinstocks was also the anchor where Macy’s Men used to reside on the north side of the mall. Macy’s Women’s moved into the mall in the 1980s, Fritz said.
“I remember during the Christmas shopping season, for the first 20 years, it was hard to find parking spots in the parking lot,” Fritz said.
The Sunrise Mall was the first mall to have air conditioning inside the main corridor and ADA accommodations within the building and the parking lots, which were not required at the time, according to the Historical Society.
“Before they remodeled [Arden Fair] and added the second floor, Sunrise Mall was bigger and better than Arden was,” Fritz said. Arden Fair Mall opened as a one-story mall in the 1950s.
Sunrise Mall was renovated in 1999, the Historical Society says, when a honeycomb drop ceiling was removed and skylights were added. The 500-seat food court was added in 2007.
The Cordano Company operated and managed the mall until 2008.
Even before the first sale of the property, the mall began to decline due to multiple factors, including a major remodeling of the Birdcage shopping center across the street, the opening of Westfield Galleria in Roseville in 2001, the recession in 2008, and an ever-increasing shift of consumerism from brick-and-mortar stores to major online retailers.
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