Horton Plaza Demolition – NBC 7 San Diego

The sight of San Diego’s rapidly vanishing Mission Valley stadium now has a companion piece downtown, where demolition crews have scraped away the facade of the once-iconic Horton Plaza mall, rendering it unrecognizable in some spots.

Demolition work has dramatically altered the site of the former mall that helped to anchor the revitalization of San Diego’s downtown and Gaslamp Quarter.

The work is being done to make way for a new $330 million high-tech office campus and lifestyle center called the Campus at Horton, much of which will utilize the bones of Horton Plaza.

Horton Plaza originally opened to the public in 1985, housing a movie theater, Macy’s and other department stores, and restaurants.

“The glory, the glamour and the glitz it brought to San Diego,” Oscar Carlson told NBC 7 last summer when the demolition began. “We lived in Oceanside when it opened, but we came down frequently just for the experience.”

SkyRanger 7 captured a bird’s eye view — through some fog — of the progress of the demolition at SDCCU Stadium in Mission Valley on Jan. 8, 2021.

Horton Plaza’s unique architecture distinguished it from other malls in the county. The Los Angeles Times even called it a landmark of urban design.

Developers hope the new project will attract Silicon Valley technology companies to San Diego. They expect the project to be completed sometime next year.