runchadrun wrote:Before the Miracle Mile store was an Ohrbach's, it was a Japanese department store whose name escapes me.
The Del Amo store was a Stør for a few years in the late 80's/early 90s. It was a competitor to Ikea, which at the time only had stores in Burbank and Fontana (which has since closed). Stør had that store and one in Industry and at Tustin Ranch, and apparently one in Houston. Ikea bought them out and the Industry and Tustin Ranch stores (Størs?) became Ikeas and they have both since been replaced by stores in Covina and Costa Mesa. Ikea never took over the Del Amo Stør because they were in the process of opening up their new location in Carson, which was a former department store (Broadway or Bullocks I think).
Here's the brief wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stor
I remember STOR at Industry, this was thier largest location.
Ikea at Carson was a former three-level Broadway store, and is today the only three-level IKEA store. You go up some outside escalators up all the way to the third level and then go from there all the way down to the bottom. If you are in the center of the store, you can see where they removed the escalators from the Broadway. This IKEA also opens up into the mall. They built this Broadway identical to the Puente Hills Broadway store (that was torn down for an AMC Theatre in 1997)
I beleive the STOR in Del Amo was located next to the Ohrbachs location. They took out basically the entire wing of the mall for this project (hence why this part was always dead, sans Wards and the UA Theatre).
If you look at a birds eye view on Windows Live Local ( ), you can see the entrance I am talking about. Type in Torrance, CA and zoom in till you get a birds eye view (around 80 yds). Between the Mall Entry (next to wards) and the Ohrbachs store, there is a large add on to the mall for a new entry. Unless they used the ohrbachs store as the entry and this the exit. I dont remember. This entire wing of the mall, minus the old Ohrbachs store, has since been torn down for a new entertainment wing. Goodbye old food court!
On a side note, the Ohrbach's in Del Amo was the same design as the Cerritos, except that the Cerritos has purple tile, and del amo blue.