For a lot of families in Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights and La Puente, the Puente Hills Mall is where you went for a movie at the AMC or a late night at Round1. A plan to tear it down and put up warehouses and a data center has those same neighbors organizing, posting warnings on Nextdoor and showing up to council meetings in a city most of them can’t vote in.
The proposal, submitted to the City of Industry in January by Puente Hills Land Venture, LLC, would demolish the mall and its parking lots. In their place would be two warehouses, a data center of about 10 megawatts and a new bus transit station on roughly 75 acres, Investigate LA reported. The land would have to be rezoned from commercial to industrial first.
There was never a public announcement. Residents started piecing it together last December, after Industry’s Planning Commission recommended zoning changes that would allow data centers almost anywhere in the city. Bassett activist Samuel Brown-Vázquez and others filed public records requests, and the documents they got back confirmed the city was moving toward zoning changes that would allow a data center at the mall, CALÓ News reported. In February, the City Council voted to allow battery storage and data centers across nearly the entire city, according to LAist.
City officials have described data centers as something the market is pushing, not something the city went looking for. “Data centers don’t bring jobs, but data centers are driven by the market,” Assistant City Manager Sam Pedroza told Investigate LA. A city spokesperson told Capital & Main the city has not approved a data center plan and declined further comment.
There is a case for doing something with the property. The mall has been mostly empty for years, down to a handful of businesses, and big industrial projects can mean real money for Industry. When the council approved a large battery storage project across from Hacienda Heights this year, the deal came with about $6 million in community benefit fees, LAist reported.
“We’re going to be bearing the cost of these kinds of projects,” Rowland Heights resident Falynn Love told Capital & Main. She met her husband at the mall 25 years ago and got involved after hearing about the plan at a neighborhood meeting.
At a packed council meeting in February, people from surrounding communities spoke about noise, water use and rising utility bills, ABC7 reported. Residents who spoke with CALÓ News also raised fire risk and children with asthma.
Underneath all of it is a question of who gets a say. Industry has about 210 residents and brings in more than $300,000 in revenue per resident each year, compared with under $2,000 in La Puente, according to LAist. The families across the street in unincorporated Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights have no vote in Industry elections.
New claims are now making the rounds. A newsletter from the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association, a group founded by local parents and residents that opposes the project and is suing Industry over the battery storage approval, was shared on Nextdoor this week. The group says it obtained new public records. According to the group, the developer is seeking a data center three times larger than reported, at 30 megawatts, and a project rendering shows Round1, Spo-Cha, AMC, Haidilao Hot Pot, Kalaveras, Guitar Center, Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and other businesses on the site being demolished. The group also says the city will now have to do a full environmental impact report. IE/LA Informed has not seen those records, the city and developer have not confirmed the claims, and we found no announced closing dates for any of those businesses.
Whether the project goes through is an open question. Industry’s council voted unanimously for the zoning changes, according to ABC7, and a temporary pause on large data centers that Los Angeles County adopted in September covers only unincorporated areas, not cities like Industry, LAist reported. But the pressure around it keeps growing. Monterey Park voters banned data centers outright in June, El Monte, Montebello and Baldwin Park have passed temporary moratoriums, and Whittier’s council, which passed a 45-day pause this fall, could extend it in December, FOX 11 reported. If a full environmental review is required, it would add months and give the public formal chances to comment before any vote on the mall.
Neighbors on Nextdoor are telling people to come out Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. to Andrews School, 1010 S. Caraway Drive in Whittier. That is the regular public meeting of the Clean Air Coalition of North Whittier and Avocado Heights, a community group, not a city hearing, and the group has not posted an agenda.
To reach the City of Industry City Council, call (626) 333-2211. Residents are also sharing the council’s email, COICouncil@cityofindustry.org.
Work at the mall or know more about the plan? Send us a tip. We’ll update this story as the city posts agendas or notices.
Top photo: Puente Hills Mall entrance, January 2024. Busition / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
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