If you live in Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights, the mall where Marty McFly first drove the DeLorean is close enough to see from the trails at Schabarum Regional Park. It's fair to ask who gets the final word on what goes there next. The answer is the City Council of the City of Industry. According to a 2024 Census Bureau estimate cited by Capital & Main, the city has about 210 residents. The neighborhoods around the mall have far more people than that. They are also mostly unincorporated LA County land, which means the county's new rules for data centers stop at the mall's property line.
Every other part of this story follows from that one fact.
The Plan on File Describes Two Different Projects
Real Estate Development Associates, known as REDA, bought the mall at 1600 Azusa Ave. in August 2024, as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. The price was $115 million. REDA sent the city an updated project description on Jan. 26, 2026. The Tribune's summary shows that the description lays out two very different futures for the site.
| Option 1 | Option 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Main use | Two large logistics buildings | Smaller industrial and manufacturing buildings plus commercial and retail buildings |
| Maximum floor area | About 1.6 million sq ft | 813,540 sq ft industrial and 450,000 sq ft commercial or retail |
| Possible extras | A 10-megawatt data center | A 10-megawatt data center, a theater, a gym, a bowling alley or amusement park, a member's club retail store, and a fueling station with a car wash and tire service |
Both options include a larger public bus station on the site, which REDA presents as a public benefit. "[There's] opportunity to replace jobs lost as Puente Hills Mall winds down operations," REDA co-founder Jason Krotts told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. He added that the company would prioritize signatory general contractors who hire local union trades. REDA has also filed a general plan amendment, which would change the zoning to allow projects like these.
For neighbors, the choice between the two options matters at least as much as the data center does. Option 1 is warehouses. Option 2 keeps a big share of the site as places people could still visit, with a theater, a gym, and bowling or amusement uses. That's a lot like what the mall offers now.
The Data Center Is the Smallest Part of the Plan
The project description caps the data center at 150,000 square feet of space that would otherwise be warehouse. Under Option 1, that's less than a tenth of the 1.6 million square feet allowed. Krotts told the Tribune that REDA is "studying more of an edge computing facility to support potential tenants that could locate to the site." He called it "small-scale infrastructure designed to be near its source, which is very different from what you might think of as a traditional data center."
The city's position has stayed the same all year. In February, the City Manager's office told the Tribune it had not received or accepted any application specifically for a data center. In October, a city spokesperson told Capital & Main that the city had not approved plans for a data center.
Still, the data center gets most of the attention. Community groups across the region have organized against it, and in May a rally was held at Schabarum Regional Park, directly across the street from the mall. The part of the plan that would change the most acreage gets much less discussion: whether the site becomes mainly logistics or a mix of industrial and commercial buildings.
A City Built for Industry Makes the Decision
The City of Industry is an unusual place to decide the future of a regional shopping mall. Capital & Main reports that the city stretches about 12 miles across the San Gabriel Valley, and 92% of its land is zoned industrial. About 3,000 businesses there employ more than 68,000 people. That's over 300 workers for every resident. The same report says the city has not held a City Council election since a 2020 recall.
In February 2026, the council voted to allow battery energy storage systems and data centers almost anywhere in the city, according to Capital & Main. The mall plan itself was not on the agenda that month. When residents raised it during public comment at the Feb. 26 meeting, the item had not been placed on the agenda, the Tribune reported.
The people who would live with whatever gets built in Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights don't vote in City of Industry elections. That's why the next section matters.
Why LA County's New Ban Stops at the Mall's Property Line
In September 2026, LA County put a temporary moratorium on hyperscale data centers in unincorporated communities. Supervisor Hilda Solis introduced a motion to make it permanent. Capital & Main reported that she pulled it from the agenda to address concerns raised by labor partners.
That moratorium covers the land where many mall neighbors live. It does not cover the mall. In Capital & Main's words, "such prohibitions will not protect residents from projects in the City of Industry and other incorporated cities."
The same limit applies to what nearby cities have done. In June, Monterey Park voters approved Measure NDC with 86% of the vote. It was the first voter-approved data center ban in the nation. El Monte, Montebello and Baldwin Park have adopted temporary moratoriums. Alhambra has a citywide ban on the November ballot. Each of those rules ends at its own city limits, and none of them reaches the mall.
What neighboring governments can do is ask. The Whittier Daily News reported that at its Sept. 15 meeting, the West Covina City Council passed a resolution on data centers. During that discussion, Councilmember Ollie Cantos asked staff to send the City of Industry a letter opposing the proposed data center at the mall. The Rowland Heights Community Coordinating Council serves as a liaison between the unincorporated area's residents and the county. Earlier in the year, it called on neighboring cities to adopt moratoriums. Letters and resolutions like these become part of the record. The vote still happens in the City of Industry.
The Steps Before Anything Gets Built
City Manager Joshua Nelson told the Tribune that the city was reviewing REDA's documents and would complete the required environmental review before presenting any project to the Planning Commission and City Council. Under the city's development plan review, the Tribune reports, the applicant has to appear before the council. The council can then approve, modify or reject the city engineer's recommendations, and only after that can a building permit be issued.
Here is the order neighbors can expect:
- REDA finishes its technical reports and studies. Krotts told the Tribune this was still underway.
- The city completes environmental review of the project.
- The project goes to the City of Industry Planning Commission.
- The project goes to the City Council, along with the general plan amendment.
- A building permit can be issued only after council approval.
As of mid-October, no public hearing on the mall has been announced. In February, Krotts said REDA had no set timeframe "but could possibly secure approvals before the end of the year." That was a forecast made eight months ago. The steps in the list above are what will actually set the timing. The earliest public sign of movement will be an environmental notice or a Planning Commission agenda item posted on the City of Industry Agenda Center. Those notices, not county agendas, are the ones to watch.
The Mall in the Meantime
The mall opened in phases in 1974 and 1975 and once had 125 stores and services. Capital & Main now describes it as largely vacant. Its biggest draws are still running. Round1 lists daily hours of 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. at its Puente Hills location. AMC Puente Hills 20 is posting current showtimes, including evening shows.
Those are the same kinds of businesses REDA lists in Option 2, which includes a theater, a bowling alley or amusement park, and a gym. When the plan reaches a public hearing, the most useful question about the mall's future is which of the two options the council is voting on.
Big land-use decisions just across a city line affect everyone who owns a home nearby, and we follow them for our clients the same way we follow sales. If you're in Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights and wondering what the Puente Hills Mall process means for your own plans, Christine Kennedy and our team are glad to talk it through with you, starting with a free home valuation.
