Manchester Center - Fresno, CA
Posted by: 
fresgo
N 36° 46.836 W 119° 47.322
11S E 251133 N 4074162
Located in Fresno, CA at the intersection of Shields and Blackstone Avenues, just off State Route 41.
Waymark Code: WM98MJ
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 07/14/2010
Views: 2
Manchester Center was originally an outdoor strip mall in the mid 1960s. As suburban malls were coming into vougue it was converted into an enclosed mall. By 1969 it's metamorphisis was complete. The alteration provided a second floor, food court, and a throwback to its earlier incarnation was that outside access was left intact for a majority of tenants. The only major change in later years was the addition of a carousel in 1989.
While the mall was thriving at the onset, not long after its opening it received competition in the form of the much larger and more modern Fashion Faire Mall 3 miles north.
During the 1990s Manchester was facing closure and most of the usual mall tenants were gone. Much of it was empty - oddly enough the major anchor tenants stayed such as Sears, Gottschalks, and a Longs Drug. A change in owners in the late 1990s brought some hope with the addition of a movie theatre, a new paing job, and some new stores built in the parking lot. The greatest change was the strategy employed by the owners to turn the mall into a mixed use facility. Today the largest tenant in the mall is the State of California Department of Transportation which houses it's local district engineers and environmental staffs. The Department of Motor Vehicles is soon to open a call center in another portion of the mall. Other tenants include the city and county of Fresno, Fresno City College, as well as a private charter high school. Today Sears and several smaller national merchants remain.