Located on the 4th Street side of the Horton Plaza Mall, this plaque reads:
"THIS PROJECT DEDICATED TO
ERNEST W. HAHN
MAY 14, 1994
THIS PROJECT ALONG WITH THIS REBIRTH
OF DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO IN THE 1980's
AND 1990's WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN
POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE VISION,
COMMITMENTS TO COMMUNITY, AND
LEADERSHIP OF ERNEST W. HAHN.
OLIVER McMILLAN"
The LA Times (
visit link) had to this to say in an obituary:
"Ernest Hahn, Pioneer of the Modern Shopping Mall, Dies
December 29, 1992|CHRIS KRAUL | TIMES STAFF WRITER
SAN DIEGO — Ernest W. Hahn, a German immigrant's son who helped invent the suburban shopping mall and became one of America's wealthiest men in the process, died early Monday at his Rancho Santa Fe estate after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 73.
Along with developers Edward DeBartolo, Leonard Faber and James Rouse, Hahn refined the concept of the modern shopping mall to something beyond mere commercial centers. In Hahn's vision, shopping malls became focuses of community activity, complete with skating rinks and day-care centers.
Starting out as a Hawthorne-based general contractor, Hahn founded Ernest W. Hahn Inc. in 1958 and opened his first regional mall, La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara, in 1967. Now known as the Hahn Co., the San Diego-based firm owns and operates 53 shopping malls totaling 40 million square feet of retail space.
Half of the Hahn centers are located in California and include Palm Desert Town Center in Palm Desert, Fox Hills Mall in Culver City, The Oaks in Thousand Oaks, Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos and Horton Plaza in San Diego."