Growing up in Oregon, Lloyd Center wasn’t just a mall. It was a landmark of childhood. It was where weekends happened. Where your parents took you when you were bored. Where Christmas felt bigger somehow. Where the echo of your footsteps mixed with the smell of pretzels, pizza, and new clothes straight off the rack.
So hearing that Lloyd Center is set to fully close later this year, with plans to tear down what’s left and replace it with millions of square feet of mixed-use buildings, doesn’t land like just another redevelopment story. It feels personal. Like losing a place that quietly watched you grow up.
For decades, Lloyd Center was the place. When it opened in 1960, it wasn’t just another shopping mall. It was one of the largest malls in the country and the largest in the Pacific Northwest.
At a time when Portland was still figuring out what it wanted to be, Lloyd Center already felt futuristic. It had fountains. Wide indoor walkways. Department stores that felt enormous to a kid. And then there was the ice rink right in the middle of everything. Not tucked away. Not hidden. Just there. You could lean on the railing with an Orange Julius and watch skaters glide by, blades cutting clean lines into the ice while the rest of the mall hummed around them.
And sometimes, if you were lucky, you might see Tonya Harding out there. No announcement. No spectacle. Just Tonya skating laps like it was no big deal, while kids whispered to each other and parents casually said, “Yeah, that’s her.” It felt unreal. Like Portland’s weird little reminder that world-class talent could just show up at your mall on a random day.
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Back then, going to Lloyd Center was an event. You didn’t “swing by.” You went for hours. You wandered. You people-watched. You ran into classmates, neighbors, cousins. During the holidays, the place buzzed. During the summer, it was air-conditioned heaven. For a lot of Oregon kids, it was the first taste of independence. You got dropped off with friends and told to meet back at a certain entrance at a certain time. Freedom, mall-style.
Over the years, though, the energy drained out. Big anchor stores left. Foot traffic slowed. What was once a symbol of modern Portland started to feel forgotten. And yes, the problems piled up. Financial struggles. Safety concerns. Homelessness. Crime. Street takeovers. The kind of issues that don’t show up overnight but creep in as investment and attention fade.
Now the plan is to wipe the slate clean. City documents outline a massive redevelopment vision. Up to seven million square feet of mixed-use buildings. Housing. Retail. Commercial space. A whole new neighborhood, built where the old mall once stood. On paper, it all sounds forward-thinking and practical. Portland needs housing. Portland needs smarter land use. That part is hard to argue with.
But it’s still okay to be sad.
Because places like Lloyd Center aren’t just real estate. They’re memory containers. They hold birthday trips, back-to-school shopping, awkward middle school hangouts, first jobs, first dates, and rainy afternoons with nowhere else to go. You don’t realize how much of your personal timeline is tied to a place until it starts disappearing.
Lloyd Center had its moment. A big one. And for a long time, it mattered. To the city. To families. To kids like me who thought it would always be there.
Soon, it won’t be. And Portland will move on, because cities always do. But a little piece of growing up in Oregon is going with it.
