Continued on next page
20
Talk of Arizona
Fa;ll 2015
The district centered around Fiesta Mall, the first true regional mall in the East Valley section of the Phoenix metro, that opened with four anchor department stores in 1979. Within a few years, theaters, restaurants and other shopping centers and the city’s tallest office building — the 16-story Mesa Financial Plaza better known to locals as the Bank of America building ¬— sprung up around the mall.
But by the turn of the 21st century, the area was showing signs of age. New regional malls in east Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert, and an outlet mall in Tempe cut into the territory
Theaters, restaurants and other shopping centers and the city’s tallest office building sprung up around the mall.