Danelle Plaza memories: A look back at Tempe’s beloved strip mall

Tempe’s Danelle Plaza has stayed quirky and colorful for more than 60 years. The strip mall at Mill and Southern avenues has hosted an ever-changing cast of businesses over the decades. It’s also been a go-to hangout for generations of locals.

Built in the early 1960s by the Omar Development Corporation, the plaza was touted as “Tempe’s new downtown.” Its spaces featured a varierty of restaurants, stores and bars, and even served as a temporary home for Tempe’s City Hall in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Danelle Plaza’s tenants have long been the stuff of Tempe lore and helped it become a beloved destination.

Nightspots like Dan T’s and the strip club World Famous became infamous gathering places, while Star System, later known as Merlin’s, hosted rock, punk and new wave bands in the early 1980s.

Other memorable businesses included Adventure Travel, Capistrano’s Italian Deli and Ferrara Hair Fashions. Vladamir “Ladmo” Kwiatkowski, co-host of the iconic local kids’ show “The Wallace and Ladmo Show,” even operated a toy store there in the 1970s. In the 1980s, skate shop Skate in the Shade drew local kids with a standout feature: a full cement pool built for grinding.

In the 1990s, the long-running Yucca Tap Room, which had opened decades earlier, became a focal point of Tempe’s thriving rock scene. Now-legendary local bands like Gin Blossoms, The Refreshments and Dead Hot Workshop packed the bar with huge crowds.

By the 2000s and 2010s, Danelle Plaza had taken on a scruffier, arts-forward identity. Yucca Tap Room continued to thrive as a hub for live music while small galleries, vintage shops and DIY spaces cycled in and out of the storefronts. The surrounding neighborhood embraced the plaza’s offbeat homegrown vibe, turning it into a gathering place for local artists, musicians and skaters long before creative districts were a trend.

In recent years, renewed interest in revitalizing aging commercial centers put Danelle Plaza in the spotlight. Tempe officials and developers have mapped out plans for a major mixed-use redevelopment that would bring new housing, retail and public art to the site. Supporters see it as a chance to modernize the aging landmark while longtime fans hope the project preserves the quirky character and independent spirit that defined the plaza for decades.

Here’s a nostalgic look at historic photos of Tempe’s Danelle Plaza and how the strip mall has evolved over the decades.