Fiesta Mall memories: A look at the life and death of Mesa's beloved landmark

In the hearts of many East Valley residents, Fiesta Mall was never second-rate. While the now-demolished Mesa retail landmark may not been as large or had the cultural cachet or iconic status of Metrocenter or Paradise Valley Mall, it was a favorite shopping destination and gathering spot for generations of suburbanites.

Just ask Kenneth Walsh, a former Mesa resident who frequented Fiesta Mall as a teenager in the '80s, both as a patron and an employee of its shops. The two-story mall, which first opened in 1979, offered a haven of sorts before becoming a regular hangout.

“As gay boy in the '80s, my best friend and I were tormented at school, but it felt like once we got to the mall, we could kind of just do our own thing,” Walsh says. “So it was an escape for us because it had all these cool things that we could do.”

Like other East Valley teens, Walsh haunted Fiesta Mall and its retailers. He bought records at Musicland ("I have vivid memories of buying the first Blondie album”), looked for clothing at Judy’s (“I got my first pair of Duran Duran boots there”) and larked about Spencer’s Gifts (“It was a cheap thrill for a gay kid because you could flip through the naughty stuff”).
“At the time, Fiesta Mall was like shiny and new,” Walsh says. “It just had all the cool stuff and everybody seemed to go there.”

Anchored by major department stores like Sears, The Broadway and (eventually) Dillard’s, the mall thrived in the '80s and '90s, widely considered the heyday of mall culture. It hosted more than just bargain-hunting shoppers and bored teens, though.

Fiesta Mall also served as a cultural hub and even hosted concerts. In 2004, pop star Avril Lavigne performed a concert for a packed crowd of more than 3,000 people inside the mall. Later that year, the Zumiez Couch Tour staged motocross and skateboard stunts and a performance by Sum 41 in the parking lot for thousands of onlookers.

In the late 2000s, Fiesta Mall began to falter. Like other local shopping hubs of the era, economic turmoil from the Great Recession and the rise of online retailers caused the mall to go from boom to bust. The arrival of other East Valley retail destinations like Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe and Chandler Fashion Center, multiple ownership changes and an upsurge in criminal activity also contributed to Fiesta Mall’s downfall.

By 2013, numerous retailers had fled the mall, prompting then-owner Westcor to hand over the property to its lenders after tenancy issues put the company at risk of defaulting on its loans. The following year, Macy’s closed its Fiesta Mall location. By 2016, less than three dozen stores were still operating.

Fiesta Mall finally closed its doors in 2018. It would sit vacant for five years until demolition began in 2023. Earlier this month, the Mesa City Council approved rezoning the former mall site to allow redevelopment of the 80-acre property into “Fiesta Redefined,” a mixed-use project with housing, office space, retail and recreational amenities.

In honor of the occasion, here’s a look back at the life and death of Fiesta Mall.

Avril Lavigne @ Fiesta Mall, Mesa, USA on April 13, 2004. #MallTour pic.twitter.com/IMh1Qxmcvy

— Avril Lavigne Music (@AvrilMusicChart) April 13, 2015