Oh, this is heavy, Doc.
The Puente Hills Mall in Industry, California, is better known to fans of Back to the Future as the Twin Pines Mall. That, in case you haven’t watched the film lately, is where Marty McFly and Doc Brown were chased by terrorists, unhappy that Doc had taken their stolen plutonium.
It was an actual shopping mall when the film was shot, but like so many malls across America, it fell victim to the pandemic and the rise of online shopping. Rather than shutting it down, though, the property’s owners hope to transform it into a complex housing two warehouses, a bus transit station, and a 10-megawatt data center.
As far as data centers go today, that’s not especially large. (Hyperscale facilities can reach 1,000 megawatts.) But it’s enough to draw pushback from local residents.
The proposal is, so far, just that. City officials have not green-lit the transformation of the largely vacant mall into a data center complex. In fact, there are two separate proposals for the property. One envisions two warehouses, with the option to convert one into a data center. The second combines industrial and commercial development, with either a warehouse or a warehouse and data center alongside several new commercial buildings. (Both would include the bus transit station and surface parking.)
The Puente Hills Mall was used for exterior shots of the fictional Twin Pines Mall in the 1985 film. Originally opened in the 1970s, it has since lost its luster with shoppers. While it still has 1.1 to 1.2 million square feet of leasable space, about all that remains today is an AMC movie theater and Round1, an entertainment venue with arcade games and bowling alleys.
Despite that, the mall still attracts visitors thanks to the lasting popularity of the Back to the Future films. The property was purchased two years ago for a reported $115 million.
Fierce opposition
A citizens’ group in the area has rallied opposition to the data center plans, arguing the facility will worsen air quality around the City of Industry, increase noise pollution, and drive up utility bills. In addition, they say, the mall represents an important third space in the community, a place where people can gather and socialize outside of the home, workplace, or school.
“I met my husband here in 2001,” protest organizer Falynn Love told KCRW. “He was here with a friend going to the movies, I was here with my cousin going to the movies. We looked down over that balcony, and they were like, ‘Come here. Come here.’”
While some California cities, such as nearby Baldwin Park, have adopted temporary moratoriums on data centers, the City of Industry is no Hill Valley. Industry has a much smaller population than its neighbors and is 92% zoned for industrial use. That could make it harder for opponents to prevent the conversion.
“Those of us in unincorporated L.A. County are going to get stuck with the impacts — the public health impacts, the adverse environmental impacts — and there is no remedy and no recourse or enforcement mechanism at this juncture,” said Sam Brown-Vázquez, an organizer with No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley, per LAist.
But local officials appear less sympathetic to the opposition. In February, the City Council approved changes to zoning laws that critics say would allow battery energy storage systems (BESS) and data centers to go up throughout the city.
Unfortunately for opponents, there’s no DeLorean to take the mall back to its glory days..
