Demolition of defunct Carousel Mall could cost $10 million

A proposal before the San Bernardino City Council on Wednesday will be to approve spending upwards of $10 million on the demolition of the Carousel Mall.

City staff are recommending the council approve a design/build contract with Cerritos-based Resource Environmental, which they feel is best equipped to handle the job.

Resource Environmental’ s bid for the project came in at $7.7 million with an allowance of $2.3 million to bring the total cost to $10 million.

The demolition will be paid for with City funds “to ensure that the demolition can be completed expeditiously,” according to the staff report. However, the report went on to state, “Staff intends to explore options to cover these costs including the possible issuances of long-term debt and the possibility of requiring such costs to be covered by any future development deals.”

The Carousel Mall is a 43-acre property located in the historic heart of Downtown San Bernardino. In 1972, the mall opened its doors as the Central City Mall with major anchor stores including Harris Company, J.C. Penny, and Montgomery Wards with a variety of inline tenants. By the 1980s, the mall began to decline, and efforts were made to rebrand the mall as the Carousel Mall. At the turn of the century, the anchor stores began to close their doors leaving only inline tenants in the mall. After
45 years of operations, the Carousel Mall finally closed its doors to the public in 2017.