The lights are on and the stores are open, but it’s quiet — not a soul in sight — as if people had only enough time to flee whatever befell this place. A faint smell of sewage drifts through the air. Escalators are frozen. The lower levels of the parking garage are sterile and lifeless — a liminal space of flickering lights and zero cars.
But it’s not a scene from the post-apocalypse. It’s Mission Viejo, year 2025, at Kaleidoscope, the loneliest living mall in Southern California.
Mall culture is still thriving in parts of Southern California, where supercenters such as South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, the Grove in L.A., Fashion Valley in San Diego, and Westfield Century City draw tens of millions of shoppers annually. Others, such as Laguna Hills Mall and Brea Mall, faded in the era of internet shopping and are being converted into mixed-use spaces.
But there aren’t many places like Kaleidoscope, which never quite found its footing over the course of 27 years but has refused to die.
On a Tuesday afternoon in March, no more than a handful of people wander through the 243,000-square-foot complex on Crown Valley Parkway, looming over Interstate 5. Some are moviegoers heading to the Regal Theater attached to the mall. Most are employees heading to staff empty shops and restaurants that likely won’t see a customer for hours.
There are businesses aplenty, but no customers.
“It’s a ghost town,” said Sarah Akers. “This place is unbelievable.”
Akers, 35, said she used to visit the complex when she was younger. It was rarely packed, but at least it always felt open. Now, as she strolls through Kaleidoscope’s Union Market — a food hall-type space with retail, restaurants and a bar — she’s not even sure if she’s allowed to be in there.
“The doors are open, the lights are on,” she said. “Why does it feel like I’m trespassing?”
There were signs of life in the eerie, empty space, but no real proof. TVs played ESPN above the bar, but there was no bartender in sight. A faucet dripped a steady stream of water at a kitchen restaurant, but there were no staffers. Unplayable games sat in the corner: a cornhole set with no bags, a ping-pong table with a broken net and a foosball table with a sign asking patrons to bring their own balls.
Akers, who lives nearby, said her friends recently visited and told her the place feels abandoned, so she stopped by to check it out for herself.
“As a mall, it’s terrible. But as a study of entropy and deterioration, it’s amazing,” she said.
Kaleidoscope sports a 2.3 average rating on Yelp and hasn’t received a positive review since last summer — and that review was only for the movie theater.
“It is in shambles. Everything is broken,” wrote Jack T.
“A complete disaster for Mission Viejo!! The whole place needs to be bulldozed,” wrote Theresa H.
“There is an absolutely horrid smell throughout the parking garage,” wrote Paige R., adding that she “threw up from how much I was gagging.”
Kaleidoscope was built for $55 million in 1998, and in the decades since, it has suffered a plague of problems caused by both design and execution. A confusing parking garage pushed away potential visitors, and its cloistered design failed to advertise the businesses inside to the droves of cars driving down I-5.
Perhaps more importantly, Kaleidoscope sits directly across from another, bigger, mall, the Shops at Mission Viejo, which opened in 1979 and underwent a $150-million expansion a year after Kaleidoscope opened, growing to five times the size of Kaleidoscope. Over the next decade, the Shops at Mission Viejo tripled its tax revenue while Kaleidoscope floundered, according to the Voice of OC.
By the mid-2000s, at least four people had been injured or trapped by its elevators and escalators, including a boy whose foot was mangled after it was sucked into the mechanical stairs, according to the Orange County Register. In 2006, state inspectors shut down half of the complex’s escalators for not having valid permits due to braking problems, broken equipment and fluid leaks leading to injuries, the Register reported.
Westport Capital Partners bought the property in 2010 for $22 million and tried to shake things up by adding the 28,000-square-foot Union Market, but occupancy hovered at roughly 50% by the time they sold it for $33.5 million in 2023. The new owner is Continuum Analytics, an investment firm in Newport Beach. Continuum could not be reached for comment.
At the time, Michael Kluchin, director of operations at Continuum, told the Orange County Business Journal that they were focused on bringing back foot traffic and potentially finding a new long-term use for the property. New tenants included an offshoot of Mariners Church, a nondenominational mega-church based in Irvine, and a new DMV location. The DMV never solidified after Mission Viejo City Council rejected it due to safety and traffic concerns.
Kaleidoscope has plenty of tenants these days. There’s a Burke Williams Spa, L.A. Fitness, Mattress Firm, Buffalo Wild Wings and several entertainment venues including a rage room, an axe-throwing venue, laser tag and a golf simulator.
But shoppers are scarce. Bartenders and waitresses staffed the Buffalo Wild Wings, but there wasn’t a single diner inside. The Mattress Firm was empty as well; its front door added to the eeriness, donning a handwritten sign that said “Sparkletts — Do not leave anymore water — I stopped service.”
It’s the structural version of the uncanny valley effect. The men’s bathroom is clean, but missing soap and paper towels. A phone rings at a restaurant counter, but no one is there to answer it. Caution signs sit on the floor. “Help Wanted” signs hang in shop windows.
“Things get a little busier on the weekends, but not much,” said a restaurant staffer who asked to remain anonymous to not affect their job. The staffer said weekday shifts are a breeze because only a handful of people show up.
“I’ve had shifts where we don’t have a single person come in,” they said.
Mall management appears to have a few ideas up its sleeve. A vacant space currently houses plans for a 36,000-square-foot creative office space. Another vacancy has been converted into a pop-up roller rink, taking advantage of the concrete floors and minimal setup.
The mall’s website advertises cornhole on Tuesday nights and live music on Fridays and Saturdays. Its social media advertises holiday events such as a Christmas tree lighting and an upcoming Easter garden party in April.
But for now, it can’t quite shake its past. None of the four escalators in the central courtyard were working on Tuesday, and some of the elevators took several minutes to arrive. On Yelp, people complained that they’ve seen elderly and disabled people using canes and walkers to climb the broken escalators. Last year, a man died on the roof of the mall, according to Mission Viejo police, though the cause of death is unclear.
“I like coming here during the day because it feels like every public place is crowded in Southern California except for this one,” said Kim Patterson, who works nearby and occasionally stops in during her lunch break.
“But at times, it’s too much,” she said. “It’s like going camping in the woods all by yourself. The peace and quiet sounds so great in theory, and then you get there and you’re like, it’d be nice to maybe have a few people around.”
There’s plenty of precedent if Kaleidoscope chooses to pivot away from a traditional mall. Malls across the country have converted their cavernous retail square footage into recreation spaces such as pickleball courts and hockey rinks, while others transition to mixed-use facilities with retail, office and residential elements. In Rhode Island, the nearly 200-year-old Westminster Arcade mall, the first enclosed shopping center in the U.S., went viral after it converted longtime stores into micro-lofts with rents starting at $550 per month.
But if Continuum chooses to stay the course and forge ahead as a mall, it could perhaps learn from the dorm room-esque celebrity inspirational quote posters that serve as art in Kaleidoscope. Bruce Lee, Dolly Parton and Madonna all make an appearance, but President Barack Obama’s poster is perhaps the most fitting.
You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.