A Dick's House of Sport location, showing the chain's signature large-format design with an outdoor turf field and batting cages. Macerich and Dick's told Fresno preservation commissioners in February that a similar store is planned for Fashion Fair Mall, contingent on demolition of the vacant former Forever 21 building. (Dick's Sporting Goods)

A proposed Dick’s Sporting Goods store at Fashion Fair Mall hinges on whether Fresno’s Historic Preservation Commission agrees tonight that a nearly 55-year-old building is worth saving.

Macerich, the mall’s owner, and Dick’s Sporting Goods representatives told the commission at its February meeting that they plan to demolish the former Forever 21 building at 755 E. Shaw Ave. to make way for a new Dick’s House of Sport — and that the project cannot move forward without tearing the existing structure down.

Dick’s House of Sport is a larger-format version of the sporting goods chain, typically running 120,000 to 150,000 square feet with outdoor turf fields, climbing walls, batting cages and digital golf ranges. The company has set a goal of operating up to 100 such locations nationally by the end of fiscal 2027. The format is designed as a destination experience rather than a traditional retail store, and its outdoor components and single-story layout make new construction more practical than retrofitting an existing building.

The commission tabled the matter in February, saying it needed more time to review a completed historic resource evaluation before making a decision. That report, now finished, recommends against historic designation. Tonight’s meeting at City Hall begins at 6 p.m.

 

The building has sat vacant since Forever 21 closed all its U.S. stores in April 2025 following a bankruptcy filing. Before that, it operated for more than five decades as a succession of anchor department stores — first Weinstock’s from 1970 to 1996, then Gottschalk’s until 2009, and finally Forever 21 for roughly 14 years.

The evaluation, prepared by San Francisco firm Page & Turnbull at the city’s request, concludes the three-story Late Modernist building does not meet the criteria for Fresno’s Local Register of Historic Resources under any category — not for its historical associations, not for its architectural significance and not as the work of a master architect.

A key argument against designation is that the building was never a one-of-a-kind design. Charles Luckman Associates, the Los Angeles firm that designed it, used the same blueprint for two other Broadway-Hale department stores built around the same time — one at the Galleria at Tyler Mall in Riverside and another at Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights. The firm, known for designing Madison Square Garden and the Kennedy Space Center, developed the template as a replicable stock design for the Broadway-Hale retail chain, which owned Weinstock’s. Charles Luckman himself was not directly involved in the building’s design.

 

The evaluation also places the building in broader historical context: suburban shopping centers had already been drawing retailers away from Downtown Fresno since the mid-1950s, with Manchester Center opening in 1955 and Fig Garden Village in 1956. Fashion Fair and its Weinstock’s anchor were part of that pattern, not the cause of it.

Commissioners at the February meeting raised questions about the building’s architectural integrity, its place among other Late Modernist structures in Fresno and whether its role in the city’s postwar commercial development might carry more weight than the report suggests.

For a building to qualify for Fresno’s local historic register, it must be at least 50 years old — which this one is — and retain integrity in location, design, materials and overall character, while meeting at least one significance criteria. Once listed, a property gains protection from major alterations or demolition and may qualify for preservation incentives.

The commission’s recommendation will go to the Fresno City Council, which makes the final call. Tonight’s meeting is at 6 p.m. in Room 2165 at City Hall, 2600 Fresno St.