Future owner Stockdale Capital Partners, which currently is in escrow on the Westfield-owned property, is set to convert the 900,000-square-foot center into a work-play destination for thousands of office workers and nearby residents, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Hahn envisaged the mall as a rebuke to charges that all shopping centers looked the same, notes Nancy E. Cohen, in her book America’s Marketplace: The History of Shopping Centers. It “combines disparate elements to create surprise, excitement and a sense of discovery: enclosed and open spaces; promenades that are alternatively narrow and wide; staggered levels of varying heights, as in a terraced European hill town; a whimsical pastiche of dozens of colors; and architectural references to scores of other buildings,” Cohen wrote.

A statue of Hahn, who died in 1992, stands in front of the center.

“I wanted to build a center so special that it would offer a great human experience and just out-compete every other center ever built,” the late Jon A. Jerde, who designed the center, told Cohen. “I wanted an eccentric street setting with outdoor ambience.”