When Simon Property Group announced its outdoor expansion at The Shops at Mission Viejo in March 2025, the mall's general manager framed it as a lifestyle decision. The Orange County Business Journal reported Patsy Sanquist calling open-air experiences "a significant point of emphasis" in the company's plans; the comment ties the project to the appeal of outdoor living in Orange County. The project also comes amid broader changes in Orange County retail.
Those changes show up in the numbers: Orange County's retail vacancy rate sat at 3.9 percent in the second quarter of 2025, against a national rate of 4.8 percent, according to CoStar data reported by CRE Daily. Retail space in the county was leasing in about seven months on average, more than three months faster than in 2022. And no new retail project over 100,000 square feet had broken ground in Orange County since 2018, per Cushman & Wakefield figures cited in the same report. Together, these figures provide context for the expansion amid limited new retail construction in the county.
What's Actually Confirmed at the Site
The project adds roughly 50,000 square feet to a mall that already runs about 1.2 million square feet and carries around 150 tenants. The addition is built around outdoor dining terraces and open-format storefronts, a physical departure from the enclosed layout that's defined the property since it opened in 1979.
Here's what's been named as part of the build-out, based on reporting from Orange County Business Journal, CoStar, and Simon's own redevelopment page for the project:
| Tenant | Category | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| North Italia | Restaurant | Modern Italian, open-format dining |
| Pacific Catch | Restaurant | Sustainable seafood concept |
| Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar | Restaurant | Coastal-themed dining, per Simon's own site |
| Gus's BBQ | Restaurant | Slow-smoked barbecue, weekend brunch |
| Blue Bottle Coffee | Café | Confirmed via the project's official tenant list |
| Arhaus | Retail | Two-level format, furniture and home decor |
| Uniqlo | Retail | Joins existing OC locations at South Coast Plaza and Brea Mall |
| FP Movement | Retail | Activewear, part of the Free People brand family |
That's a heavier restaurant lineup than most suburban mall expansions carry, and it's worth noticing which names are on it. North Italia and Pacific Catch are the kind of full-service concepts that typically anchor destination retail corridors, not neighborhood strip centers. Pairing them with a specialty coffee brand like Blue Bottle rather than a food court staple is its own signal about who Simon expects to be walking through the new storefronts.
The Timeline, and What "Late 2026" Actually Means
Simon's own statements put construction starting in late 2025, with a target of wrapping in time for the 2026 holiday shopping season. That phrase does a lot of work. It doesn't promise a specific month, and mall construction timelines slip more often than they hold. But it does put the realistic window for opening somewhere in the final quarter of this year, which means the storefronts many residents have been driving past since the announcement should start taking a recognizable shape well before Thanksgiving.
For anyone shopping at The Shops in the coming months, that likely means continued construction fencing around the section of the property where the outdoor village is going in, along with the usual parking shuffles that come with any active build-out at a mall this size. None of the current reporting specifies exactly which wing or parking structure is affected, so the most reliable read for now is to expect some disruption near the new construction and plan a few extra minutes if you're headed there on a weekend.
Not Every Mall Gets This Bet
Simon isn't making this move in a vacuum, and it isn't making it everywhere. About thirty miles up the freeway, the company is running a similar overhaul at Brea Mall, converting a former Sears site into a 119,000-square-foot outdoor addition anchored by Life Time and Alo Yoga. That's a larger project than the Mission Viejo addition.
Compare that to what's happening at Westminster Mall, also in Orange County, where a portion of the property recently sold for land value with plans for housing and limited retail rather than another retail bet. Simon isn't involved there, but the contrast is the point: aging mall real estate in this market is heading in one of two directions right now. Properties with strong demographics and steady foot traffic are getting fresh retail investment. Properties that lost that traffic years ago are being converted to other uses entirely. The Shops at Mission Viejo landing squarely in the first category is itself a data point about how the ownership group views the surrounding rooftops.
There's a coastal precedent worth knowing too. River Street Marketplace in San Juan Capistrano, an open-air retail development that opened in 2024, is often cited alongside the Mission Viejo project as an example of what's working in Orange County retail right now. Open-air formats with outdoor dining are becoming the default for new retail investment across the county, not just at this one property.
What This Means If You Live Nearby
If you already live within a short drive of La Paz Road, the practical takeaway is simple. This isn't a rumor anymore. The tenant list has moved past speculation into confirmed leases reported by a regional business journal and a national commercial real estate outlet, which is a different level of certainty than an early announcement or a leasing flyer. Barring the kind of delay that's common in retail construction, you're looking at new dining options opening at The Shops sometime in the back half of this year, most plausibly clustered around the holiday season Simon has been targeting since the project was announced.
The scarcity numbers matter for a different reason if you're the kind of resident who pays attention to what's happening around your own property. A retail vacancy rate under 4 percent and a seven-month average lease-up time, even measured back in mid-2025, describe a commercial market where landlords have leverage and tenants are competing for space rather than the other way around. That kind of tight commercial environment tends to show up eventually in how a neighborhood's retail corridors get maintained, reinvested in, and filled. It's one more piece of context for understanding why this particular stretch of Mission Viejo looks like it's about to change shape, and why the change is landing here rather than somewhere else.
None of this requires you to do anything. The construction fencing will come down eventually, the new signage will go up, and most residents will just start parking a little differently on weekend nights. But if you've been wondering whether the "outdoor village" talk from last year was actually going to happen, the answer from trade coverage is yes: it identifies named tenants and places the project in the context of the broader retail market.
If you're weighing a move in this part of South Orange County and want to talk through what a changing retail corridor like this one tends to mean for property values and buyer interest nearby, Colin Farris has spent years tracking exactly these kinds of shifts across San Clemente, Dana Point, and the rest of South Orange County. Let's Connect.
