Fresno’s ‘first mall’ was to become big Blackstone Ave. housing project. What happened?

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It’s been more than two years since Manchester Center announced plans to convert its mall space into an urban living project that would bring 600 new apartments (and amenities) to the Blackstone Avenue corridor.

At the time, the shopping center’s owner (Omninet Capital) said it was close to securing building permits to start the first phase of what it was calling One Fresno at Manchester Center. It was expected to take 18 to 20 months to complete.

Whether it ever started is entirely unclear.

On a recent trip to the 71-year-old shopping center (widely considered Fresno’s first mall), there were no signs of construction on either the ground floor or on its second-level, where the housing was slated to be built.

Portions of the mall (on the south end facing Shields Avenue for example) appear to have been modernized at some point, with new interior walls and clean white paint. But much of Manchester Center remains empty, with barred-off storefronts and non-operating escalators that are blocked from the public.

Several businesses, including Make it Fit Alterations, The Do Over Vintage and The Record Shop, were open and operating normally, along with services like a Fresno Police substation and UEI Vocational College (students could be seen moving between classes).

Multiple inquiries from The Bee to Omninet Capital for a project update have gone without a response since August.

At least one employee — the project’s director and general manager — no longer works for the company.

The Tower District Preservation Association, in a 2025 post quoting the city’s Project Liaison/Program Administrator for Housing, said the developer indicated “permits will be pulled prior to the first of the year for 129 units.” But the city of Fresno was unable to give any update on the project, and it doesn’t appear that construction permits were ever pulled for the shopping center.

Construction plans along the Blackstone Corridor

Council member Nelson Esparza, whose District 7 includes the Blackstone corridor, isn’t sure where the project currently stands, he told The Bee.

“It was also going to be a long-run type project,” he says, speaking about the shopping center and about the revitalization of the area more broadly, through the Southern Blackstone Avenue Smart Mobility Strategy.

“One single project is not impeding that process,” he says, pointing out several projects that are in various states of completion.

“If you drive down Blackstone like I do every day,” Esparza says. “You’re running into construction.”

There is a housing project at Blackstone and Dakota avenues in the spot that was once the Smuggler’s Inn and the renovated Crossroads Village. There is also the delayed-but-happening senior center that broke ground at the site of the former Vons grocery store. And the council will hear a motion at its next meeting about additional senior housing planned for a space adjacent to that project, Esparza says. There will also be parcels of land left over from the McKinley and Blackstone grade separation project.

Those could theoretically become available for additional housing or other projects along the corridor, he says.

This story was originally published October 19, 2026 at 4:58 AM.