Remember Birdcage Walk? A Look Back at One of Citrus Heights’ Most Memorable Shopping Centers

Long before today’s Marketplace at Birdcage, the property across from Sunrise Mall looked very different.

In 1976, Birdcage Walk opened along Sunrise Boulevard as an open-air shopping center designed around a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly walkway. It featured about 65 shops, two outdoor aviaries, trees, gathering spaces, and attractions that made the center feel more like a place to spend an afternoon than simply somewhere to shop.

Why Was It Called Birdcage Walk?

The name was quite literal.

The original shopping center featured large bird cages with live birds, which became one of its most recognizable attractions. The design also encouraged visitors to walk between stores rather than drive from one storefront to another.

The aviaries eventually disappeared, but longtime residents still remember other features of the center, including its pond, gazebo and clock tower.

Children reportedly tossed coins into the pond like a wishing well, while the tree-lined walkways gave the center a park-like atmosphere.

More Than Just Shopping

For many people who grew up around Citrus Heights in the 1970s and 1980s, Birdcage Walk was also a social destination.

Over the years, residents have remembered attractions and businesses that included a movie theater, arcade, bowling alley, comic-book store, cafés, pizza shops, Tower Records and Tower Books, among others.

One former worker described the shopping center as a kind of teenage playground—a place where young people could shop, eat, meet friends and spend time without needing to leave the area.

A Different Kind of Shopping Center

Birdcage Walk stood out because its open-air layout was unusual for its era.

Across Sunrise Boulevard, the much larger Sunrise Mall had opened earlier in the decade as a conventional enclosed shopping mall. Birdcage Walk offered almost the opposite experience: smaller buildings organized around walkways, landscaping and outdoor gathering areas.

Together, Sunrise Mall and Birdcage Walk helped turn the Sunrise Boulevard and Greenback Lane area into one of the region’s major commercial districts. The City of Citrus Heights credits the shopping centers with helping spur hundreds of additional businesses, offices, apartments and homes around them during the 1970s and 1980s.

What Happened to Birdcage Walk?

By the late 1990s, major redevelopment began changing the property.

Much of the original pedestrian walkway was removed to make room for streets, parking and larger modern retail buildings. The movie theater was later demolished, and additional sections of the original center disappeared as new stores and parking areas were constructed.

Today, only a few pieces of the original complex remain. The Sentinel reports that Barnes & Noble occupies the largest surviving original structure, while the building now occupied by Walmart Neighborhood Market is another remnant of the earlier center.

One Famous Piece Survived

Although the old pond, gazebo and aviaries are gone, part of Birdcage Walk’s distinctive clock tower survived the demolition.

The cupola was saved by the family of a contractor involved in the redevelopment and was later installed at a private Citrus Heights residence, where its clocks remained functional.

It is one of the few physical reminders of what Birdcage Walk once looked like.

Old Ideas Becoming New Again

There is an interesting connection between Birdcage Walk’s past and current redevelopment plans for the Sunrise Mall area.

Modern planning increasingly emphasizes walkable neighborhoods that combine shopping, entertainment, public spaces and other uses—many of the same qualities that made Birdcage Walk unusual when it opened 50 years ago.

For longtime residents, photos of Birdcage Walk can bring back memories of movie nights, shopping trips and afternoons spent around the pond.

For newer Citrus Heights residents, its history is a reminder that one of the city’s most familiar shopping areas once looked almost nothing like it does today.