General Information
NFT Map: 49 & 50
Address: 1727 N Victory Pl
Burbank, CA 91502
Shopping
The Burbank Empire Center is for serious shoppers. There is no leisurely window-shopping, no frivolous detours to mall staples like Claire’s Accessories or Brookstone, no movie theater. The Empire Center is all about the essentials—life’s most basic necessities, from super-sized televisions at Best Buy to supersized packs of legal pads at Staples to super-sized bags of Cheetos at Target. The center is home only to big-box retailers and national chains, and it expertly straddles the line between high end (The Great Indoors) and discount (Marshalls) with an emphasis on stores geared toward folks in the mood for nesting (Lowe’s Home Improvement, Linens ‘n Things, and the aforementioned Great Indoors). The absence of diversions makes the Burbank Empire Center an ideal place for holiday shopping—the roomy parking lot is easily navigated and there is a store that suits everyone on your list, from athlete (Sportmart) to crafter (Michaels) to toy-addicted kid (Target). And this utilitarian shopping center features an equally utilitarian hotel, the Marriott Courtyard, should your Empire experience prove to be too exhausting to make the drive home. There is the new Ultra Beauty Store. It’s a larger Sephora that has high-end and lower-end products. You can get any makeup product, and they have a beauty salon.
Food
Fuel up for a grueling day of paint-matching and window-treatment ordering at Hometown Buffet or Outback Steakhouse. Or perhaps even the Krispy Kreme. The Great Indoors has a Starbucks inside the store when shopping for shower curtains wears you down. A freestanding Starbucks located in a cluster of restaurants bordering Empire Drive features extra room for the laptop-wagging set. Options for a mid-shopping respite run from the lighter fare of Jamba Juice, Subway, Sbarro, Wendy’s and Panda Express, to the more substantial Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden and Hometown Buffet (where the line begins forming about 10:30 a.m. and wraps around the building by noon, so plan accordingly).
Drawbacks
True to its name, the place is empire-sized. The Great Indoors and Lowe’s are at opposite ends of the mall, which can be inconvenient for those on intensive home-improvement missions. The long walk can be especially rough on hot summer days when the heat is shimmering off the parking lot. The Burbank Empire Center is also adjacent to a very busy, very big Costco, which means the intersection of Burbank Boulevard, Victory Place, and Victory Boulevard can tie itself into quite a knot. The good news is that there are long left-turn arrows to ease you through.
How to Get There
From the 5 in either direction, exit at Burbank Boulevard. Head west on Burbank Boulevard to Victory Place and turn right. The Empire Center is about a mile down on your left. Just look for the signs shaped like airplanes and stores the size of airplane hangars. The Great Indoors is at the southern end of the mall; Target and Lowe’s are at the northern end. In case you can’t smell your way to them, the donuts are to be found on the east side of the mall where the stand-alone stores are located. The bus lines that stop at the mall are BurbankBus Empire Route and Downtown Route stop at Empire Center as well as Metro Bus 94, 165, and Metro Rapid 794.