[1] The mall opened in phases between 1966 and 1974 on the site of a 1920s-era Chevrolet automobile factory called Oakland Assembly (itself shut down in 1963 with General Motors moving operations to a new plant in suburban Fremont).

Hickory Farms had a location in Eastmont Mall, and there were also branches of Smiths and Roos/Atkins, both popular regional men's clothing stores.

[2] That store, which officially opened in October 1970, would replace a longtime downtown Oakland location at 11th and Washington streets (which shut down in April 1971[9]), and would be torn down to make way (in part) for the City Center redevelopment project.

Eastmont's JCPenney store was notable in that the signage for it, outdoors and at the inside entrances, was never converted to the "JCPenney" logo, rendered in the Helvetica font, introduced chain-wide beginning in 1970 (but not fully implemented in catalogs and print advertising until 1972) and installed in all subsequently built Bay Area locations (including Richmond's Hilltop Mall); the Eastmont location always retained the older "Penneys" logo as originally introduced in 1963, right up until the store shut down (all signage and advertising inside the store itself always conformed to then-current branding).

Local real estate developers purchased the mall in 2000, and emphasized a focus on neighborhood and community services; many of the abandoned retail stores were converted into office space.

In 2006–07, the four-story standalone office building was converted as an adaptive reuse project into Miley Gardens, a residential senior housing complex.

Eastmont was sold for $54.5 million in 2015 to Vertical Ventures, a private equity investment firm based in Walnut Creek (one of the East Bay's local suburbs).