Sunday, October 17, 2010

West Hill Mall Huntsville Texas: Last article of 2010



West Hill Mall is in the town of Huntsville Texas; famous for Sam Houston State University and a huge statue of Sam Houston. Many of the state correctional facilities are here as well. For a city of around 30,000 people a mall should do fairly well since the nearest mall is over 45 minutes to the south in the Woodlands suburb of Houston. This is not the case for West Hill Mall; the mall only has closed off over 2/3 of the retail space for government offices and there are only a handful of stores left. A couple of the stores still have not updated their storefronts from the late 1980's to early 1990's and the mall seems to be very quiet. I wish I could have seen this mall in the prime years when the whole building was open. The design of this mall is very similar to the Deauville malls that were built in the Houston area in the 1980's that have vanished or have been re-purposed like the one in Kingwood that is now a hospital. You can see all the way across the mall from both anchor entrances since the mall space has been reduced.

We start our tour of the mall from the Palais Royal entrance.



The mall stops here; less than a 1/3 of the mall is still used for retail; the rest of the mall space has been taken over by the State of Texas for various offices.



These next two photos are from the same spot, but different angles. Just past the Cato store is the JCPenney entrance.




The next three pictures are taken from the middle of the mall; which is just a few steps away from the entrance to Palais Royal.



I tried to get a good photo of the mall map, but there was a nearby security guard (not pictured), so I had to be discreet. The two anchor stores on the left of the map are the JCPenney and Palais Royal, so you can see how much of the mall is closed off.




This is the view as you enter the mall from JCPenney; you can see the other end of the mall from this view (look above the trashcan). As you can see there are some 1980's style storefronts still intact here.



Gotta love the mirrored glass JCPenney entrances.



This is the only entry to the mall that does not go through an anchor.



The back of the mall is very similar to the back of a regular shopping center.



The mall has tons of vegetation covering the building, so it is very hard to get far away shots. Pictured here is the wing used by the State of Texas DPS and other offices.



This is the only non-anchor entrance to the mall shops.



One of the former anchor spots (does anyone have info on the former anchors)



Palais Royal



JCPenney; very small maybe around 30,000 sq feet.




I am going to take a break on this blog until after the new year just like last year. I will have some great new articles including an article on retail for an entire section of suburban Houston. Once again thanks for reading and participating in my blog and keep the comments coming as I will still be checking this site often.

San Jacinto Mall October 2010 Small Update

San Jacinto Mall has several stores that are open and doing well, but some parts of the mall have some troubling deterioration and need attention. The plan to upgrade the former Montgomery Ward wing seems to have stalled as no work has been completed since the wall to block this wing off was completed. I still like going to this mall though because the mall has stores unique to this mall and it still has a 1980's feel. All of the fountains are still operating and the food court is nearly full.

This is what is left of the Montgomery Ward wing. Pacsun recently closed and the walls are in terrible shape here with water damage. There is even a section of the skylight that is boarded up. This is not the only section boarded up as there are other damaged skylights possibly from Hurricane Ike.





The former Mervyn's wing now has a wall blocking the area off but the doors are open for now to this area of the mall. Eyemasters still operates here and there is a bingo hall right by the mall entrance.





Inside of Mervyn's closed since 2005.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Vintage Houston Sears #2 Updated 10/16/10





This is the vintage Sears location at 4000 North Shepherd Drive; just north of Interstate 610 in Houston. The sign is vintage 1950's- 1960's but I am not sure of the exact age of this store. This store is just a regular Sears store on the inside with not many vintage features still left intact, so I did not take any inside pictures. This location has a separate auto center just like the other vintage store, and there is a small old school Sears keyshop located in the back of the parking lot that is still operational. This is the location that I talked about in my previous post that would be a good option to refill the empty Macy's anchor at the nearby Northwest Mall.


Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Pasadena Town Square October 2010



The food court has only six choices left



Chik-fil-A gone.



Some shots from the Macy's and Sears wings of the mall.




FYE is still open here; there are only a handful of mall music stores left in Houston malls.




This is the center court of the mall.





This is the nearly completely empty former Dillard's wing; only the Worksource is open during business hours in this whole part of the mall.





K-Mart in Lufkin Texas

Just across the street from the Lufkin Mall is one of the few remaining K-marts in the state of Texas. K-mart left most of Texas in 2002 when the company was in financial trouble.


Lufkin Mall; Lufkin Texas



I could not have one mall without the other, so here we go. Lufkin Mall is around 20 miles to the south of Nacogdoches and 130 miles north of Houston. Lufkin Texas has around 32,000 people in the city and draws customers from several towns surrounding the city. The retail district along US59 and business US59 features several big box stores, chain restaurants, and resembles a suburb of Houston. The Lufkin Mall is about double the size of the University Mall and has four anchors plus a 9 screen cinema. The anchors are Sears, Baskins (no mall entrance), Bealls, and JCPenney. This mall has been updated and has the feel of a large city mall.

Here is the layout of the mall.








This Baskins was a Circuit City and the location closed long before the company did.




The sun got the first photo, but it shows the detail of the JCPenney entrance.



Bealls entrance




Sears entrance




Waldenbooks is still open here!



Retro Gordon's Jewelers