Sunday, February 28, 2010

Belle Prominade Extra Photos

Here are a few more photos from the Belle Prominade Mall in Marrero Louisiana taken in 2001. These were taken by a low resolution pen camera which explains the small photo size. This mall is nearly forgotten and the property has been completely redeveloped. I plan on getting back to New Orleans later on in 2010, so there will be several new Louisiana articles here soon.



This was the center court of the mall.



This shot is where the Dillard's stood facing the south side of the mall.



Here is a shot of the length of the mall from the south near Lapalco Blvd.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Greenspoint Mall 2/25/2010

Greenspoint Mall will be losing the Sears store on May 9, 2010. The anchor lineup will be Fitness Connection (not connected to the mall corridor), Macy's (downsized), and the Dillard's clearance center. The old Montgomery Ward is being used as a Worksource job finding agency. The food court is still doing well, but has a few vacancies. Greenspoint Mall needs to get the redevelopment project started before it is too late. The middle of the mall is nearly full, but the closing of Sears will hurt businesses and decrease customer traffic in the entire mall.

Here is a redevelopment idea; turn an old JCPenney into a wild west town complete with horses. The rodeo trail riders have set up a temporary camp at the mall on their way to Reliant Park.




The former JCPenney is starting to fall into disrepair.




The front of this storefront looks like it was a Palais Royal, but I may be wrong. The Palais Royal on the other side of the mall was once a Beall's.



Inside of the Dillard's clearance store; this store closes early everyday.








Here are a few shots inside the mall from near the food court.



Circuit City Lake Charles


Here is a quick shot of the Circuit City in Lake Charles Louisiana taken on Mardi Gras day 2010. For some reason my camera makes the store look like it is sinking on one side. This store was remodeled after Hurricane Rita and reopened about two years before Circuit City closed all of their stores.

Greenspoint Sears going dark

Photos taken 2/25/2010



Here is a photo from inside of the hardware/ fitness department.



The store is now closing at 7pm, so this part of the mall was virtually empty tonight.




Here are some photos of the store taken in 2009.




According to several sources including the Sears website; the Sears at Greenspoint Mall will be closing by May 9, 2010. The closing will be a serious blow to the mall. The mall entrance to this Sears store has red tiles from the old Sears colors. For more information and sources go to http://blogs.chron.com/primeproperty/2010/02/greenspoint_sears_going_dark.html

Monday, February 15, 2010

Northwest Mall Update February 2010

February 2010; here are a few shots of some of the closed stores at the mall. The middle of the mall does not have many vacancies yet, but the closed Macy's wing is starting to lose stores. The first picture is the former Waldenbooks store in the Macy's wing.





Here are the two restaurants that have closed since December. The first picture was the Pizza place.




December Photos



Northwest Mall has lost more tenants since my last visit. The Pizza place that had been there for years has shut down; leaving a huge gap in the front of the food court. Five inline stores have closed, and Waldenbooks closed their location at the mall. Northwest Mall seems to be in trouble unless they can get an anchor to open up in the former Macy's spot soon. I would hate to see this mall close because Houston has lost many malls over the past ten years, but the mall as is will not survive much longer. A strong redevelopment plan needs to be put in place and a good start would be to lure a discount retailer into the old JCPenney spot like they did at Almeda. There is also an aging standalone Sears store nearby that would be an excellent replacement for the Macy's anchor if they wanted to move to the mall.

There are some pictures from my most recent visits in December 2009 and February 2010. Notice in the December pictures how slow the mall was at around 7pm on a Saturday night two weekends before Christmas. The mall was nearly empty the Monday after Valentine's day also.






The Northwest directories from different places in the mall.




Compare the pictures above from Northwest with the Almeda directory below. These two malls are nearly identical and they were created by the same developer.



The doors to the Macy's are still closed up, but the signs still remain on the building.