Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wonderland of the Americas San Antonio



Wonderland of the Americas (formerly Crossroads Mall and Wonderland Mall) is a discount mall near loop 410 and I-10 in northwest San Antonio. The anchors are Burlington Coat Factory, JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, The Mercado, and Stein Mart. Super Target is attached to the mall, but the store does not have a mall entrance. This mall is undergoing a similar change of focus as the PlazAmericas Mall in Houston is. All of the anchor spots are filled at the Wonderland but the inside is very empty. This is my first visit to this mall, but labelscar has an article from 2007 with more information and history on this mall.




Here are images from the main concourse of the mall. There are not too many stores left inside of the mall, but the mall is very well maintained.





Burlington Coat Factory anchor




Hobby Lobby anchor



The mercado; similar to the mercado at the PlazAmericas mall in Houston the blurry sign says bienvenidos.



JoAnn Fabrics anchor










This is the new addition with a food court that was added in the 1980's.






Here are the anchor entrances to the mall. Super Target is not connected to the mall but the building is attached to the mall. The mall has recently been painted with more vibrant colors; the old colors were turquoise green and grey.







Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Former Joske's/ Dillards downtown San Antonio

This former Joske's/ Dillard's is attached to the Rivercenter mall in downtown San Antonio. Currently this five story department store is closed awaiting redevelopment. There is more information about this building on wikipedia.



Sunday, September 26, 2010

Windsor Park Mall San Antonio

Windsor Park Mall closed in 2005 and portions of the mall property have been renovated for a company named Rackspace. The Mervyn's building has been completely renovated into office space. I did not get any pictures of the former Mervyn's that is on the east side of the mall. There are further articles of this mall on deadmalls.com that tell the story about this mall. There are also videos on the rackspace site that show the inside of the mall. I went to this mall one time in 2004 and there were only a handful of stores left including Mervyn's. Also of note; this mall was in the 1980's movie Cloak and Dagger according to imdb.com.



Dillards & JCPenney



The backside of the mall with the former food court entrance.



Montgomery Wards and the security guard.



Dillards




JCPenney

Friday, September 24, 2010

PlazAmericas Update September 2010

Almost all of the new signs are in place; they are a huge improvement over the old Sharpstown logos. It has now been 9 months since the changes began and the mall has gained many new businesses and is rebounding back to life. For a comparison see my article from April of 2009 to see how bad this mall was.

Old



New









The Houston Trade Center and mall corridor.



Preliminary work is being done to get this site back in business. The first level will be shops and outlets similar to the mercado. The second level will be a high security jewelry center. I am not sure what they are going to do with the basement level though. This photo was taken through the glass.





For now this part of the mall near The Houston Trade Center is quiet; only Thirsty's remains.



Here are some of the new stores inside of the mall coming soon. In the first picture these stores were covered up but now they have removed the plywood, so a new store might be opening soon.



The lights are back on in the former Fingers store. This former furniture store will become a nightclub if the liquor permit is granted.



A peak inside the plastic; this may soon be a nightclub the retro mirrors of the former Fingers will probably remain.



Here are a couple of new stores coming soon; there are two more but I was unable to get good pictures as I was passing by.




Three new restaurants are coming to the mall. One of these restaurants will be near the new Mercado near Burlington.






The work is picking up speed inside of the mall owned Mercado near Burlington. This whole part of the mall is about to come back to life.






The Clarewood Mercado is doing well; nearly all of the shop spaces have been filled inside this former JCPenney.