Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Mall of Acadiana Lafayette Louisiana

On the other side of Lafayette is the Mall of Acadiana which opened at the end of the 1970's. This mall is located off of Ambassador Caffery Pkwy and Johnson Street. The mall of Acadiana is the dominant mall of the region with Dillard's, Macy's, JCPenney, and Sears as the anchors. Each anchor is two levels, but the mall is only one level. A large Forever 21 store is also located in between Macy's and JCPenney. This mall has been renovated in a French style to make the mall look like an older town. Many of the storefronts have brick entrances which are a nice change from the boring 2000's mall styles. Most of the popular chains can be found at this mall and I did not see one empty space which means this mall may have a waiting list to get in. More information can be found about the mall including former anchors here. The mall looks to have been designed to have five major anchors, but only four opened.






The food court entrance.
FYE was a Sam Goody in a past life; check out the brick entrance.
The food court is a typical 2011 food court; nothing special.
The design of this mall is very unique.
The design of the mall helps to break the monotony of the plain styles of most 2000's updated malls.

These arches are on the way to all of the anchor stores; a nice touch. As you can see there is no shortage of  lanterns all along the mall corridors.


7 comments:

  1. Sorta reminds me of Memorial City Mall in Houston.

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  2. This mall will be renamed and renovated in 2013:
    http://www.acadianabusiness.com/business-news/acadiana-business/12968-its-acadiana-mall-again

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    1. Wow the new interior design looks boring compared to what they have now. I like the new entrances though, but they should keep the inside as is.

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  3. The JCPenney originally opened as Shreveport-based Selber Bros. Selber Bros closed around 1986 or 87, and sat empty until it was demolished in 1991 for JCP.

    The phantom anchor, which was to be located at the end of the Food Court (top left of the mall map), was intended for Foley's, who eventually entered Lafayette in the late 1990s through their purchase of the Parisian store, which was previously Godchaux's/Maison Blanche.

    This would have been their first Louisiana store, mainly because of a strong Lafayette/Houston connection, thanks to the oil industry.

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    1. Thanks for the additional information about the anchors. I did notice that the JCPenney anchor seemed newer than the rest of the anchors. It seemed like the mall was made for more anchors like most current malls were, but fell short of their goal. Many of these malls including a few here in Houston had a spot on the directories featuring a "future anchor", but now they are not listed since the anchor choices have shrunk since the 1980's. Speaking of Foley's they never had a store in the New Orleans metro area. Foley's I think only had stores in the Southern part of the state, but I am not sure about the Monroe area. Montgomery Ward also had stores in every major Louisiana market except New Orleans.

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  4. Anyone remember the name of the Mexican restaurant in the food court in the mid to late 80's?

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    1. Readers please comment below if you can help out with the name of that restaurant, thanks.

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