Sunday, July 31, 2011

Wal Mart Navasota Texas

I am not a big fan of posting Wal-Mart stores on my site since they are usually exactly the same from store to store, but this store is super small compared to most modern Wal-Mart stores. This store is not much bigger than a stand-alone Walgreens or CVS location and it still has an electronics section in the middle of the store. This entire store is roughly the size of the supermarket section in a Supercenter location. Most of these small locations have been closed as the Supercenter format took over, but this location and a few others have survived. It is amazing how much Wal-mart has changed in the past twenty years. The interior of the Wal-Mart also has the most updated look.

Looking at the back of the store to the front; there are about 10 small aisles from the front to the back in this part of the store.
This is from side to side of the store; about 20 small aisles are going across the back part of the store. The back of the electronics department sign is at the top right of this picture.
The Pharmacy was updated on the top wall, but these old signs just above the pharmacy window remain intact.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Parkdale Mall Beaumont Texas

Parkdale Mall is a super regional mall located in Beaumont Texas. Parkdale Mall has several anchor stores and junior anchors with outside access. Parkdale Mall has recently been renovated, but still has some older styled stores that have not updated their look. The area on Dowlen Rd. is where a good portion of the Beaumont retail district and recent growth of Beaumont has occurred. The mall is also located across the highway from the Circuit City store featured below. The mall is mostly successful and has most of the major chain stores that are in the popular malls.



The part of the mall facing Highway 69 has many interior mall stores with a big box style outside entrance.



JCPenney is a very old design. The inside of the store is only one story, but the outside of the store appears to be two stories.



Sears


A blurry photo of the Food Court entrance.
Bealls sits on top of the former Dillard's #2 store.
Macy's sits on the site of a Montgomery Ward; part of the former department store was demolished to create the Foley's store that is now a Macy's.

Ashley Furniture Homestore next to Macy's (left).
Dillard's was consolidated into this store in the mid 2000's and the store was substantially remodeled. 


This mall is managed by the same company CBL as the Post Oak Mall in College Station.
The Sears wing is to the right of the mall food court; this wing is much slower than the rest of the mall and has several vacant storefronts. The majority of the mall traffic favors the food court area, so this part of the mall could use a popular junior anchor to bring more traffic here. All of the junior anchors with outside entrances are in between JCPenney and Sears.
The mall entrance to the food court with Bealls to the left.
Look above the food outlets to see pictures depicting the historical oil boom in Beaumont.

This is the center of the food court area.

This interesting sign is seen as you exit the food court towards the main mall.
The entrance to Bealls; formerly Dillard's #2 that was demolished.
JCPenney has two mall entrances similar to the San Jacinto Mall in Baytown. One of the entrances has an older brick style entrance probably from before the mirrored glass era. The first entrance is in the middle of the mall, and the second one is near the food court.
The entrance by the food court.
The Macy's wing features an Ashley Furniture Homestore, Tilt Arcade, and several other stores.

The Dillard's wing features Books a Million, a Suncoast Movie store, and a local Fox 4 television station where mall patrons can see the news being filmed.


A still open Suncoast store, but all of the neon is out and in disrepair as you can see by the sign. I was very surprised to see this store still open because these stores completely disappeared from Houston just like the FYE music stores that are also part of the same completely.
The look of this store is definitely 1980's; there are a few older style storefronts still left in this mall. This store is located in the Macy's wing.
This former Picadilly Cafeteria is located right around the corner from the Suncoast store in the Dillard's wing.
Labelscar above the former Picadilly Cafeteria.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Circuit City Beaumont

This is a very good quality 1980's-early 1990's style plug entrance store. This location was painted just before closing since the building has a recent paint job. With the exception of the missing signs this is one of the best preserved sites that I have seen that have not been redeveloped.


The labelscar from the neon sign still shows here.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Auchan Hypermarket #2 Houston

This store is located on the 610 South Loop in Houston. This store was only open for a few short years before the French company pulled out of Houston completely. These stores were similar to the Wal-Mart Super center format or the larger Schweggmanns (New Orleans) format. There was a second store in West Houston that was open for 15 years on Beltway 8. The company still operates many stores in mostly European nations.

The logo is partially visible on this highway sign.



The labelscar is visible across the top of the building and over the entrances.