Thursday, June 26, 2014

Mall St. Vincent 2013 Update

The mall is undergoing a renovation which will make it look like this picture and one further down. The work is currently still going on.
The mall does not have a food court, but there are restaurants in different spots in the mall. We will start with the Sears half of the mall.

Old school escalators still operating in Sears.
Looking from Sears into the mall.
Is this GNC, I couldn't tell for sure, lol.
The center court of the mall had a fountain, we will see what goes there after the remodel. 
The work started in the Dillard's half of the mall.

The Dillard's corridor.
Another image of the future mall. 
Very retro Picadilly Cafeteria, will it remain this way after the remodel?
A few last looks at what will be gone when the mall renovation is finished. 

14 comments:

  1. An interesting tidbit about this mall: The Sears store was standalone for over 20 years as the St. Vincent Avenue Sears. It is the largest store between Dallas and Atlanta. The mall wasn't built until about 1976. That's why the escalators look like something out of the 50's; they are. The Dillard's store was built as an Alexandria-based Wellan's, which closed in the late 80's. Dillard's opened in 1993 or so.

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    1. There is a huge contrast in age between the two department stores. Dillard's seems out of place with the old style of the mall, but Sears will look out of place once the remodel is complete. There are not many three story Sears that I have been to or know of. I only know this one and the one in Midtown Houston. It is a fairly large store for the Sears chain and I wonder if the store will eventually be targeted by another retailer such as Macy's for redevelopment.

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    2. That is true Dillard's there is really upscale and modern Sears not so much. The Dillard's is nearly identical to the Dillard's that was at Westwood mall in Houston and almost identical to the West Oaks mall location.

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    3. A lot of the Dillard's stores from that era have a cookie cutter design with changes made only to accommodate to lot size of the store. A lot of the redesigned or new stores from about 2005 and newer look almost identical as well.

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    4. too bad Dillard's built 2005 or newer are not as upscale as the older locations. The new one don't have marble floors and lot of wood and gold detail as the old stores have.

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    5. You are right, so many stores are plain and boring these days. I think they do that now to draw attention to the products instead of the architecture of the stores and have as much sales space as possible. The same goes for the interiors of malls that have been recently updated.

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  2. The Dillard's in MSV was originally Alexandria-based Wellan's. The store stood closed for several years before Dillard's moved in in about 1993. They totally gutted the store and started over.

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    1. I bet they had some work to do cleaning up the Wellan's. The Dillard's looks original and I could not tell that it was ever another anchor. It looks like they demolished the store and built a new one.

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    2. The mall was originally anchored by Palais Royal. Wellan’s purchased PR in 1985, and converted the store to their nameplate in 1987. Wellan’s name only graced the building for one year, as it closed in 1988. Dillard’s bought the property and built a new store in 1992.

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    3. Was the Palais Royal location fairly small, or was it a large space like the Sears building?

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  3. they may have demolished the blgd but look how Dillard's turned all the former Joske's in Houston. They didn't leave anything left except the exterior.

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    1. And most of the stores still look like Joske's stores on the outside except for the Dillard's name. At the Greenspoint location you can clearly make out the letters from the old Joske's signs above the entrances when it rains.

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  4. Definitely recommend you revisit both Mall St. Vincent and Pierre Bossier Mall. Both have new stores and are both newly renovated!

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    1. I have been to both malls since my last posts. Both malls have lost several in-line stores mostly due to national chain store losses and bankruptcies. Pierre Bossier now has a large Forever 21 and College filling both remaining anchor spots. I noticed some minor renovations at two of the entrances at Pierre Bossier Mall and Mall St. Vincent was almost completely remodeled. I am glad that some parts of both malls have the old outdoor signage and design still intact. I have a handful of newer photos of both malls that I will add to these articles in the future.

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