Now for the 5th and final mall of the Juarez trip. Las Misiones is a very nice and modern mid to upper class mall. The mall is anchored by Sears, Liverpool, and Cinepolis. There is also a large Gala Furniture and Sanborns department store that are junior anchor sized stores.
The mall has a very good mix of retail, food, and entertainment options.
Here is the outside of the mall. Sears and Sanborns which are part of the same company.
This Sears sports the red logo that we rarely see in the US.
The edge of Sears with Liverpool in the distance.
Sears dominates this side of the mall. Here is the mall entrance to Cinepolis and the bulk of the sit down casual restaurants inside.
Sanborns is only a one-level anchor but the store front here makes it look bigger.
Lets venture inside. The mall is a respectable size on two levels. I would guess it is around 800,000 square feet total. It is a straight shot from one end to the other. Here in the center court you can see the wide areas that can hold big crowds. This is facing Liverpool.
Here is the other side facing Cinepolis.
The food court is large with American chains mixed with Mexican chains. Between the food court and the sit down casual chains, this mall has around 30 places to eat.
The Cinepolis court with a view of the interesting ceilings throughout the mall.
Another view with the second floor casino to the far right.
Here is a better look at the casino.
The Liverpool court is very interesting and draws a lot of attention to this part of the mall.
Now for another visit, at night.
A cool neon old school recreation of an American diner.
Sears is just across the food court.
Innovasport, the store on the first floor to the left is like Champs.
Sanborns main entrance to the left.
The first floor of the Cinepolis court has a Vans store and a few other small stores.
Peter Piper Pizza reminds me of Chuck E Cheese without the robots. This is one of 2 large arcades that is here in the mall.
Here are some of the sit down causal restaurants in the entrance halls.
This entrance is directly below the food court. There is not much parking on this side of the mall so that may explain why not many stores are open in this area.
Cinepolis
In addition to the 2 arcades in the mall, there are also a few games here as well.
Cinepolis has movies in English and Spanish. You can see a movie that has the voices in either English or Spanish with subtitles in the other language. While I was here, I had to see one.
Toy store right above Peter Piper Pizza. If you avoid one with your kids, you have to pass the other one.
Now for the Plaza de Comidas (Food court)
A couple of spaces were unfilled, but with so many choices here it is hard for a small business to make it.
Carousel
The second floor hallway to Sears.
More sit down restaurants.
Sounds
This Sounds store had a very cool look throughout. I will let the pictures and video say the rest.
A look at the sights and sounds inside of this Sounds store.
Sounds takes up this whole wall near the entrance to Sears.
Innovasport.
Now for a few outside shots at night.
Sanborns 2nd mall entrance to the pharmacy counter.
Inside of Sanborns, we find a decent collection of Nintendo games for sale.
Lots of other electronics too.
And music!
Cigars and collectibles like you would find in a cigar shop. On the other side of this counter is where the pharmacy is located.
A dream come true for children. Lots of neat collectible toys.
The view of Sanborns from the main mall entrance. The volume is turned up on those TV's too to grab your attention.
Back inside we see the health and beauty near the exterior entrance to the store.
Sanborns even has a sit down restaurant. Like the old school days.
Now for the wall of TV's.
More music and movies.
The electronics counter.
Jewelry, computers, and a very small selection of clothes here as well.
Liverpool where we will start on the second floor. Liverpool is a big department store chain across Mexico and also owns Fabricas De Francia.
Yes a huge candy counter with ice cream too.
A typical checkout in Liverpool.
Liverpool is very clean and similar to Macy's or Dillard's stores of yesterday that had a wide variety of departments.
Now we approach the music department.
Computers
Cell phones with different providers available.
Decent selection of TV's.
Toys, a once forgotten part of American department stores. JCPenney is bringing back toy departments but nothing like this one.
Video games!
The other part of the television department.
A full view of the music and movie departments.
Now we move down to the first floor.
Motorbikes and sports apparel.
Nice selection of clothing like you would see in Dillard's or Nordstrom.
Here is the directory of Liverpool. The store also has appliances and many other departments not covered here.
Coming soon an in-depth look at the Las Misiones Sears.
This upscale mall looks very nice. Thanks for the photos. It is interesting at how many of the eateries use English names like the steakhouse and the wing place. It's also interesting that the mall has a Domino's Pizza in it. I don't think I've ever seen that in an American mall. Do they sell pizza by the slice there?
ReplyDeleteSanborns seems very interesting and they pack a lot of things into a relatively small space. It's kind of a throwback to old style US department stores from many decades ago with things like a pharmacy and a diner. The store feels upscale too. The selection of electronics and music/video/video games seems decent. The cigar shop is a real throwback to older US department stores.
Liverpool is likewise an upscale and fancy feeling store with a vast variety of goods. The SNES on display is a great touch and shows that they take gaming seriously. It would be great to see that at a department store here in the US. Granted, some Kmarts may have had SNES-era signage up before they eliminated games a few years back.
It looks like strobe lights are alive and well at malls in Mexico thanks to Sounds! That's certainly a throwback to 1970s-80s Radio Shacks.
I'm looking forward to seeing the Sears here. I'm sure it'll make us jealous. The other Mexican department stores and discount stores have certainly made me jealous and nostalgic about the times when retail was more interesting for a wide range of shoppers here in the US.
I did not really look at Domino's. I did notice the Pizza Hut at the Plaza Sendero Mall did the personal pan pizzas like here in the US.
DeleteSanborns is like a fancier Woolworth store. The restaurant did not seem too busy there and was located in the middle of the store. The one thing I should have gotten a photo of was the bakery at Sanborns. They had a nice glass case like the one with the toys for baked goods and another for candies, and I think ice cream. It was almost overwhelming to try and capture all of these different things to see at this mall. Thankfully I was able to make a few visits here while in town. I could have probably gotten some video inside, but I prefer photos because videos are hard to shoot and keep good picture quality on a phone.
I later found out that Radio Shack is still very popular in Mexico as well. Some stores have large electronics departments from what I read.
Sears is now up to check out. I need to upload more photos so it may take a little while to put up my next article.
I did some reading about Sanborns and it seems that it was started by Americans who went to Mexico. Also, it seems that Walgreens owned at least some interest in the chain up until the 1980s. The store is so nice though that it's hard to tell that Walgreens would have been involved at one time. Walgreens stores used to have lunch counters at one time, but I presume that's mostly a thing of the past. Maybe there are a few Walgreens left with lunch counters, but I don't know. I know there is a very fancy Walgreens store in Chicago, but even that probably does not match the Sanborns.
DeleteI came across a pharmacy chain in western Canada called London Drugs. It's rather similar to a Walgreens, but the stores also have a full electronics department in addition to the pharmacy and general merchandise/grocery items. They aren't Tozai grade electronics either. They have a full photo department with digital SLR cameras on display, TVs, computers, and even a small music and video department. It's kind of an odd mix to have an electronics store merged with a Walgreens/CVS type store, but it is interesting. I wish we had something like it.
I've also heard that RadioShack is doing well in Mexico. Of course, it now has different ownership from what's left of the US RadioShack. They seemingly do pack a lot of variety of electronics goods into small stores. I'm not sure if they have larger format stores as the ones I've seen in pictures are all mall stores about the size of the old US RadioShacks.
RadioShack had an interesting history in Canada. Circuit City actually brought out the old RadioShack stores up there and renamed them as "The Source by Circuit City." When Circuit City went under, one of the phone carriers brought them out and continues to operate them as The Source. I saw one of their stores recently. They mainly sell phones and tables as you'd expect given their ownership, but they also sell cameras, computers, headphones, and common electronics like that. It looks like they're modeling the design of their stores after Apple stores. I'm not sure how well they're doing, but they're in just about every major mall in Canada.
Anyway, it's kind of odd how RadioShack was able to evolve and do well in Mexico and Canada, but they really couldn't find their way here. Of course, the US RadioShack is still around and is still trying to stay relevant. We'll see if they can make any kind of a comeback. Their linkup with HobbyTown is a good start.
It is interesting that these stores do well in other countries but American retailers are afraid to try out store concepts like these.
DeleteAmerica is so overbuilt on retail that companies are just trying to survive these days. If we had a smaller retail footprint, maybe chains would be willing to create these variety stores. The big retailers seem to be more spread out and more of an experience to shop at down there. Here we have so much retail that each new large development just takes sales from another one nearby. Internet shopping has not taken off down there either which helps. But retailers here are just not exciting.
Radio Shack stores in Mexico look like they may be a little bit larger than here in the US. They are probably more customer service oriented than here in the US as well.
Malls in the US seem to be trying there hardest to try to put Retail, Entertainment and restaurants into one space and I've never been to a mall with as much diversity as it seems this one is. We need more of these types of malls in the US since the malls in Illinois are not doing a good job at this.
ReplyDeleteThis mall is fairly new and built in one of the most prosperous areas of the city. So many of our malls were built in areas that are declining and have little chance of redemption. I just don't understand why town centers are the rage these days instead of an indoor mall. Areas like here in the deep South are very hot and humid and up North where it gets really cold should have very successful malls everywhere. Instead, developers are afraid to build anything indoor anymore because of the decline of the older retail centers.
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