tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028753244746628643.post4806899503219099096..comments2024-03-27T02:22:35.327-05:00Comments on The Louisiana and Texas Retail Blogspot: Almeda and Northwest, the Houston twin malls photographed from 2013-2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028753244746628643.post-43872664783529383182016-03-31T20:09:14.286-05:002016-03-31T20:09:14.286-05:00The Bundt cake store is at the edge of the food co...The Bundt cake store is at the edge of the food court next to Thirsty's. It has been open on both of my visits to the mall. <br /><br />The fountain in front of the antique store is still in service at Northwest. <br /><br />The Rouse Company must have unloaded the malls once they feared that the properties were in decline. Almeda benefited from the closing of Gulfgate and Northwest may have benefited from the closing of Northline, but those gains were short lived. jehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08642257521152353045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028753244746628643.post-41285747054208618852016-03-30T22:17:33.323-05:002016-03-30T22:17:33.323-05:00Northwest Mall updates their website more frequent...Northwest Mall updates their website more frequently than Almeda Mall. I think the mall directory on the NW Mall website is up-to-date as far as I can tell. The Bundt Cake-a-Holic store is a new addition. I have not seen that store before. I went to their website. It looks like a local business. They also have different hours than the mall itself, but like you say, they’re hardly alone in that regard. <br /><br />I’m not sure when Almeda Mall removed the fountains. My guess would be that they were removed in the late 1990s or very early 2000s, but that’s just a guess. It is nice that Northwest Mall continues to operate the fountains though (at least I assume that they do, the new owners may have shut them down).<br /><br />It should also be stated that The Rouse Company built both malls and operated them until they were sold to Glimcher and company in 1997. They certainly did have a pretty long run under one owner. Glimcher sold both malls around 2007 to Fox Properties (Almeda) and Levcor (NW). I’m not sure if the name of the company that brought NW Mall last year was ever made public, but I guess there may be government documents somewhere with the owner’s name. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028753244746628643.post-64165963449928637702016-03-29T18:32:58.702-05:002016-03-29T18:32:58.702-05:00I have found an additional article that supports t...I have found an additional article that supports the 1968 opening date, so I will change it. The South Belt Archive also has an article dated 1967 that refers to the Foley's being surrounded by the mall by next year. It looks like the Northwest Mall website has finally been updated. They list less than 40 stores and services in the directory. It is hard to tell which stores are still open these days since many keep strange hours. Both malls kept the same retro hallway intact until the recent Almeda remodel. <br /><br />I am not sure when Almeda removed the fountain that NW still has but I know it was gone well before JCPenney closed. You are also right about the fortunes of both malls, Almeda looked like it was going to start falling apart with the loss of JCPenney, Steve and Barry's and Ross all around the same time. Then the Macy's was closed for about a year after Hurricane Ike damaged the building. <br /><br />I will reply to the remaining comments later. Thanks again for reading the blog and helping me keep the posts as accurate as possible. jehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08642257521152353045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028753244746628643.post-49098661880988577502016-03-23T22:33:00.201-05:002016-03-23T22:33:00.201-05:00This is an excellent blog post, thanks for putting...This is an excellent blog post, thanks for putting it together. These are both malls that I’ve visited many, many times over the decades. As far as I know, Almeda and Northwest Malls are the only two “twin malls” that operate within a single city. It’s interesting to see how they remain similar in some ways but have changed separately in other ways over the years. I know Wikipedia says that Almeda opened in 1966, but I don’t believe that is accurate. I believe both malls opened in 1968 with Almeda opening a few days before NW. <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1997/11/24/story2.html" rel="nofollow">This link</a> seems to confirm the 1968 date. In both cases the Foley’s/Macy’s may have opened in 1966.<br /><br />It seemed in the mid-2000s that both malls were poised to become struggling malls, but Almeda Mall has really turned itself around even with the losses of the JCPenney anchor and some of the surrounding big box retail like Target, Best Buy, and Circuit City (even the public library in the parking lot moved at that time). The mall has mostly B and C tier chains, but the leasing rate is good and there’s always a lot of shoppers at the mall. I’ve been keeping tabs on the recent renovations, but the bird looking things hanging from the ceiling are something new that I have not seen before. I have not been to either mall since December. <br /><br />NW Mall, OTOH, has struggled as expected. The mall was basically anchorless even before the 290 construction, but the 290 construction has really hurt it. That said, the mall has some how survived even without a traditional anchor and without many chain stores (even C tier chains). The mall has survived with some deep discount type stores like the dollar store, the discount women’s shoe store, and the low price men’s barbershop. There’s also non-retail operations at the mall like the NWX model train club and the Southern Apache museum. The food court has probably done better than the rest of the mall due to the presence of the nursing college at the mall and the nearby HISD headquarters. The food court has mostly privately owned food vendors, like Almeda, but the prices are more reasonable at NW Mall and the food is pretty good. Hopefully NW Mall will survive as a mall after the 290 construction is done and the owners will keep the place as an indoor mall.<br /><br />One of the things that’s interesting about NW Mall is that shopping centers were never built around it like is the case with almost every other mall. Perhaps it was never a great retail location, but it did well for many years. Almeda did have big box stores around it as mentioned earlier, but the shopping centers directly around the mall have lost their retailers. I think the Wal-Mart that was built near the mall in the mid 2000s helped draw shoppers back to the area. One famous store near the mall was the <a href="http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/content/best-products" rel="nofollow">Best Products store built with a crumbling facade</a>. That building is still there as a warehouse, but the fancy facade was removed in the mid-2000s.<br /><br />One thing that is more vintage at Almeda than NW are the Visible Changes salons near the ex-JCPenneys. The NW one has a 1990s look, but the Almeda one still has a 1980s look unless it’s been renovated very recently. It’s an interesting thing to look at. Of course, NW Mall still has the fountains in that area of the mall whereas Almeda had them removed a long time back.<br /><br />I don’t know why NW Mall kept the retro hallway when they renovated the mall in the 1990s, but I’m glad that they did especially now that Almeda has been renovated. It’s a nice throwback especially with the payphones. Neither mall looks really retro now, but there’s some throwback features that are visible especially at NW Mall now. The <a href="http://southbelthouston.blogspot.com/2014/03/almeda-mall.html" rel="nofollow">South Belt Archive blog</a> has some excellent vintage photos of Almeda Mall. NW Mall would have looked almost identical back then.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com