Barton Creek Square is the main indoor mall of the Austin metro area. The mall is located to the southwest of downtown Austin off of the Mopac expressway and the south capital of Texas highway. This mall has benefited from the demise of nearby Northcross and Highland Malls in the last decade as it has emerged as a retail powerhouse.
(Check out my article May 22, 2011 for the most recent update on Highland Mall). Most of the retail competition is to the north and northwest of the mall, so this center is poised for success for years to come.
I did not get a photo of the main entrance, but I did get the updated directional sign to the anchors.
Sears
AMC theaters located just below the food court.
Nordstrom
Macy's
Dillards Mens Store
Dillards Womens Store
The food court has a cool blue effect with the lighting over the tops of the food outlets.
The mall directories from different areas of the mall.
Macy's is very similar to the Macy's that just closed at Highland Mall in Austin.
Sears has the electronics department right at the mall entrance. This is the first Sears that I have been to that does not have the electronics in the back of the store.
A few views of the mall hallways; this mall is the most upscale indoor mall in Austin.
Dillards Mens store
Dillard's womens store.
Gotta love the mirrored glass JCPenney entrance.
Nordstrom too pricey for me!
I lived in Austin for a couple of years (2007-2009) and if I remember correctly...people told me there was a mall called Westgate Mall that was very near here. Wherever it was...they tore it down before then. I've been to Barton Creek and I wasn't impressed. Had good stores, but the inside remodel looked really cheap and cheesy....like alot of modern malls.
ReplyDeleteI read about Westgate Mall but I never went there. It exists now as a regular shopping center like so many malls of the past. The Northcross Mall in Austin is mostly gone also, but a small portion of the old mall corridor remains inside of the redeveloped building mostly as an entrance to the ice skating rink. The rest of the remaining building is just a shopping center now.
DeleteI am not a fan of most modern retail designs, they are mostly boring and plain. I am hoping the next generation of retail designs brings in more variety instead of the same basic design from mall to mall.
I much preferred the look of Highland Mall...especially on the inside.
ReplyDeleteI actually did go to Westgate Mall a few times when I was a student at UT in the late 80's/early 90's. It was a pretty nondescript one-story mall; just one straight corridor with a pretty vanilla 60's/70's vibe. Back then, I'd say that it was about 70% occupied, and it was nowhere in the same league as Highland Mall, Barton Creek Square, or even Northcross Mall at the time. I went there occasionally, when the jewelry store there gave out freebies with a coupon from the Austin Weekly, and I attended my first Star Trek con there, but the mall wasn't really anything to write home about.
ReplyDeleteI have read a few articles that lists Highland as the first indoor mall, but I am sure that is wrong. I never went to Westgate, but I went to Northcross when it was full and booming in the late 80's. I know that a small part of the Northcross Mall corridor survives but it has been mostly torn down.
DeleteI feel like I’ve either seen or been to a Sears with the electronics at the front. Which other Sears stores that you know of or have visited contained the electronics near the mall entrance/front?
ReplyDeleteThere are not a lot of them that I can think of. Deerbrook used to have their electronics department very visible from the mall entrance, but it was at the back wall. This mall was one of the rare exceptions of a Sears store with an electronics department on the first floor and at a mall entrance. Many Sears stores had the electronics department tucked away on the second floor or near a back entrance on the first floor. The Greenspoint, Beaumont, Lufkin, Port Arthur, Willowbrook, North Shepherd, Westwood, Memorial City, and Post Oak mall locations all had electronics departments right at an exterior entrance to the store. I am sure I can think of more, but this is the only one I can remember that had electronics at the mall entrance.
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