This store was once a Circuit City location that lasted a little over a year before the company shut down for good. This location was one of the newest The City concepts that was rolled out in an attempt to modernize the style of Circuit City. The current anchor is about to move out so I had to stop by and get some photos of the nearly unchanged interior of the store. The Circuit City only took a portion of this former Mervyn's store with Steve and Barrys taking over the space under Circuit City. I hope once this anchor clears out completely that Belk will open their first Houston store. Belk has two stores in Lufkin and Nacogdoches around two hours north of this mall. Houston needs new life in department store choices. Dillards, Sears, JCPenney, and Macy's are the only large anchor department stores at malls here except for the Galleria which has Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. Discounters such as Burlington and Forever 21 do not count as department stores on my blog.
Update 6/30/2011; this anchor will become a Forever 21 so there goes my idea of Belk coming in.
Here is a link to the Gizmodo web page that has an interior photo of how these Circuit City the City stores looked.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2009/03/circuit_emptywtmk.jpg
The furniture store just basically slapped some black vinyl over the Circuit City logos and opened up shop. It is a shame that Circuit City closed because I was gaining respect back for the company when they came out with this new concept. The smaller The City concept could have worked in smaller towns where Best Buy would not have opened up in. Circuit City was unfortunately too late with the roll out of these new stores.
This is how the outside of this store looked before the Circuit City closed; I don't have any photos of the mall when Mervyn's (the previous anchor here) was still in business though.
The brand name of Circuit City lives on at www.circuitcity.com, but the company that was Circuit City is gone.
I don't see Belk in Houston. They like to be in smaller communities where they can be the only upscale department store in town. This is the way they operate in the southeast, though they do have stores in some major markets there.
ReplyDeleteIf Belk wants to taste the Houston market, I could see them in Conroe, Richmond, or perhaps Galveston.
When is the Forever 21 supposed to be in?
ReplyDeleteProbably at the end of the year since they started the work just before summer started.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, the brand name itself is gone, too. If you go to circuitcity.com, it redirects you to tigerdirect.com. Circuit City is now truly, completely dead. :(
ReplyDelete