Now for a new Louisiana mall entry. The Alexandria Mall opened in 1973 and was expanded in 1986. We will start with the outside of the mall.
Dillard's, which opened in the 1986 expansion.
Burlington, ULTA, and the food court entrance, all are also part of the 1986 expansion.
Bed Bath and Beyond formerly Weiss and Goldring.
Slinkee's which was Wellan's and later Stein Mart.
Sears
Slinkee's
The ULTA and food court entrance.
Burlington/ Mervyn's.
Dillard's
Burlington with Mervyn's labelscar. For some reason only the mall entrance and one outside entrance were reopened by Burlington.
The Alexandria Mall is fairly large mall at almost 900,000 square feet on one floor. I am going to break this one down into 4 sections. Many of the photos were taken at the end of the business day so there were not many people in the mall.
Section one the Dillard's and Burlington section of the mall. Here is the view of the mall when you enter through Burlington.
The Burlington is a former Mervyn's that was barely changed when Burlington took over the space.
Here is the Dillard's entrance and the nearby stores.
Looking from the food court exit to the Dillard's/ Burlington wing.
A closer view of the Dillard's entrance.
More of the Dillard's/ Burlington corridor.
Section two food court. There are several food outlets and a new ULTA store is this section of the mall.
Lots of detail here in the food court, this is the nicest section of the mall.
Section three, the center section of the mall. Here is the JCPenney entrance.
This store was a Beall-Ladymon and taken over by Stage Stores.
The middle of the mall is full of shops and kiosks.
A retro late 90's early 2000's Foot Locker on the left.
Section four Bed, Bath and Beyond and Sears.
The play area is in this section of the mall, but not much else. As you can see a former Sam Goody was last here.
This was formerly a Weiss-Goldring department store.
Looking back towards the rest of the mall. The entrance to Bed Bath and Beyond is to the left.
From the play area to Sears only one store was occupied, a gift shop.
The Sears store keeps earlier hours than the rest of the mall.
This looks like it could have possibly been a Piccadilly Cafeteria. This mall entrance is right next to the Sears entrance.
Looking into the mall from the Sears entrance.
More views of the mall near the Sears entrance.
Another view of the Wellan's which is occupied by Bed, Bath and Beyond. The mall entrance is to the right of this photo.
Looking back into the mall near Stage.
This is an interesting mall, thanks for the photos. I would consider this mall to be quite a useful mall for me since it has a Sears and a RadioShack, but I'm guessing the RadioShack has closed since the photos were taken. Still, it has a Sears. The Sears facade is quite interesting. The Slinkee's building kind of looks like a JCPenney from the outside. The Meyerland Plaza, former Almeda Mall, and former Northwest Mall JCPenney stores in Houston have the same type of design on their walls.
ReplyDeleteThe interior of this mall is quite interesting with the varied ceiling designs. The sections of the mall with the latticed ceiling design and the carpet look rather classy IMO. There's something about malls that looks more home-like when they have lower ceilings and carpeting. I mainly see that at smaller town malls. The wooden benches throughout the mall look kind of vintage with their earthtone type coloring.
Thanks for commenting, yes the Radio Shack is gone from the mall. I updated the post with suggestions from Scott, so it is now accurate. The Sears at the mall, which I visited not too long ago is about the size of the Mall of the Mainland location. The store is roughly in the shape of an L and has a very small electronics section.
DeleteThe mall has had the same design since the 1986 expansion and they have kept it up really well.
We walked this mall yesterday, and I've been going to it for some time. Let me shed a little more light on things for you.
ReplyDeleteThe Ulta store is brand new. There was once a full service restaurant there, and a part of the food court, which has been half empty as long as I can remember.
The mall used to only run from Sears to JCPenney in a single L shape. The 1986 expansion added the vast majority of the mall, including the food court, Mervyn's (closed 2005) and Dillard's. A theater was removed to expand the mall.
The entrance you mention as Wellan's was actually locally owned Weiss-Goldring, which is now located in the old JCP auto center in the parking lot. Bed, Bath & Beyond moved into their old space. The Wellan's was what is now Slinkee's, and was previously Sam Goody/Stein Mart.
Its last major renovation was 1986. There have been some cosmetic changes (read: paint) since, but that's all. Most of the storefronts are old ones. This was a very heavy locally oriented mall (Wellan's, Weiss-Goldring, Caplan's Men's Wear, etc.), but most of the local retailers are gone in favor of the national ones now.
JCPenney is the most modern store in the mall, having been practially rebuilt after Hurricane Gustav in 2008 ripped the roof off the building. The Sears is a small store, and not very well kept. Burlington took out a couple of Mervyn's walls, but the store is still mostly from that time.
Essentially, this mall is a time warp.
This mall also previously had K&B/Rite Aid (one of the few mall stores that remained after the RA sale), Rex Audio/Video, two Corn Dog 7's and Piccadilly Cafeteria next to Sears. The Sears wing has always been, for lack of a better term, destitute and empty.
Thanks for helping me get the anchor spots corrected, I have made the changes to my above post. The mall looks very nice and they have taken good care of the interior.
DeleteWhere was the K&B located at the mall, was it by the Stage store?
I was at the mall more recently and noticed the Forever 21 store next to the food court is gone. The rest of the mall looked about the same as it did when I took these photos.
Thanks again for your comment.
The K&B was where the Shoe Department Encore is now. It was there for years, so I am not sure why they closed it. Another Rite Aid is still open on the north end of MacArthur Drive.
Deletethe K&B was located where the Shoe Department Encore is now. Not sure why it was removed.
DeleteMost of the mall drug stores were closed to open up locations where a drive thru pharmacy could be built. The pharmacy is where most of these places make their money, so the drive thru is vital to keep locations profitable.
DeleteThe K&B was where Shoe Dept. Encore is now.
ReplyDeleteThanks Scott, it seems like the Shoe Dept. Encore stores are in nearly every small/mid size market mall in Texas and Louisiana now.
DeleteI think this mall had a rather large TG & Y store in it during the early years also.
ReplyDeleteYou should let me know if you ever come to Monroe. I can get you access to something there that you won't see anywhere else.
Thanks jbrockhyde, I keep planning on going down there, but for some reason something keeps happening and I have yet to make it that far into the Northern part of the state. I am really interested in checking out the Northeastern part of the state. I also want to check out the malls in Natchez and Jackson Mississippi one day even though it is technically out of my blog coverage area.
DeleteJbrock - I grew up around Twin City / McMillian malls & would sure be curious to what you refer to here!
DeleteThere used to be a store similar to a Kirkland type store. It was in the section going to Dillard's. It had decorations, picture frames, things like that. Do you remember the name of it?
ReplyDeleteDeck the Walls
DeleteThey had Sears, next to Sears was a Movie Theater and Piccadilly, there was a big tall christmas tree shaped fountain within a big square shaped pool in the middle of the corridor outside of these stores. I also remember there used to be a brick floor in a circular pattern and I think it was a brick style floor throughout the halls. It was very noisy because of all of the echo's from the crowd. Next was Wellan's where Conn's is located now. Weiss and Goldring after that I vaguely remember People's Shoes, Caplan's, JC Penny's, I also remember the sitting areas used to be sunken where you had to climb down a few steps and one had an orange vinyl seating and the other had a yellow vinyl, they also had skylights up above and they were an octagon shape. The hallways were loud with the echos from the noise because of all the hard surfaces. Alot has changed and come and gone over the years. I remember this from the late 70's early 80's from when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to see the mall back in those days. Thanks for sharing your memories of how the mall used to be.
DeleteI vaguely remember the sunken down seating area.. right now I'm trying to figure out where the el chicos was...I just can't remember
ReplyDeleteIf anyone can help out with the location of El Chico, comment below.
DeleteEl Chicos used to be where Sombrero’s is now….next to Chuck E. Cheese. Cucos Mexican Restaurant used to be near the mall.
DeleteI appreciate the clarification Anonymous.
DeleteAnother restaurant in there I've heard was called lions share where you ordered phone by telephone at the table
ReplyDeleteIn 2021 that sounds like such a strange concept, but it is similar to using a computer kiosk in a way. Was Lions Share a full service restaurant or did they just drop off the order and you go get refills.
DeleteI remember that one. I thought the name was The Brittany Lion or something with lion in the name. Fancy-schmancy for a country girl like I was back in the day
DeleteThanks for sharing your memories of the mall.
DeleteI live in Alexandria. It is such a great retro mall, and was even better when it first opened, and was first renovated. If I am not mistaken, the carpet is not original to the 1986 renovation. I think the tile that is in the Sears wing was all over the mall until around 2005, when they added the carpet everywhere else. Alexandria used to have more than one mall, the Macarthur Village Mall, and I forgot the name the other Mall. Those Malls were a lot smaller than this one, but we're great. Macarthur Village was torn down to make way for the different stores of Hastings, now Tuesday Morning, and Staples, now Party City, among other restaurants and stores. The other Mall is acting still there, but not in operation. The main wing that was there was once occupied by offices of Cabrini Hospital, but has since closed. One of the old anchors was turned into a college. The other anchors were not actually connected to the mall from the inside, bit we're there. One was originally a Woolco, turned into Walmart, now Office Depot, Ivan Smith Furniture, and Ashley Furniture. The other one was a Montgomery Ward, now a Citi Trend I think. But, for some reason when the other Malls shut down, the Alexandria Mall did not prosper, bit basically failed. It is still hanging on, but is not successful. Right now, people don't really want to shop in Alexandria, but would rather go to Lafayette, Baton Rouge, or New Orleans. They have been trying to revitalize Downtown for years now, but has not been that successful. Truly sad for the mall, downtown, and generally the whole city. Hopefully one day, it can go back to how it used to be. Truly a great retro mall though.
ReplyDeleteI did not know about the mall where the college and hospital was. It did not sound like it had the size or anchor setup to be successful especially with Alexandria Mall coming into existence. I had heard about the mall where Hastings was, but like you said nothing is left of that mall.
DeleteAlexandria Mall was a pleasant surprise for me. It is one of the largest if not largest small town mall in Louisiana. Even the malls in Lake Charles and Shreveport are smaller in comparison. The layout of the mall makes the mall seem larger as well, which I really enjoy. With that being said, it has to be difficult for mall management to fill spaces. Malls in larger cities are struggling to fill empty spaces, it is not just an Alexandria issue. Alexandria is located in a great spot in central Louisiana, one day the city will get noticed and begin to boom. In my opinion, people are going to migrate out of Texas as the state gets more and more crowded to places East.
I appreciate your comment and giving us a local point of view.
My grandparents lived on the corner of Dorchester and Michiels, and I would spend weeks at a time staying with them when I was a kid. MacArthur Village was almost right across the street and the Metrocenter Mall was a few minutes walk in the other direction. On the opposite side of MacArthur Village was a Kroger which is still there. There was also a Walmart right around the corner. By the time I was around, the Alexandria Mall was the big thing. I don't really remember much about MacArthur Village aside from the Caplans clothing store and the $1 cinema next door. The Metro Mall wasn't very special either. Pretty sure there was a Kay Bee Toys there, a furniture store (Ivan Smith?), and Caplans later moved there. The Alexandria Mall was amazing when I was a kid though. There was a merry-go-round and just about any store you could imagine. We saw The Empire Strikes Back in the movie theater before it was removed. As a kid, Alexandria seemed like a magical, vibrant city. The zoo, the adjacent amusement park, the Alexandria Aces minor league team, Showbiz Pizza, Mid South Wrestling, the only Target that I'd ever seen at the time, etc. Thanks for the memories!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comment and history on the older nearby retail centers in the area. You can tell that the Alexandria Mall was a really great place to be back in the day. It is still one of the largest malls in the State. From what I have read in the reviews, it sounds like the mall is really struggling these days. I guess when you live long enough, you see a lot of things come and go.
DeleteI really need to do an update on this mall. I haven't been back in several years. My new phone camera can do a much better job of documenting the mall. As I get older, I struggle to understand how small city malls in the South like this one struggle. It is the perfect climate-controlled environment with tons of space.