Here is a quick update with more photos of this store.
Some shelving has been removed to open up the electronics department. It still appears well stocked unlike some Kmart stores that have downsized the electronics selection and thrown in random items to fill the empty space.
Tons of closeout items from the Brinkmann company
No more music CD's but still a good selection of DVD and Bluray discs.
A somewhat hidden online ordering kiosk in the back of the electronics department.
The lease program is being advertised in several areas of the store.
Kenmore TV advertisement, several Kmart stores put up these signs.
Dollar merchandise display.
Sears appliance and mattress department
Sports gear with new men's clothing signage in the background.
Front of the store clothing departments and registers.
I still have yet to see an active blue light special on my recent visits to Kmart stores.
Bonus photos from the Mandeville La. Kmart electronics/auto department
After another electronics department downsizing, the auto department items were moved in to fill this area. This has got to be the most unusual use of former Kmart electronics space I have seen.
The music CD's were removed from this location as well. The last stores I visited that still had music CD's were the locations being closed last summer.
It is interesting to see a post about a Kmart location that I’ve actually seen in person. Thanks for the post. This is one of the nicer Kmarts I’ve seen even though it’s missing some of the renovations and newer signage that other Kmarts have. Of course, this Kmart being from the 1990s probably helps that compared to more vintage Kmarts.
ReplyDeleteI guess that is all the closeout Brinkmann stuff that we read about earlier. Were they sold just as other items or did they have any special signage around them indicating that the stuff was sold without a warranty or anything? Maybe they put stickers covering up the warranty information on the packages?
It’s a shame that Kmart has given up on music, but at least both locations pictured here have a pretty good selection of movies. The placement of Disney movie furniture in the electronics department in Metairie is probably good placement of non-electronic items in the electronics department. The automotive stuff in the electronics at the Mandeville store, well, perhaps that is another story. Then again, that Castrol motor oil seems to have a coupon on it for a free Bluetooth speaker so at least there is some kind of tie-in there (that’s probably a Castrol promotion instead of a Kmart one though). I wonder if Castrol oil is popular in Louisiana these days since it’s a BP brand. Perhaps Kmart would have been better off putting another brand of oil on the endcap in this location. Then again, enough time may have passed that it's a non-issue now.
Automotive items are one thing that I’m interested in buying and it’s also something that Target is not very strong in (Walmart is a different story). Thus, it might make sense for Kmart to give their decent automotive department a more visible location in the store like the electronics department rather than stuffing it in some back corner as is often the case for discount store automotive departments. Hopefully Kmart finds some success with that department relocation. If nothing else, the typical male shoppers who like electronics and car stuff will know where to head to while the wife does the rest of the shopping or while the kids look at toys in the next department!
Kmart would probably get more online orders through that kiosk if they actually turned the computer on! Anyway, Kmart does seem to be pushing leasing and lay-away heavily these days. It’s probably one of Kmart’s rare areas of strength compared to other retailers. Hopefully they will continue to have some success with those initiatives.
As you probably know by now, one of the biggest Sears and Kmart store closing announcements in a while was made yesterday.
DeleteWe will be losing these stores that I have covered in the next 3 months.
Lufkin Tx. Kmart
Kileen Tx. Kmart
Gonzales La. Kmart
Baton Rouge Sears Cortana Mall
Gretna Sears Oakwood Mall
Kmart New Orleans Cleaview
Macys will also be closing stores in the area.
Pasadena Plaza Paseo
Greenpoint
West Oaks
Beaumont Tx. Parkdale Mall
Kenner La. Esplanade Mall
Southwest Center/ Red Bird Mall Dallas Tx.
Many of these closings are not a surprise but the Oakwood Sears and New Orleans Kmart stores. The Oakwood closing leaves one full service Sears left in the entire metro New Orleans area. The Kmart is a very busy store, but they probably had a good offer to close up and sell. Three of the Macys stores that are closing had shut down the second floor and moved all products tonthe first floor.
Sears also will sell Craftsman to Stanley/ Black and Decker for a much lower price than we initially thought.
Last but not least Six Flags Mall/ Plaza Central Mall demo is very far along. Most of the mall is now gone with only the movie theater standing untouched. Valley View Mall is also in the early stages of demolition, but the mall remains open for now.
The Sears and Macy's news was expected, but sad nonetheless. This region was hit hard with closings. The two closest Kmarts to most (if not all) Houstonians are slated to close. That's very unfortunate. The Cortana Mall Sears closing isn't a surprise given the mall's struggles. New Orleans' shrinking Kmart and Sears presence is also unfortunate.
DeleteThe sale price for Craftsman is low. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought that. Perhaps they're expecting a lot of the royalty part of the deal, but I don't know. Stanley is probably hoping that Sears will go out of business soon so they don't have to pay the royalties.
I can't help but to feel that Sears made a mistake taking this deal. Perhaps Sears' health is worse than we thought if they were forced to take this deal to stay alive. Hopefully Stanley maintains the quality of Craftsman better than they maintained their own brand's products. Stanley was once a respected name, but now they're known for Walmart quality tools. I know Craftsman hasn't been exclusive to Sears/Kmart in recent years, but having Craftsman tools in Lowe's, Home Depot, and/or Walmart will take a big bite out of Sears' tool sales especially if Sears' loses their price advantage on Craftsman tools. Also, I wonder how this will impact Craftsman's warranty situation.
I was fully expecting the Greenspoint Mall and Plaza Paseo Macy's to close. Macy's has been maintaining those locations like they closed 10 years ago. I thought San Jacinto Mall's Macy's had a bigger chance of closing than West Oaks, but it's not a surprise to see that closure either even though that location was maintained better. We'll have to see what these malls do to survive. Plaza Paseo and West Oaks will be hoping that Sears' survives and stays at those malls. Greenspoint unfortunately will now have no traditional anchors left. That could be the final blow to the mall, but we'll see. Triyar is trying to sell Greenspoint, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy the property for retail purposes unless it involves a total redevelopment into a Walmart-led powercenter or something like that. If that did happen, one could say that Greenspoint is once again putting the squeeze on Northline!
Anyway, at least there will be a lot of content to put on the blog in 2017 if you're able to chronicle the last chapter for these Sears, Kmart, and Macy's stores. It'll be sad to see all the closing pictures. Hopefully you'll be able to post some survivors/thrivers as well to balance things out.
The only nearby Kmart is in Lake Charles. Portland is also still open, but it is about 4 hours away. Lake Charles will now be the only Kmart between here and New Orleans. Lake Charles seems to do a decent amount of business since it is practically across the street from the college and the shopping center there stays busy. Like I was saying about Lufkin being the only store for many miles after all of the closings last year, it is surprising that they have that store still there. I will more than likely visit the Lufkin store before it is gone.
DeleteStanley tools will probably lose the lifetime guarantee for the Craftsman brand. I think the deal was very low, but they may have gotten enough to make it through this year. I expect to see more store closings and deals made to sell locations. The Houston area has been fortunate and we have only recently lost the Woodlands Mall and Greenspoint Sears locations. This area may not be so lucky next time around.
West Oaks had been refreshed on the first floor, but the second floor was housewares and a huge furniture clearance department. This will be a huge blow to the mall which has been trying to fill the few remaining store fronts. Greenspoint will still keep going, but they will probably have the stores in that part of the mall move into the middle. The movie theater and the Dillards clearance center will be the only anchors.
I got an e-mail from the Craftsman Club yesterday about the sale. They said that Sears will still be making tool designs for Craftsman that will still be exclusive to Sears/Kmart and it also said something about the lifetime warranty being exclusive to Sears. I’m not sure what that means or if I’m interpreting that correctly. Perhaps non-Sears Craftsman tools will have a different warranty?
DeleteI wonder if there is any possibility that Sears may develop a new in-house tool brand at some point down the road. It would be hard to establish a new brand to compete with established names like Craftsman, but maybe they can do that. Also, I wonder how this impacts things like Craftsman garden power equipment, garage door openers, and clothing line. Will those be sold to Stanley too or just the hand/power tools? I’m not sure, but that might help explain at least part of the low selling price.
The Lufkin and Killeen locations were the closest Kmarts to Houston. The Killeen store was I think closer to some of us in NW Houston than the Lufkin store. Anyway, they are both going away. Hopefully the Lake Charles and Portland/Corpus Christi stores stick around. Maybe you’ll be able to do a blog post on the Portland store one day since it’s the last Texas store in this region even though it’s pretty far.
I’m sure Greenspoint Mall will continue to have the in-line tenants that they have (most of them at least), but it’s hard to see that mall redeveloping significantly in it’s current form. West Oaks Mall had to be feeling good about their chances of keeping Macy’s with some of the minor refreshings the store received recently, but it wasn’t to be. The West Oaks location might have been a good spot for a clearance store, but I’m guessing the store is closing completely instead of sticking around as a clearance store ala Dillard’s.
I am guessing Sears held onto some of the better Craftsman products they sold. Maybe they are keeping the Evolv brand of tools. I guess they will start highlighting their exclusive tools once Stanley starts producing Craftsman tools.
DeleteThe Lake Charles Kmart is a little more than 2 hours away from NE Houston. It is one of the better locations near the college and the fast growing South side of town. It even still stays open until 10pm unless thay changed. Several Kmart stores moved to a 9pm closing time.
Another chain we need to watch is JCPenney, they announced that store closings will happen soon. Most of the weaker mall stores were closed in this area years ago, but you never know.
The West Oaks Macys would have been a good candidate for their new Backstage discount concept. To me it seemed like West Oaks did good business on the first floor, but the second floor seemed empty. Even when they reopened the rest of the second floor, not too many people would go through there.
Some extra news
Rolling Acres Mall is being demolished, there are several drone videos of the demo that are worth checking out. One of the other Akron Malls, Chapell Hill lost Macys, Sears is closing, and the last remaining anchor is JCPenney. It seems like people are giving up on that mall now.
Thanks for the Akron retail update. I have not followed the retail news in Akron lately, but I did spend some time in the city a few years ago so it is interesting to hear the news. Rolling Acres Mall was one of the most famous dead malls so it's a bit sad in a way to see it demolished, but the reality is that it didn't do anyone any good keeping that abandoned building alive. It sounds like Summit Mall may be the only viable mall left in Akron. The closure of the Chapell Hill Mall Sears is big because I think that was the only remaining Sears in Akron. I guess Akron shoppers will have to go to Canton or Cleveland to shop at Sears. I suspect that most shoppers will just find another store to shop at unfortunately.
DeleteIt sounds like West Oaks Mall is due for another downfall after things were looking up for the mall a couple of years ago. The downturn in the oil industry has to be at least a small factor in things. It's kind of hard to believe that Macy's will not have a presence in Katy/West Houston outside of the Beltway given the high number of middle class on up homes in that area, but I guess Macy's didn't feel that West Oaks filled any need they have.
The only Houston mall JCPenney that I see potentially being in trouble is the San Jacinto Mall location. The others will probably be okay, but I'm not sure if any of the newer freestanding locations have any issues. I'd guess that the Meyerland location is doing okay, but it's hard to say.
Speaking of former JCPenney locations, I noticed recently that one of the office buildings on the North Loop near 290 has a new sign on it with what I think is the college that is at Northwest Mall. I don't know if they are relocating out of the mall or that is just an expansion of services at a new campus. It could be bad news for the mall though. There was a double murder at the nightclub at NW Mall in November which certainly isn't helping the image of the mall.
It sounds like the Lake Charles Kmart is primed to stick around, but you never know with Kmarts. There have been stores that seemed like strong performers that ended up closing, but we'll see.
I would not be surprised if Stanley makes all regular Craftsman hand tools Evolv quality (which is Sears' low price line that used to be called Companion) since Stanley lowered the quality of their own tools some years back. Perhaps Sears will keep the Evolv name exclusive to themselves or will bring back the Companion name. I'm not sure, but we'll see how Sears keeps tool shoppers coming back to Sears instead of going to other stores. I'm still not sure if Stanley is getting Craftsman's lawn equipment line and stuff like that.
The retail happenings in the rust belt are fascinating to me. There are so many closed or fading malls that it can keep you busy for a while. Kmart/Sears and Macys has closed a lot of stores in that section of the US as well.
DeleteAnother mall worth checking out is the Bristol Mall in Virginia. The mall recently lost 3 of 4 anchors and now the final anchor Sears is closing. After Sears closes only 6 businesses will be open in a mall with space for between 50-60 stores. The pictures from the mall less than 4 years ago show a nearly full mall so it is a huge turn of events for that mall. The Dan Bell video would be a good place to start.
West Oaks will probably eventually lose Sears as well. It seems like everytime I go back the store looks more and more empty.
The San Jacinto JCPenney has gotten a few updates, but still has mostly the look and feel of a 1980's store. Once the mall comes down it could be an opportunity to move into a new building or expand and modernize the old building. Some of the big box center locations may get the axe. JCPenney has closed most of their weak stores in the area.
I was in Northwest Mall last December. The mall seems to be holding steady, but nothing new has opened. I did not read about the murder, but a lot of these night clubs are very dangerous in the city.
I need to check the list of Kmart stores in Texas, but Louisiana is now down to 4. Lake Charles, Mandeville, Metairie, and Metairie.
Sears already has a limited amount of Stanley tools for a lower price than Craftsman at their stores. I guess it would not be difficult to make some room for Craftsman, but hopefully the quality will not go downhill.
Another Kmart closing of major note (and another Rust Belt closing) is the Garden City, MI, Kmart. That is, of course, the first ever Kmart and probably the oldest discount store in the US. I read some stories about the closing there and the locals aren't surprised about it. It seems that the store has been in poor condition for quite some time. Oh well. I wonder how many (if any) original 1962 Kmarts are still left in operation.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed like the 2002-3 wave of Kmart closings did not hit the Midwest nearly as hard as it hit places like Texas, but the stores have been closing left and right in recent years. I wonder how west coast Sears and Kmarts are doing. Those stores are rarely blogged about or photographed.
It seems like developers like DeBartolo seriously overmalled the Midwest and Rust Belt. A lot of the malls there were dying even in the 1980s. Many of these malls have closed, but some are still barely hanging on. Small town malls across the US are another tremendous source of dead/dying malls. Some of these communities never could support a mall to begin with, but a lot of these malls were done in once a Walmart opened or something like that. Some of these small town malls are the most retro ones around and truly feel like the 1980s or 1970s inside. Ones with Kmarts as anchors must really feel like a timewarp, but it seems like most mall Kmarts have already closed.
I have not seen Dan Bell's video, but I have seen photos of the Bristol Mall. I may have to check out his videos. I like his videos, but it seems like I always forget to check out his channel. It's interesting how quickly a mall can go downhill once an anchor or two leaves.
I last went to West Oaks Mall in September and the A/C either wasn't running or wasn't set very cool in the Sears. It was rather uncomfortable and the organization of the store wasn't quite as good as I remembered seeing it in prior visits. Still, it had some shoppers in it. Then again, so did the Macy's so that does not mean much. The Westwood and West Oaks Sears are the only Sears serving the vast SW side of town (and even then the West Oaks store really isn't totally on the SW side) so it would be a shame to lose that location.
That's good to hear that Northwest Mall was at least holding station in December. The loss of the college, if that is indeed what is happening, might be a big blow though as I'm sure the college provided a decent amount of the mall traffic (and probably a big chunk of the food court traffic). We'll see though, I'm not sure what the deal is with the college.
I noticed that the Almeda Mall Macy's has been closing at 8pm Monday-Wednesday recently. They're open later during the rest of the week. I'm not sure if this will be the new schedule going forward or if this is just something that will be in place during the slow retail period early in the year. We'll see.
I think there were 16 Kmarts in Texas in 2015, but that's probably below 10 now. It might be below 8. Hopefully the ones still left will stick around for a while, but I'm not so sure.
I saw some video of that store from a news source about the closing. That store is in really bad shape and should have probably closed well before 2017.
DeleteKmartworld.com started updating their blog again with some Kmart stores in the Las Vegas area featured. They also have recent pictures of the Sears Grand in Las Vegas. Those Kmarts have a room for slot machines and at least one of those locations sells liquor. The only location that I know sells liquor is the Mandeville La store I covered.
DeBartolo has a very large amount of failed malls in their portfolio. It seems like we are about to have another wave of mall closings with so many anchor losses coming in 2016 and 2017. A few mall Kmart locations were on the 2017 closing list, I wonder how many are left.
Aces Adventures is another good youtuber of dead and dying malls worth checking out. His recent Charlestowne Mall video shows a mall directory with the gumball machine listed as their only food outlet. The Bristol Mall in the Dan Bell video is such a nice looking mall to fall apart so quickly.
West Oaks Mall may eventually need to redevelop and possibly tear down more of the mall structure to remain open. The section of the mall between Macys and the food court is doing well, but that will change once Macys leaves. They may have to cut off the Macys wing and try to consolidate those stores near the food court where the vacancies are. The food court has less than half of the outlets open so there should be plenty of space to move those stores over and close that wing.
I have not read anything else about the Northwest Mall redevelopment. I wonder how long Palais Royal and the Antique store have on their leases. Those would be the only 2 tenants I could see holding up any redevelopment if they were ready to proceeed. The freeway construction in the area should be wrapping up in the next year or so.
The Almeda Macys hour changes are strange. I wonder if it has something to do with store security. That store has really downgraded in the past few years. It reopened nice and new and now the middle of the store is filled with clearance racks. I have not been there in about a year but it was like that on several visits prior to my last visit there. With the upgrades that I saw in the mall, you would think they would have refreshed the store a little and cleaned up some of the clogged areas of the store.
Here are the remaining Texas Kmart locations after the closings take place this Spring. Texas has double the amount of Kmart stores that Louisiana will have at 8. I wonder how many locations were in the state of Texas that closed over the years.
Brownsville
El Paso on Montana Blvd.
El Paso on Zargosa Rd.
El Paso on Sunland Park Rd. (Street name incomplete on kmart.com)
Laredo
McAllen
Portland
Texarkana
All of the remaining stores except Portland and Texarkana are close to the Texas/Mexico border. Texarkana is close enough to the Arkansas and Oklahoma stores to probably stay open. If Kmart pulls the plug on their border locations Portland would probably be gone too. Portland is over 5 hours away from Lake Charles, so it would be out of the way for deliveries if the remaining South Texas Kmarts close.
It is interesting that you mention the Kmart World blog because I had noticed that it was being updated again and I was going to say something about it in my last post, but I forgot to write about it. Hopefully other retail blogs will wake up from their 3-4 year slumbers. Anyway, that Las Vegas Kmart is interesting with the slot machine room. I think I read on the blog that that Kmart is closing though. Oh well, another one bites the dust.
DeleteI had hoped to make a visit to the Garden City, MI, Kmart one day while it was still open, but I guess that won’t be happening. At this point I’ll be lucky to visit any Kmart before they all close it seems. It’s been over 5 years now since I’ve been to a Kmart and I’d like to change that.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see some more of those Texas Kmarts close as their leases come up. It can’t be cheap to operate so few stores spread over such a long distance (though some of those border stores are fairly close together). Perhaps Sears and Kmart use the same distribution network, but I’m not sure.
Wow, that mall with the gumball machine on the directory as being the “food court” must be in even worse shape than the Mall of the Mainland during it’s last days. In fact, listing a vending machine as a store sounds like the kind of ridiculousness that I would have expected from the Mall of the Mainland’s prior operators. It’s too bad that the MotM never had a directory of fake stores.
I’m not familiar with Aces Adventures videos, thanks for the recommendation. I’ve seen a few mall walkthroughs on YouTube over the years by Dan Bell and others, but it’s never something I check out regularly unlike Flickr retail photos and blogs. I should probably check those out often because I’m sure there’s a lot of good stuff on there. Are there any good videos about Houston malls?
I wonder if there has ever been any consideration to convert West Oaks Mall, or at least part of it, into an Asian ethnic mall. It seems like something like that might work with that location and Sears and Palais Royal (and perhaps Dillard’s clearance center) may not have a problem with that. Who knows, but it would be a shame if the mall part closed since it is a nice looking mall inside.
While 290 construction is coming along, there’s still a lot of speculation about what will become of Hempstead Highway. That is probably holding up Northwest Mall’s redevelopment plans more than anything for multiple reasons. I doubt Palais Royal or the antique mall would hold up the plans too significantly, but who knows.
You’re right about the poor way the Almeda Mall is managed. I’ve made a few stops in there over the last 2-3 years and the store (well, the men’s department at least) is always a mess with sizes scattered all over the place even in the regular price departments. The clearance racks are probably what keeps that store going unfortunately. Perhaps the store will be run better after the Plaza Paseo store closes, but I wouldn’t expect that to happen.
The Kmart stores are disappearing at an alarming rate. We have lost so many of the remaining stores as of 2 years ago Texas had 18 and Louisiana had 11. It seems like a lot of photos can be found on Tumblr, Flickr, and other photo sites.
DeleteMall of the Mainland management did not update the directories for a while after Boxer stopped managing the property. I am surprised that they wasted the time updating the directory at the Charlestowne/Quad mall.
There is a video from the Six Flags Mall just before it was torn down, but so far I have not seen any Houston Malls from either youtuber.
West Oaks Mall needs a new plan, the mall seemed to be on the way back but now it seems to be struggling again. Whatever plan they have for the mall it needs to appeal to the neighboring demographics.
What is the plan for Hempstead Highway? Are they going to possibly turn it into a real highway?
There seems to be a few different ideas for Hempstead Highway. It's been a while since I've followed the subject so I'm not sure which plans are most likely to be implemented. One plan has the proposed Houston-Dallas train running along Hempstead Highway. Another plan has a tollroad being built on Hempstead Highway as an alternative to 290 (ala the North Freeway and the Hardy Tollroad). I suppose they may just leave Hempstead the way it is. I think Northwest Mall developers are waiting to see what will happen, if anything, because nobody wants to do anything and then have to give up the property in order to build a rail line/freeway. We’ll see what happens.
DeleteWest Oaks Mall always seems to vacillate between being on the upswing and being on the verge of being a dead mall. It seems to vacillate more than other malls I’ve seen/heard about. I think the loss of another major anchor will keep it closer to being a dying mall now though even if the oil economy rebounds on the west side of Houston. There have been legitimate efforts to revive the mall over the years, but they always seem to fall apart. Perhaps the only answer now is to turn it into some sort of ethnic mall or something like that so the property is put to good use. Oddly enough, the powercenter shopping center across Westheimer from the mall always seems to be doing well when I visit the area, but the mall itself tends to struggle.
I suppose mall management at some dying malls have a lot of time on their hands to update their directories! Who knows. It’s interesting how some dying malls, even if they only have 1-2 stores left, are maintained fairly well. Other malls, OTOH, are left to fall apart.
For now I guess we will continue to see Northwest Mall operate as is. The mall is on a good piece of property, but if they take more land away it will be tougher to redevelop.
DeleteThis will be the 3rd major anchor the mall has lost and with no entrances next to Macys that corridor will likely die out. Maybe they can also add a hotel to the Macys site once the store closes.
I wonder if the mall managers at the dead malls also have to clean and perform maintenance tasks. There are a lot of malls that are now dying that were healthy not too long ago. I have been watching some Youtube videos from a lot of dead malls I have never heard of before.
I think both Northwest and West Oaks Malls have good property for a hotel. The NW Mall area could probably support a bigger hotel than the West Oaks one, but something like a Hampton Inn makes sense for the property since there is a lot of business operations in the area. The NW Mall property, assuming it isn’t turned into a freeway or rail line, would also make for great land for an office complex.
DeleteThe Macy’s wing at West Oaks Mall will likely suffer as you say. It’ll be interesting to see how the mall reacts to the situation. Perhaps they could try to convert the Macy’s into a convention hall or something like that (maybe a wedding hall ala the Spring Deauville Fashion Mall). We’ll see, but the mall is certainly going to be in bad shape with Macy’s leaving. Plaza Paseo can probably survive the loss of Macy’s better than West Oaks can since Sears seems to be the hot spot at that mall anyway. Then again, Plaza Paseo and West Oaks both have to be very worried about the health of Sears and whether they’ll stick around or not.
Have you been able to visit any of the closing Macy's yet? If so, how are the closing sales going?
There’s so many small town/small city dying malls that don’t get much attention. Some of these are very interesting looking inside. Of course, there are bigger city malls that are interesting as well. I’m glad someone is taking the time to chronicle these malls because it is an interesting subject.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there are some mall managers who take on all tasks. In most cases, however, it seems like the malls maintain a small maintenance staff or outsource the work. It was interesting to see a cleaning crew (well, one person at least) cleaning the Mall of the Mainland corridors up until the last day.
Both of those properties have potential but Northwest has the best chance of being redeveloped fully.
DeleteI went to Plaza Paseo Macy's, the discounts are mostly 30% but they are up to 40% off. Plaza Paseo was very quiet on my visit except for the Sears and Macy's. There are a small handful of new stores but mostly everything open is near Sears and the food court. Ventech finally has a sign on the outside of the building. To me the mall looks like it is in trouble. Zales which is right across from Macy's will probably leave when Macy's closes. I will probably visit the rest of the Macy's stores at least once before they close.
There are a few small town malls within a few hours of this area that I would like to visit someday. It is hard to find some of them since they don't have websites. Most of the small town malls I have visited I came across while driving over the years. A vast majority of them in towns of 40,000 or less people are not doing well, but a few of them are like the Lufkin Mall.
I did not even think about outsourcing the cleaning duties at some of these properties. It makes sense, they probably have the cleaning crew come in at a certain time to clean.