Macy's Plaza Paseo Mall Pasadena Texas. Opened August 1962 as a Foley's department store, this store was another casualty of the Federated Department stores 2005 merger with May Department stores. This store was closed on March 26, 2017 along with numerous other Macy's, and coincidentally Sears/ Kmart stores. This store still retained many vintage elements of the past including the Foleys 'F' door handles on the exterior doors. The timing of the store closing was similar to what happened at the former Sharpstown Mall store. Once the mall was renamed with a focus on Latino and Hispanic customers, Macy's announced shortly later they were leaving each of those malls.
A few years prior to the closing, the second floor merchandise was moved to the first floor and the second floor was closed off to the public. Not much was left on the second floor as most of the space had been converted into a furniture clearance center.
Mall entrance
The arches to the store were recently painted when the mall became Plaza Paseo Mall.
Now we venture into the store. We start in the section that absorbed the bedding, home goods, and furniture previously sold on the second level. The Kids clothing was previously located here and moved next to the Women's clothing across the store.
As you can see, this part of the store looks fresh and almost new. The rest of the store looks worn and tired as you will see. When the second floor was closed off, this part of the store was remodeled.
Now we move into the rest of the store. Women's and Children's clothing.
As you can see the floors are older and worn with old carpet.
The hallway to the second floor elevator, I was not brave enough to try and get up there sorry.
Behind where the two mannequins are located is where the escalators to the second floor have been covered up.
Cosmetics and jewelry in this area. There was also a mini Finish Line shoe store (not pictured)
At least 50% of the store was merchandised with Women's clothing. Men's and Children's clothing departments were very small in comparison to other Macy's stores.
Walking back towards the mall entrance and Men's department.
Looking towards the Men's Department close to the mall entrance.
I like the wood panel design here, right by the side exit doors.
The day after closing, the store was open just for fixture pickups.
Here are a couple of photos from the mall entrance that was open one last time.
The signs were removed shortly after these photos were taken.
Thanks for chronicling this store. While the photos show some of the retroness of this store (especially the last few photos), it felt even more retro in person. Walking around this store felt like walking around in the 1970s-1980s. The feeling was aided by the store playing 1980s music in the background during one of my visits to the store around 2015 or so.
ReplyDeleteThe upstairs part of this store was in really sad shape before it closed. The ceiling tiles were severely water stained. It wasn't just a few tiles, it was almost the whole ceiling. The furniture department got a serious upgrade in the looks department when it moved downstairs, but that didn't last long before the whole store closed.
I saw that retro speaker wallpaper at the Willowbrook Mall Macy's Mens & Furniture store. It really caught my attention! I'm glad to see that it was used at the Plaza Paseo store as well. The retroness of it was actually more fitting at the Pasadena store.
One could tell that the store came before the mall was designed due to the odd layout near the mall entrance. Instead of having a somewhat grand entrance like many Macy's do, this store opened up into clothing departments with narrow and somewhat unwelcoming pathways. Then again, the Almeda Mall Macy's doesn't have much of a grand entrance anymore either (it used to before Hurricane Ike) and that store was designed to be a mall store.
We've lost many of the older and sparsely renovated Macy's stores in Houston in recent years. The San Jacinto Mall Macy's might be the last retro-looking Macy's left in town, but who knows how much longer that store will last.
One thing about this store is that it never felt very busy during my visits. OTOH, the Plaza Paseo Sears felt busier and is nicer looking on the inside (granted, it is much newer as well). Given that, I'm not surprised to see the Sears outlive the Macy's here. Plaza Paseo is in the unfortunate position of having to rely on Sears now to drive traffic to the mall, but that Sears seemingly does pretty well. I hope things work out for the mall and the Sears there. I'm not sure if the Macy's will be redeveloped into anything given that the building probably needs a lot of maintenance work, but perhaps it'll get converted into a mercado or something.
This store was probably the most retro of the Macy's stores in the area when it closed. San Jacinto Mall is not as old as this store was, and the newly added furniture clearance center has disrupted the flow of the store.
DeleteMacy's has basically eliminated any store in our area that needs more than just a small touchup to bring the store up to modern standards. The San Jacinto Mall store still has good traffic on the first floor, but the second floor can be eerily quiet.