Here is another new mall post. Victoria Mall opened in 1981, covers nearly 700,000 square feet, and is located at one of the busiest intersections in the city. Despite the loss of Sears, The Victoria Mall has well over 95% of the inline stores occupied. The city of Victoria has a population of around 62,500 people with a metro population of 111,000. Many of the big box retailers, chain sit-down restaurants, and the largest cinema in the area are centered around the mall, so this is a busy area. The mall is anchored by 2 Dillard's locations, JCPenney, Bealls, and Best Buy. TJ Maxx and Burke's Outlet are also junior anchors at the mall.
The exterior of the mall is nothing special, but the JCPenney and Dillard's Men's stores have some retro features.
The next two anchor exteriors are a breath of fresh air compared to the boring exterior of the majority of the mall.
The mall is one long corridor. You can see from one side to the other. This is the only Hull mall in Texas, and it looks exactly the same as their other malls in their profile.
Although the carpet feels good to walk on, we all know that it will begin to look terrible in time.
I do have to admit, this hallway does look awesome.
An old school desktop style directory.
Here is the mall map, as you can see it is a straight shot from one end of the mall to the other.
An up-close look at the store list. I did my best not to let the reflection ruin the photo.
The ceilings in this section of the mall look really awesome. I wonder how they looked without the Hull blandness when the mall was new.
They were taking down the Santa display during my visit.
The mall entrance to Bealls looks so plain. I wonder if this store will be converted to Stage in the hear future. Stage stores has been either closing or remodeling Bealls locations.
The Best Buy mall entrance and food court seating. Best Buy covers up this part of the mall so the mall management put up some historical info about the area to break up the monotony.
The Sears closed on January 6, 2019. There is a small food court in this area, but there were people in the way of getting good photos of the restaurants.
After visiting the Sears store, we head back to where we started out. The old school Bath and Body Works storefront is out of place in this modern mall.
Some parts of the mall are fairly dark. It also didn't help that it was gloomy and rainy outside on this brisk, cold January day.
The ceilings in the mall really make an impact in this part of the mall near the 2 Dillard's locations.
Not only is the exterior of the JCPenney old school, so is the mall entrance with the mirrored glass.
The Dillard's Men's Store mall entrance.
More exterior shots of the mall, that JCPenney is very retro.
The Dillard's has the orange painted entrances on a mostly bland building.
As you can see, there is a lot going on at the Victoria Mall.
Victoria is close enough to the Houston area that it's very interesting to take a look at this mall, thanks for the photos. The Sears closure aside, this mall seems to be doing pretty well. While the luxury stores aren't going to be at a mall in a small Texas city, this mall still has a number of popular mall chain stores. The occupancy rate looks pretty solid as well.
ReplyDeleteThe mall does have a bit of a generic look to it, but it looks like a comfortable place to shop. The ceiling has enough interesting things going on to keep things from getting boring. I actually like the carpeted corridors of this mall. I'm sure it's a major hassle to keep clean and it will wear out at some point, but I'm sure it keeps the mall relatively quiet and it's also a bit more comfortable to walk on. I know some mall operators claim that there is a friction with walking on carpet which might make it uncomfortable to walk on, but that's not my personal opinion.
There are some retro features to the mall to go along with a mostly modern look. The mirrored facade JCPenney is certainly one of those. The stripes on the outside of the JCPenney are also a bit interesting. It's funny that this JCP still had their appliances banner up on the outside. I'm sure that has long since been taken down. Perhaps they could have gained some appliance sales with Sears going away from this mall, but Best Buy probably does much better than JCPenney did at selling appliances.
Speaking of which, it's nice having a Best Buy at a mall. Losing Sears will reduce some of the variety of goods sold at this mall, but at least they have interesting electronics at Best Buy.
Hopefully this mall can keep doing well even with the loss of Sears. I'm sure they're hoping JCPenney and Bealls/Stage will stick around. If they do, I reckon this mall can maintain their lease rate.
I would say that the mall is doing very well. The Best Buy is a little bit on the smaller side, but it is a very good anchor to have in a mall. Hull has a standard design in most of their malls so that is why it looks boring to me. I have seen a lot of Hull Malls with an identical design on a lot of YouTube channels.
DeleteIt would be nice if they could expand the mall, but it is surrounded by other businesses or roads so that will not happen. Maybe they can extend the mall into the former Sears and create a true food court. There are only a handful of eateries in the mall so that would help to keep that space from rotting away.
I actually like Hull Property Group. While every mall they own looks the same, at least they give the malls they own renovations which most malls they own don't get a renovation with how low there preforming if owned by other companies. Hull also reopened Richmond Mall in Richmond, Indiana which was hit by a tornado and there were possibility of the mall closure.
ReplyDeleteThey are doing more than most mall owners of lower tier properties to keep the malls going. I just think that malls should have their differences instead of a blanket design like Walmart or Target has.
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