This is the largest mall ever covered on the blog. Four hours was all we had to explore this huge property, so I did my best to get as much as I could photographed. The mall was bustling with shoppers, employees, and security guards. If I ever travel to this area again, this will be a must stop for the trip. The mall property is listed as 562,501.31 m2 or slightly over 6 million square feet, and opened in 1993. Compare this mall with the Houston Galleria that is listed as 3 million square feet total. The official anchors are listed as Casa Palacio, Liverpool, El Palacio de Hierro, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Sears. There are over 500 stores, restaurants, and services in the mall. Santa Fe is a suburban area of Mexico City less than 10 miles away from the city center. The area also has multiple skyscrapers and has a very interesting backstory that you can read at this link. So as you may have guessed, this mall is expensive, and you are right. There are a lot of deals to be found though if you stay away from the luxury department stores.
El Palacio De Hierro just by itself is a massive anchor that is 5 levels of luxury shopping and dining. 380,000 square feet after a 5th floor expansion was completed in 2018. Click here for more information about the store.
Tons of anchor spaces here. H&M is 3 floors here at the mall so it would qualify as an anchor space here.0
Here is the mall entrance of El Palacio de Hierro.0
A look into the mall corridor as we start the journey.
This side of the mall is three floors. The new addition of the mall is six floors!
Saks Fifth Avenue opened in November 2007 through a deal with Grupo Sanborns.
We continue through the mall concourse.
This is a well designed skylight in the H&M court.
Three story H&M
Sanborns has a small presence here on one level in comparison to the rest of the anchors.
Radio Shack!!
A really nice Liverpool is another three level anchor.
More of the mall, continuing past Liverpool.
A peek at the exterior of the Liverpool anchor.
This court is where the mall used to end. Now it continues past the elevators to the right and to Sears and much more.
So here is where the mall expands into six floors. Bottom level is an ice skating rink that goes under Sears. Levels above have Sears on 2,3,4 and Casa Palacio on 5&6. The bottom 4 levels are mostly separate from the upper 2 levels. The upper levels are very quiet in comparison to the rest of the mall.
This newer section of the mall opened in 2013.
Sears
The Sears court features some big names such as Best Buy, Chili's, and Forever 21.
A look at the three levels of Sears with a sliver of the ice rink below the store.
This was a perfect shot of brands that have nearly disappeared from the United States in 2020. Sears, Pier 1 Imports, and Radio Shack. As you may have guessed, all three of the brands are doing well in Mexico.
Let's visit the inside of Sears.
Sears in Mexico is always a treat, this is the newest Sears store I visited during my time in the country.
The department directory.
I will let the photos of the store speak for themselves. All I can say is wow, I couldn't believe I was inside of a Sears store.
The candy counter sitting there to lure shoppers in from the mall corridor.
A better photo of the Sears and ice skating rink. The upper levels are just above the ceiling.
Best Buy and some shots of the video game department. Electronics and video games seem to be priced 10-20% more or higher in Mexico.
Now for more views of the mall.
The mall directory. It had a huge reflection no matter what angle I tried to take photo from.
Selecto Chedraui a gourmet supermarket.
This area of the mall on the second and third levels is another area with a lot of restaurants.
This is probably the best photo I could get of all 6 levels together. Only in this small area you can see all levels clearly.
The quiet upper floors above the Sears. Casa Palacio is the anchor store here. I was not able to make it in here with the limited time we had, here is a link to the interior of the store. Apple and several other retailers are located up here as well.
Almost another view of the six floors all together. The floor I was standing on did not make the photo.
Yet another view of the six floors together.
The best I could do from the ground level to show all six floors.
Enough already with the six floors together photos you say. Ok well here is the Sears again with the ice skating rink front and center. I would have loved to ice skate under Sears, but tick, tick. Time was running out fast.
Let's continue on.
And take an elevator ride.
After a walk, here is another shot of the Liverpool.
More views of the mall as we head back to where we entered.
Food court
More of the skylight and court in front of H & M.
Saks Fifth Avenue.
Here is where the mall gets quiet again. The third floor corridor from H & M to El Palacio de Hierro was struggling a little bit.
Now we will take a walk through El Palacio de Hierro.
I did my best to take photos of the store, security and employees were all over the place.
The store is set up with mini stores within the store. Some general areas of electronics are featured as well, but there were rooms for Microsoft, Sony, LG, and many others. The same setup is also used for apparel and a few other departments.
A part of the store that was closed off for renovation.
Skylight in the center of the store.
Candy counter on the fifth floor.
Here we are entering the food court area of the store. Or should we be fancy and say food hall?
The fake skylights are a nice touch in this area of the store.
More of the center area of the store.
Heading back to the mall, we can see a little bit of the apparel offerings.
Mixup, a cool mini electronics store similar to FYE.
Last stop Sanborns.
A couple of photos that got mixed up. Liverpool with an attached Krispy Kreme. There is another Krispy Kreme in the mall also.
A look at the mall corridors in the original three level section of the mall.
More blog posts on the way, stay tuned!
This is a very impressive mall with even more impressive anchors, thanks for the photos. These Mexican malls are always a revelation. The mall itself looks like a luxury mall like The Galleria, but bigger. It's kind of interesting that the ice rink has markings for hockey on it since one does not really think of Mexico when they think of ice hockey! I wonder if they play organized games of hockey on that ice.
ReplyDeleteThe Sears here is very nice just as we've seen at other Sears Mexico stores. It's hard to believe that these stores have the same name as the Sears stores we have! Not only do the stores look much nicer, but the products look nicer as well. That's some very nice furniture that Sears sells there. It's a lot nicer looking than the furniture Sears has sold in recent times.
The Sanborns here looks maybe even a little nicer than some other Sanborns we've seen. That's a great electronics department and it's nice to see their pharmacy as well especially since Walgreens owned Sanborns for many decades. That's a very nice looking pharmacy. It would be nice to have department stores with pharmacies again. I'd even settle for mall Walgreens and CVS stores, but I don't think we're going to get those again.
A department store with a Krispy Kreme store is a bit odd I must admit, lol.
It's great seeing a RadioShack store like that which is still operating. I was just thinking the other day how nice it would be to have a RadioShack store around here, but I suppose they don't have to worry about that in Mexico! It's also funny that the TV in the RadioShack is showing 1980s-90s music. Maybe RadioShack there is also a bit stuck in the past like what alleged about our RadioShack stores, lol.
That Mixup seems quite a bit nicer than a modern FYE store. It looks like they have a better selection of music and videos than a modern FYE. Those are some great classical music LPs they have in stock as well. I doubt those would be easy to find at a US B&M store. Maybe Barnes & Noble would have some of those, but I'm not sure.
At least the front of the Best Buy looks more like a mall department store than what our Best Buys look like. I wonder if the rest of the store is formatted that way.
I could be wrong about this, but I believe Chedraui is the company that owns Fiesta these days. I like the idea of having a gourmet supermarket at the mall. A regular supermarket would be nice as well and I know a lot of Mexican malls do have those as well. But, yeah, a gourmet supermarket is a nice touch at a luxury mall like this.
I've saved the most spectacular thing for last and that's obviously the El Palacio de Hierro. Wow, that's a nice store. In some ways, since all the other department stores look nice, it takes a bit of the specialness away from El Palacio, but it still looks spectacular. I like how the mall entrance kind of has two different fronts to it. It's amazing to see an electronics department look like something for fine jewelry or something. I can see what you're saying about employees being all over the place, it almost seems that some of them are smiling for your camera, lol.
That dining area is really something. That's nicer than some fine restaurants I've seen here in the US. I can only imagine how much the food must cost!
So, yeah, those who have money to spend in Mexico have some very nice places for them to spend it! It's really impressive what they have, but it's also rather embarrassing that we don't have mid-level retail that's nearly as nice as a Sears or Sanborns. I know we've said that before, but I'm reminded of that each time I look at photos of Mexican retail!
I really wish I had more time and there was less security walking around this mall. I missed most of the second floor of the mall because of time constraints, but in hindsight we could have probably walked around for a while after the mall closed. Sit down restaurants, entertainment, and movie options were still open in various parts of the mall. I also did not make it into Saks and only saw a small section of Liverpool. I was surprised to see that Krispy Kreme because I had just picked up some Krispy Kreme from the other store not too far away in the mall.
DeleteWe actually found this mall by luck. We spent the afternoon at the nearby Parque la Mexicana which is amazing by the way. So after our trip to the park, we wanted to eat at a sitdown restaurant in air conditioning. A search of nearby restaurants led us to the mall, so we walked over to check it out. I didn't realize how large the mall was until we checked out the directory. Unfortunately the restaurant we went to had terrible service, but the sights and sounds of the mall more than made up for the crappy restaurant experience.
One thing that makes the mall work well is that there are a lot of parking garages. The Casa Palacio, Chedrau, and Market/deli department of El Palacio de Hierro are on the upper levels of the mall.
If we ever go back to Mexico City, we will definitely go back to this mall to spend the day. It is an overwhelming experience. You need to bring a heavy wallet to afford a lot of the places there.
El Palacio de Hierro had so much to see, the mini stores, and numerous departments. There were just so many employees and security walking around that it made newrly every part of the store except for the 5th floor very difficult to photograph. The last thing I wanted to do was get kicked out of a mall in a foreign country.
Sears was very much like any Sears I visited in Mexico City. The quality of items available were slightly more upscale than in Juarez. Sanborns was nice as well, but it seems so small in comparison to what the mall has to offer.
The Mixup, Best Buy, and Radio Shack stores bring a great electronics selection to an already great mall. Sears, Sanborns, El Palacio de Hierro, and Liverpool all have electronics departments as well.
That photo with Sears, RadioShack, and Pier 1 is great! The rest of the mall is very amazing, too...
ReplyDeleteThis whole mall was amazing. It is a shame that the original United States versions of these companies has been unable to succeed. One of these days you should check this mall out.
DeleteThe Staples store on FM 1960 and HWY 290 closed permanently.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update. Staples has been quietly closing a lot of stores in the Houston area.
DeleteYes, I noticed this as well. It probably closed some time ago, but I just recently noticed it. The street sign is still up, but the store, which is not that visible from the road, is clearly closed. I think Staples is down to maybe 4-5 stores in all of Houston. It wouldn't surprise me if they pull out completely here soon as perhaps some leases come up for renewal.
DeleteRetail Retell and I were talking about office stores in his area and Staples did not do well their either. It seems that in large portions of the south, Staples has failed to compete with Office Depot/OfficeMax who had a bit of a head start in this area.
Staples never really expanded throughout Houston as they had done in many other parts of the US. I visited the North Oaks store several years ago, it did not stand out enough for it to be worth traveling for.
DeleteWhen Staples first came into Houston, I shopped there more than a few times. In some ways, their prices and stores were a bit nicer than Office Depot and OfficeMax. However, OD and OM had a long history in Houston by the time Staples got here and also OD and OM seemed to have more locations and better locations than Staples did here in Houston even after the thinning of OD/OM stores after their merger. Staples probably needed to expand a bit more in Houston, but as you say, they more or less came here and then didn't do much to expand their presence.
DeleteAt least a year or two before the North Oaks Staples closed, that location was closing quite early on Saturdays. They were closing at something like 6 or 7pm. The FM 1960 & 290 Staples location had more normal hours. Also, the Office Depot across from North Oaks, which is a very early Office Depot location, kept normal hours. Thus, I'm sure a lot of potential Staples customers ended up going to Office Depot instead. North Oaks stays quite busy even late due to the theater and Half Price Books having long hours, at least before the pandemic, so that made Staples closing early all the more puzzling. I can't say I was surprised when that location closed.
Staples had some good discounts for businesses buying in bulk. A lot of the companies I worked for in the late 90's and early 2000's ordered from them, but at that point I didn't know they had retail stores.
DeleteI wonder why that location started closing early. Isn't there an Office Depot right across the street from North Oaks?
I am guessing the 290 and FM 1960/Hwy 6 overpass construction probably helped cause the demise of that other location.
Office stores just don't have much of a future without a major change to the business model. With so many school and offices doing more and more online, many of their products are obsolete. Competition is beating them on prices as well. Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and Amazon all have better prices and carry a lot of the computers or office supplies that the office stores have. Copies and printing services are becoming obsolete as more and more documents can be found and shared online. It is really a losing battle for the office chains.
Office Depot is indeed across the street from North Oaks. That is a very old location. It must have been a very early Office Depot location because I'm thinking it opened in the late 1980s/very early 1990s. At least that location kept normal hours. I'm sure a lot of potential Staples customers ended up going to Office Depot when Staples closed early on Saturdays.
DeleteThe construction at the FM 1960/Hwy. 6 intersection surely did hurt business for Staples. The part of Hwy. 6 coming from Copperfield and such has been blocked off for months now and has only re-opened in the last week or so. On top of that, the overpass will now let the majority of traffic in that area to bypass the Staples shopping center. That won't be good news for the businesses there, but I think the Staples there was going to close anyway given their quiet store closings in Houston.
You're right that office stores really don't have a huge market. They probably got some extra business this year from people needing work/study from home supplies and also businesses needing to order sanitation supplies. However, I'm not sure if that boost will last forever and the end result of all the changes in work patterns might end up being a negative for them soon. You're also right that stores like Walmart have most of the things that office stores have, but at better prices. FedEx type stores can also do the services that office stores have if people still need them. In that regard, I feel like Office Depot does have some locations which are at least a bit distant from the nearest Walmart/Target stores so they probably do pick up some convenience sales from people who just want to make a quick stop at a store nearby to their homes or offices.
The organization I work for has an office supplies contract with OfficeMax/Office Depot. Since we do so much business with them, we get special pricing and they also deliver a lot of our supplies to us on their own trucks instead of using UPS or something like that. The organization I worked for previously had a contract with Corporate Express. At some point while I worked there, Staples bought out Corporate Express, but I think the catalogs we ordered from were still Corporate Express ones and not Staples ones. That may have changed though. This was quite some time ago at this point.
Office Depot got their moneys worth at that North Oaks location. Most of their competitors are far enough away that the store will still remain viable for years to come. FM 1960 still has a lot of small office towers and medical facilities that probably provide a steady stream of customers to that location.
DeleteI think we will see a similar drop in quality with the shopping centers on 290 and FM 1960/Hwy 6 that we saw on 45 and FM 1960 when they built the bypass there. Taking away a huge chunk of traffic flow will only hurt the businesses there. I can see the Academy moving to a different location in the future.
The business model for the office stores has probably changed dramatically with a lot of people working from home now. I wonder if those company discounts would still apply to employees working at home? Or would companies have to order supplies and then ship them out to continue to take advantage of the discounts.
On the topic of the North Oaks Office Depot, I was recently had the need to shop at an Office Depot for printer ink since my last reply and I was in the North Oaks area since I was doing my Thanksgiving shopping at the nearby Randall's since Randall's had some good sales prices. Thus, I stopped at the North Oaks area Office Depot.
DeleteI'm pleased to report that the store has been remodeled since my last visit to it around early 2019 or so. These days, store remodels are not always upgrades, but this update was a nice upgrade. The old, worn white vinyl tiles which probably dated to the 1980s were replaced with grey carpeting that looks like the kind of carpeting you'd see at an office or school building. It looks nice and very fitting at an office supply store. It's much nicer than white tiles and especially concrete. Also, the products were reorganized a bit and I think it's for the better. Sometimes it's still harder to find things at Office Depot than it should be given the small size of the store and relatively open design. But, yeah, the store did look nice inside and there were a few customers in the store so they're probably taking advantage of all of the businesses on FM 1960 as you say.
There's also a new Whataburger which opened next to that Office Depot. Just between that intersection and the area near the other end of North Oaks where the Drug Emporium was, there is a Burger King, Whataburger, McDonald's, and Wendy's. Burger lovers certainly have their choice if they are near North Oaks, lol.
I know that the organization I work for offered to buy me supplies from Office Depot via the discount if I needed anything for work from home purposes, but I have not really needed anything so I'm not sure if it would have been shipped directly to me or if I would have needed to pick it up from shipping & receiving at work.
You're probably right about the shopping centers on FM 1960 & 290. That bypass is really causing customers to just drive on past that area. The bypass just recently opened, but I have not been on it. It's so high that I doubt drivers can even see the stores if they're on the bypass. I think the FM 1960 bypass near Willowbrook Mall caused Kmart problems when they were at that intersection. Of course, that shopping center still does okay, but probably more people bypass the bypass near the mall so they can go to the mall and nearby stores.
It'll be interesting to see if that Academy survives. Academy already abandoned one store in that area years ago before returning many years later. Maybe they'll leave again, but maybe they get more of their traffic from 290 than FM 1960. It's hard to say. Although that Academy is the closest one to me, I usually shop at the one across from Willowbrook Mall at The Commons shopping center since that's usually where I'm at when I want to shop.
I wonder if the remodel is the same as the one Office Depot location in Humble that flooded during Harvey. That location has grey carpet with big bold signage in each department.
DeleteWhataburger is certainly imposing their brand against a tough line of competition at that intersection. Usually that many burger chains all together is reserved for freeway exits.
Hopefully the company discount doesn't just cover shipping charges. The company discounts are always hit or miss. Some really good deals can be had or you just get a measly 10% off. Sometimes the 10% is not even eligible to be used on a sale item.
I hope that the bypass intersection has u-turn lanes to help drivers get around better. If not, people will just drive past Academy and not bother to turn around. I think that is what helps the Willowbrook area stay vibrant, the u-turns. Academy management will still want a location near that intersection, but probably they will eventually move down FM 1960 towards the Walmart or Kroger if space becomes available. Any further moves on FM 1960 will put them too close to the Willowbrook location, but they don't want to go too far towards Copperfield either.
Office Depot might have used the same interior style in the Humble store as they did with the North Oaks area store. That sounds pretty similar to what I saw. I was poking around on Google Streetview and I noticed that they drove by that Office Depot in March 2020 and it had a sign in front of the parking lot telling people to visit the newly remodeled store. Thus, I'm guessing the remodeling of the North Oaks store was probably done in very early 2020. At that point, construction had not even started yet on the Whataburger as far as I can tell.
DeleteYou're right, it's rare to see that many burger joints so close together in an area which does not have a major mall or freeway. Granted, that area does have a lot of traffic. There's other fast food in that area as well so there are certainly a lot of options. But, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the burger places closes due to all the competition and I doubt it'll be McDonald's or Whataburger. Even Burger King closing seems unlikely so that means it would probably have to be Wendy's. That's a very old Wendy's location, but it was recently renovated like a lot of older Wendy's.
Our secretary does all our ordering for us so it's hard for me to know just how different the business accounts page is from the normal one, but I did see the OfficeMax page that the secretaries use a few years ago and it's different than the main OfficeMax/Office Depot page. Of course, this was a few years ago (though after the OM/OD merger) so maybe things have changed. My understanding is that OfficeMax has major discounts for us on certain items, like Boise brand paper, but less of a discount on other items/brands. Thus, most of the departments end up ordering the same pens, paper, and such even if different people do the ordering because some items are discounted more than others.
Even before construction started, it was quite difficult to turn left from FM 1960 westbound into that Staples/Academy shopping center. With the bypass, I don't think it's even possible at all to turn left from the westbound side of FM 1960. Given that, someone would have to turn left under the bypass on the little street where the Burger King is (I think it's Wortham Blvd. or something like that), turn right on the road that leads to the Nissan dealership and Luby's towards 290, and then enter the shopping center from there. That's fine for people like me who know that backwards way of getting to it, but otherwise people will have to go past 290 and U-turn.
When the bypass opened, they also built a curb in the middle lane and so there is no longer a middle lane up until N. Eldridge. If someone takes the bypass eastward on FM1960, they'd have to U-turn at N. Eldridge and then either take the back way that I mentioned above or U-turn at some point past 290. That's a hassle! I'm sure the situation is not much better on the westbound side as well.
Putting the Academy near the Walmart/Kroger at N. Eldridge would make sense, but there just isn't room for another large retailer there as far as I can tell. So, yeah, I'm not sure what Academy is going to do. The old Gander Mountain across 290, which has similar access and visibility problems, is still empty. I heard a long time ago that someone was wanting to put a children's play center, I suppose one of those trampoline things, in there, but I don't know what happened to that plan. I'm guessing the pandemic didn't help.
The office retailers are in such a tough spot right now, I am surprised that store remodels are still being done.
DeleteI still can't get over the fact that 2 Office Depot stores are within a mile of each other in Humble. With the company struggling, I would have thought the older store would have been gone long ago.
I am guessing the new In and Out Burger also draws customers from the North Oaks area.
It is a tricky situation that those retailers are in at the 290 and FM 1960 intersection. A gas station can still do well with access from only a couple directions, but a shopping center will struggle.
The former Gander Mountain in Spring has reopened as an Outdoor World, but that is a much better location. The sporting goods selection has been cut in half to make way for RV displays. They do still have a nice selection despite the smaller footprint.
I wonder why the last Houston Sears closing isn’t in the news?
ReplyDeleteMany journalists would be surprised to hear that a Sears store still exists, lol.
DeleteI think when the Main Street Sears was closing, it appeared on the news. I personally think the final Houston Sears closing is newsworthy.
DeleteYeah I hear ya. The Google reviews are well ahead of the media on this story. Even the Pasadena Citizen has missed this story so far. I posted my review and some photos of the store the day before the closing sale began. They were beginning to put the signs up for the closing sale, but the sale actually started the next day.
DeleteAnd of course I forget to mention that the Sears Layoffs site, was the first to break the news of the closing.
DeleteI wonder how someone can bring attention to the Pasadena Sears closing so the news organizations can pick the story up.
DeleteBecause I feel like the Pasadena Sears store needs proper coverage, since it’s the last Sears store in Houston.
DeleteYou can try to email the Houston Chronicle. There are a few writers that have recently covered retail such as Marcy de Luna. The past few Google reviews also mention that the store is closing with photos.
DeleteSears was on the news on KPRC-2 Houston recently, but I can’t remember what they were on the news for.
DeleteMaybe this was the story you saw, thanks for commenting, this seems to be the way they operate these days. As much as I hate to say it, don't buy anything large from Sears. https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/12/14/sears-stalls-months-replacing-womans-leaky-fridge-under-warranty/
DeleteOh yeah, this is the news story. Thanks for finding it.
DeleteI think that the Burlington on Buisness Center Drive and Broadway Street near Pearland was a former Venture turned into a Kmart because I saw a dropped ceiling inside the Burlington on Google Maps.
ReplyDeleteI am not too familiar with the Pearland area. Maybe one of the blog readers can help with the history on the building.
DeleteI am not too familiar with Pearland either. Having said that, I'd be a surprised if that was ever a Venture and/or Kmart. Kmart had a Super Kmart in Pearland so I don't think they would have been interested in any Venture locations in that area and I don't see Pearland on Houston Historic Retail's list of Houston area Venture stores.
DeleteI believe the former Pearland Super Kmart that is now Walmart (Walmart tore down the old Super Kmart) has an ex-Walmart across the street which is now a school. It still looks like a Walmart. There's an old Safeway down the street that still looks like an old Safeway (many of those 1970s-very early 1980s Safeways still retain their Safeway look even decades after being repurposed), but has been converted into a Big Lots and Office Depot. Next to the Safeway was an Eckerd that has been turned into a Dollar General. I suppose none of this is all that interesting, lol, but those old Safeways had a very unique style to them with the columns and Spanish tile facade.
Those old Safeways must have been very expensive to renovate fully because so many of them exist in the area.
Delete