Thursday, September 9, 2021

Cielo Vista Mall El Paso Texas June 2019

Cielo Vista Mall opened in 1974 and has dominated the retail scene in El Paso for many years now. Cielo Vista benefits from proximity to Mexico and the majority of the population of El Paso. This is the premiere shopping mall of the area and there are very few vacancies, if any in 2021. The anchors at the time of this post are Sears, JCPenney, Macy's, Dillard's Men's Store, and Dillard's Women's store. There is also a two-level H&M near Macy's. This is the last mall in Texas that has a full-sized Sears department store. Juarez across the border also has a super nice Sears store to see that store click here. 
The mall is listed at just under 1,250,000 square feet of retail space. The current Macy's started out as a Montgomery Ward which closed and was demolished to build a new Foley's. Foley's was taken over by Macy's. The Dillard's Women's store opened up as a Rhodes and the Dillard's Men's store opened up as a Joskes. The mall has had 2 expansions and 2 renovations over the years. 

As you can see the mall has lots of arches and skylights. There are a variety of skylights throughout the mall. The only thing I didn't like about the mall is the ceiling color throughout most of the mall. The yellowish hue is not very appealing to the eyes. It would be so much better if there was a variety of colors. A sky blue would look so much better than this yellow. 

The JCPenney has the rare red logo.

This court in front of JCPenney can be considered the center court. In both directions, lots of mall corridors can be found.

Heading towards the Macy's.

The ceilings here are really nice this is in front of one of the Dillard's Women's store entrances.

A better view of the front of this store and the nice fountain.



On the way to Sears.


Now for some interior photos of the Sears. As of this post, this is the last full sized Sears department store in the State of Texas. We start on the first floor in the Men's department.




The first floor is all apparel. 


You can see the different ceiling heights. I wonder if this part of the store was part of an expansion.


Now we will explore the second floor.

Everything else is located on the second floor.


The optical center was still open at this point.

The tool department left a lot to be desired. 




These work clothes were covering up this part of the store. The sign had this area as a watch and jewelry repair department.

Still a decent selection in their lawn and garden department. As you may know, 2019 was the last year that Sears was restocking this department.

Still a decent sporting goods department.

Mattresses and appliances stretched out through this part of the store.


Auto Center.

More appliances.

I am pretty sure that this area is the former electronics department.


This area also appears to be part of the former electronics department. The plugs on the wall are pretty much the last evidence of the TV wall.

The look across the store near the 2nd floor mall entrance.



The only parts of the store that were busy were close to the tool department. The rest of the store did not have very many people walking around at all.


The Toy Department at the beginning of the clearance sale. In the beginning of the Summer in 2019, the Toy Department was phased out of Sears stores once again. By the time Fall rolled around, most of the toys were gone.


It was strange to see this generic red tent inside of the store. Most Sears stores had a blue tent with the Sears making moments matter logo.

The outside of Sears.

Across the parking lot sits the Dillard's three-level Women's store/Former Rhodes.

The Tool Territory was looking pretty sad at this point. I wonder how it looks in 2021.

Another view of the massive Dillard's store.

Macy's/Former Foley's in the far view.


Retro neon McDonald's in the food court!

Some views of the directory. This is a very large 2-level mall.


Dillard's Women's store mall entrance with the food court on the way to the store.

More views of the Sears store. The generic 90's era Sears tiles at the entrances just look terrible here.


More views of the mall corridors. 


Macy's mall entrance.

There is a lot of cool detail in this part of the mall. Lots of arches and the skylight.



The other Dillard's Women's store mall entrance with the nice fountain.


More of the JCPenney entrance.

Cool mini retro snack place next to the Dillard's Men's store.

Dillard's Men's store mall entrance.

Food court mall entrance.

Dillard's Men's store/Former Joskes. 
Just to the West of this store in the distance is where the Cielo Vista Walmart is located. Just a few weeks after our visit, a horrendous mass shooting claimed the lives of 23 people and injured another 23 people. Such a senseless and awful crime. My heart goes out to all of the victims and the victims families who were affected by this tragedy.


More posts on the way.



15 comments:

  1. While looking at all the pictures of this mall in your post, I started to get a bit of an Amigoland Mall vibe to this place with some of the Spanish architectural features. I figured it was just a coincidence with both malls being along the Mexico border, but actually both malls were developed by Simon and opened in 1974. With that in mind, I can't help but to wonder if Cielo Vista is really a big brother to Amigoland and if Cielo Vista looked even more similar on the inside as Amigoland at one time.

    I agree with you that there is probably too much yellow on the inside of this mall, but it still has some very nice features that fit in well with the region that this mall is in. It seems like a nice place to shop and I'm sure this mall does tremendous business given all the international shoppers and even the local El Paso shoppers. I've always had a certain level of respect for malls which had both Montgomery Ward and Sears and this mall certainly fits that category.

    Shockingly, this is one of those few malls nationwide where Sears' presence is not in the past tense. It's great to see inside this Sears. There are some aspects of this Sears, like the optical department, which remind me a bit of the old Baybrook Mall Sears. That said, this Sears opened quite a bit after the mall did so it's actually even newer than the Willowbrook Mall Sears. The inventory at this Sears looks pretty decent by Sears 2019 standards. Sears must do good business at this location and so they must have taken it more seriously than other Texas Sears back when there were multiple ones. That might also explain why this Sears is still open. All in all, this Sears is still nothing compared to a modern Mexican Sears, but it looks pretty nice. I wonder what kind of inventory it has these days.

    I saw photos of an Albuquerque Sears, which is probably closed now, and it also had a Watch & Jewelry Repair center in it. I guess that was something Sears had out in West Texas/New Mexico. A lot of retail in places like El Paso have more in common with New Mexico than it does with the rest of Texas. I've found the retail of that area to be interesting so I'm always glad to see more coverage from that area like you were able to provide here.

    With all that's happened here lately, it's kind of hard to believe that terrible El Paso shooting was only two years ago. It seems more in the past than that, but I suppose not. I'm sure it was shocking to hear the news about what happened after you had just visited this place not long before.

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    1. El Paso is one of the few parts of the country with 3 malls and a nearly 500,000 population. I know that one of those 3 malls is not doing well, but it hasn't died and actually continues to replace anchors that have left.

      The Sears store is definitely an outlier these days. I also wonder how the inventory levels are now. I have seen some Kmart stores documented this month where big chunks of the store have been blocked off by shelving. We began seeing that here prior to the final rounds of store closings that took out our remaining Sears stores. I didn't see really anything special at the store that made it stand out. The few remaining stores in the US besides the NYC locations define logic at this point.

      The fact that this mall has continued to thrive despite a nearby Lifestyle Center is good news. I wonder what would replace the Sears if that store closes. There is so much retail in the area already. Maybe it would just be demolished like Memorial City or Prien Lake Mall in Lake Charles.

      We were there just 6 weeks before the shooting at the nearby Walmart. We didn't go to the Walmart, but the whole area around the mall was evacuated from what the news reported.

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  2. I’m surprised that this Sears is surviving the latest rounds of closures.

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    1. It is a very strange outlier store.

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    2. I wonder if this stores distance to the Mexican border has anything to do with it still being open. If so, I wonder if the same is true with US Sears stores on the Canadian border

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    3. Looks like the El Paso store is the only full sized Sears left near an international border in the US. It is weird because of how much nicer the Sears in Juarez is. But the Cielo Vista Mall is a very busy mall. Maybe Sears management is waiting out for a big payday on the property.

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  3. They repainted parts of the mall, now instead of the yellow it’s white

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    1. That is good, thanks for the update. Have there been any changes since the recent shooting inside of the mall?

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  4. The last time I was there the entrance was being gutted

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    1. That sucks to hear, how is the rest of the old structure looking these days?

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    2. Sorry for the late reply, the mall does look the same but instead of yellow, it’s now all white. The main entrance was completely remodeled with the current logo and unfortunately, just a couple days ago McDonald’s was closed. :(

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    3. Looks the same, the only differences are that the mall interior is now just plain white and the main entrance was remodeled with the current logo. Unfortunately McDonald’s closed a couple days ago.

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    4. Thanks for the update. I wonder how business is at the Sears these days.

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  5. Lol I was at Sears as well! Business was decent there was a cashier at the register with some customers there were empty shelves and empty spots around the store but there weren’t any blocked off areas

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    1. Thanks for the update. I read yesterday that another Florida Sears store just up and closed on March 1st. Having a Sears nearby is so rare in 2024. Only 11 Sears stores and 6 Kmart stores are left.

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