Saturday, March 28, 2020

Bassett Place Mall June 2019 El Paso, Texas

Here is an interesting mall located near Downtown El Paso. Built in 1962 and enclosed in 1974, Bassett Place Mall has weathered many anchor changes and remains a popular shopping destination.  The mall is centrally located and a healthy distance away from the Cielo Vista and Sunland Park Malls. The mall is decently sized at just over 700,000 square feet of retail space, and has received several additions and modifications over the years to bring us to the present.

The anchors of the mall are Target (formerly White House Department Store, demolished in the early 90's), Costco (formerly Popular Dry Goods and Dillard's, demolished in the early 2000's for Costco), Kohl's (formerly Mervyn's closed in 2008), Premiere Cinema 17 IMAX (formerly S.S. Kresge/Bassett Cinema Six). Junior anchors are Dave and Busters and Conn's.

As you can see from the mall directory, there are not a lot of inline store spaces. There are just enough to keep the inside of the mall viable. The mall has a great variety of shopping and entertainment options. 

Here is a very in-depth blog post that helped me compile the information for my post. There is a lot more mall history listed on the link below, check it out.

Target opened as a Target Greatland after replacing a White House Department store. Target has 2 entrances inside of the mall. This is the entrance on the West side of the mall.

Here is the mall corridor just past the above Target entrance.

The courtyard in front of the second Target entrance has a lot of sunlight and an interesting design.




Just about every inline space is filled in this mall.

The food court is to the left and Conn's to the right, more on this section of the mall later.

This is the former entrance to Dillard's. Costco is now on the other side of this wall and does not have a mall entrance.

Looking back into the mall from the East end. Conn's takes up a lot of space to the left and Dave and Busters to the right.

Entering this part of the mall, you might think you entered into a deadmall, it is very quiet down here. Bassett Place is definitely not a deadmall. Mall ownership over the years has adjusted very well to the anchor changes, competition from the massive Cielo Vista Mall, and has kept the mall nearly full.  


The massive Costco was built on the land where Popular Dry Goods/Dillard's was once located.

A large big box shopping center addition is directly across the parking lot from the mall. Service Merchandise and Safeway were once located in this shopping center.

The back side of Costco and part of Dave and Busters.

Dave and Busters and the Premiere Cinemas 17 IMAX.


The West side of the mall.

Back into the mall we go, this is near the West mall entrance we started at earlier.

More storefronts in this area of the mall.

FYE is such a rare sight these days. Enjoy the extended tour of this FYE location.

General movie, music, and collectable merchandise. We did pick up a t-shirt, but we had our eyes on a lot more.

New releases.

As you can see from the next photos, this store was well stocked and had a ton of selection. DVD's, CD's, bluray, they had it all.



Sweets

What is old is new again, Garbage Pail Kids.
SNL merchandise


Candy and lots of it!

Discount bins.

Retro game and music player section.

Vinyl to the left and CD's to the right.

Lots of vinyl.

Well stocked!

Audio players and speakers. You can see the POP figures in the corner.


Premiere Cinemas 17 IMAX theater. This expanded theater opened where the S.S.Kresge/Bassett Cinema Six was located.

Finish Line

Old school Bath and Body Works.

The ceilings in this part of the mall are interesting. Very old school.

The Conn's mall entrance, located near the food court.

The food court was remodeled in 2015-2016 and shrunk down in size from 14 to 6 spaces to accommodate the new Dave and Busters.

This mural is covering up one of the few empty spaces in the mall near the food court. 

Going back around towards the Kohl's and Cinema.


The Kohl's corridor is to the left of Victoria's Secret. More on the Kohl's section of the mall in a bit.



The Target signs in neon are such a rare sight these days. Bassett Place Mall has 3 neon Target signs!

This has to be one of the most plain GNC entrances.


The exterior of Conn's.

Kohl's formerly Mervyn's.

The mall road signs that are visible from I-10.

More of the Kohl's. This store looks so much like Mervyn's.


Target

Back to the West mall entrance.

Too bad I was unable to see this mall at night, these neon signs have to be a sight to see.

Here is yet another awesome entrance with the mirrored glass, I wonder if the globe lights come on at night still. This is the mall entrance to Kohl's.




The short Kohl's mall corridor has a few local businesses. 


This random line of neon was awesome to see. I wonder if the whole mall had the neon lines back in the day. The East Target entrance is to the right.

Here are a couple more store fronts in the corridor between the 2 Target entrances.

This one was especially interesting, it was some kind of safety training for kids. the entrance was wide open, but nothing appeared to be going on inside.

More of the West Target and mall entrances.


Now for an added bonus, Bassett Place Mall from the sky. 
Mall is in the center of the photo.

Mall is in the middle left of this photo, you can see I-10 much more clearly here.
Hope you enjoyed this visit, more to come!