Sunday, May 3, 2020

Rio Grande Mall June 2019 update Cuidad Juarez Chihuahua Mexico

Here is a short update from a mall that we visited about a year ago. This is one of the older malls in the city, but it is full and super busy. 
On this visit, the Fabricas de Francia store was shutting down to make way for a conversion to become a Suburbia store. The renovation was going on behind closed off sections of the store, so I am not sure if the store ever closed during the transition. Suburbia is the discount version of Liverpool. All remaining Fabricas de Francia stores were converted to either Liverpool or Suburbia locations in 2019. Suburbia opened September 5, 2019 at 11am.

Here is the interior of the second floor. A lot of the store had been blocked off with work already beginning to remodel the store. This has to be the first time I have seen a store actively converted while still in business. The remaining inventory of the store had been consolidated mostly on the first floor. A few holdouts from the video game, music, movies, sporting goods, motorcycles, Children's clothing, toys, and housewares were still left.
A peak into the closed off area of the store.

As you can see, the second floor did not have much left.

Down to the first level. These older light fixtures are still in place after the conversion.
More Men's clothing.
The old school fixtures on the ceiling show the age of this store.

The electronics department was mostly closeout items and display models.
This staircase was closed off.

The remaining furniture was also moved downstairs.
This construction blanket had been placed around some of the interior walls. Work was going on behind the blanket.
Back up to the second floor for a better look around. You can see the temporary walls blocking off a huge portion of the store. Work was going on behind those walls.


Another look over the wall into the closed off area. Fixtures were being moved around by employees.
Here is what I could see of the former electronics and furniture departments.


Back to the first floor with a better view of some of the old school ceiling fixtures and designs.


Now for a few photos inside of the mall. We will start with Sounds, a store similar to FYE.
Sounds is part FYE, Radio Shack, and also features instruments, video games, and electronics as well. This is the kind of store that I would love to see here in the United States. 

The S mart, is difficult to photograph, but here is most of the store logo. 
Old school neon signage in the S mart.
Mall corridor shot.
The food court is directly across from the entrance to S mart. It was very tricky to get good photos in this section of the mall. The S mart deli is to the left, food court to the right.
Last but not least, the very detailed skylight near Fabricas de Francia.






4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update about Fabricas de Francia. It is a shame to see that brand retired, but I suppose it was rather similar to Liverpool so it didn't make sense for Liverpool to operate two similar type of stores under two different brands. According to Wikipedia, Liverpool acquired the Suburbia chain from Wal-Mart in 2016. I had no idea that Walmart was even operating department stores in Mexico, or anywhere, but I suppose they were. Maybe they found that to be a poor fit with their business model though since they sold the chain to Liverpool.

    I wonder how much of a renovation the Fabricas de Francia stores got that were converted to Liverpools. Perhaps they didn't need much of a renovation. It might have been like converting a Foley's to a Macy's or something like that. Converting a Fabricas de Francia to a Suburbia might have been more of a process, but I hope they kept some of the more upscale features of the store intact. It would seem like a waste to downgrade an already nice store. It's a shame to see this particular location lose an upscale department store in favor of a more discount department store, but I think the more upscale department stores will still be around in Mexico for a while. Besides, even the discount department stores in Mexico are seemingly nicer than some of our supposedly middle tier department stores here in the US. If the Suburbia website reflects their stores, they probably still sell electronics and such as well.

    It looks like the mall is still doing well. In some ways, it looks quite similar to a successful US mall. It's always nice to see the Sounds store. I wish we had something like that here in the US. I suppose they are similar to a FYE in some ways, but Sounds seems more focused on music and musical instruments rather than t-shirts and collectables.

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    1. I wonder if Walmart purchased Suburbia to grow their brand into locations they were not able to be at initially. Walmart has bought some brands in different countries to expand. Maybe they wanted to gain a competitive advantage by buying a Mexican chain to help their stores do better business.

      Looking at the photos, it looks like the renovation was mostly a fresh coat of paint throughout the store. Some things have been moved around a little bit, but thankfully the old fixtures appear to be intact. I looks like the electronics and everything else are still available in the store. Liverpool still maintains a large electronics department, but music CD's were being eliminated. Sears in Mexico was also in the process of downsizing or getting rid of music CD's. Sanborns seems to be the one place that still has a sizable music department. There are more updates to come from Mexico.

      The mall was doing really well. I only saw one vacancy, and that was the video arcade sadly. The Coppel is still there. I forgot to mention the shopping centers around the mall. There are several of them that were full. Since we were traveling by taxi's and Uber's it is difficult to get any good quality exterior photos on the travels.

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    2. It is a bit odd that Sears Mexico is downsizing/eliminating their CD department when Sanborns isn't given that Sanborns and Sears Mexico has common ownership, but perhaps this is another example of a company not wanting to duplicate themselves across multiple brands. I'm not sure. I also wonder if these Mexican department stores handle their own music and video inventory or if they using an outside racking company like Wal-Mart uses here in the US.

      Oddly enough, a lot of the big music labels in the US have started producing CDs in Mexico instead of the US. There still are several smaller CD/DVD pressing plants in the US for smaller labels though and there are still several major CD pressing plants in Europe run by Sony and others. I figure physical media sales are better in Mexico than in the US due to perhaps limitations on Internet access which might make streaming more difficult.

      Well, if nothing else, it seems that Sounds is pretty strong so they can pick up some slack if the department stores in Mexico stops selling music. There may be other non-mall retailers who sell CDs in Mexico as well, it's hard to say.

      It's hard to say why Walmart had Suburbia under their portfolio until 2016. Perhaps Walmart saw that department stores are strong in Mexico and they decided they wanted a part of the action. Can you imagine what would have happened if Walmart bought Sears instead of Kmart/Lampert back in the early 2000s? I'm guessing things would have turned out differently, but I'm guessing there are a number of reasons why Walmart has never operated department stores here in the US. I reckon they really don't need to operate department stores here in order to maintain a very high market share.

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    3. Sears Mexico may want the department stores to have a different selection than Sanborns because a lot of their stores are either together or in the same shopping areas.

      Sounds and a few other music chains are all over the place in Mexico. CD's are probably still popular because a lot of places in Mexico do not have good Internet connections for a reasonable price like here in the USA. In Mexico City, every shopping mall had multiple places to buy music.

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