Here is a small inner-city mall in Mexico City. This was a very quick trip through the mall due to time constraints, so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked to. Plaza Insurgentes is located not too far away from the financial district in the Roma Norte neighborhood and right down the street from the previously covered Woolworth (click here for that article).
Plaza Insurgentes is anchored by Sears/Sanborns combo store and Cinemex. One of the cool things I noticed while researching the Cinemex chain is that they have certain NFL games live on the big screen. I have never heard of any cinemas in the USA doing this, it seems like it would be a fun experience.
Here is the website for the plaza. As you can see, it is a tiny mall. There is not much on the second floor, but the first floor has a decent sized food court.
Only 30 spaces are listed on the directory, but Sears/Sanborns accounts for 3 of those space listings. These malls would be a welcome addition in densely populated areas of the United States, but for some reason most of these properties seem to fail in the USA. Out of the mall only one space was vacant, but it had an advertisement for another store coming soon. Even though this property is small, there is a lot to see here especially at Sears.
Walking up to the property you can see the Cinemex sign on the roof. Sears is difficult to see until you get right up next to it.
We will start at Sears. The store appeared to be under some sort of remodel. Most of the ceilings had vents going to an enclosed area and a small area of the store was blocked off. You could hear the motors from that area going. These vents were all across the store, so I am actually not sure if it was construction or these are the air conditioning vents. This is an older store.
The first floor was mostly clothes and beauty products.
Fancy displays
Onto the second floor we go. Right at the top of the second floor we have the video game department.
This video game department is also enclosed with a dedicated employee (employee not pictured).
Electronics were right around the corner from the video games. Cell phones can be bought and activated here.
The motorcycles, electronics, tools, auto, pet, and lawn and garden were all upstairs in roughly the same area of the store.
Computers and tablets.
Music and movies
Lawn and garden
Music
Another quick peek into the video game department.
I really like the electronics setup in the store. As you can from the gentleman on the right, the employees at the store dress up. It doesn't matter which department they work at, employees are dressed up in business attire.
Candy counter with ICEE's. You can see the edge of the Pier 1 Imports sign to the left.
Now we will pop out into the tiny mall for a look. The second floor is dominated by Sears and Cinemex.
Now onto the first floor of the mall. The majority of the inline stores and restaurant are located on the first floor.
The mall food court. You can see the separate McDonald's dessert section on the right.
The corridor leading to the exit, looking back towards the food court.
More of the food court.
Another look at the McDonald's.
Walking back towards Sears. I am not sure if that was a mall police officer or a local one.
Those rings on the ceiling look very cool in person.
Credit card advertisement.
The Sears features an attached Sanborns, but I did not get any photos inside of the store.
The store features Japanese imports. I saw a lot of these stores around the city, including one at the airport.
More of the interior of the Sears.
Yes this is still Sears, so much nicer than our sad USA version.
This was the best photo I could get of the Sears sign. Lots of stuff in the way.
I think that the AMC 24 near Willowbrook was showing live NFL games either in 2019, or 2018, but I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see photos of Mexican Sears, Sanborns, and other department stores, part of me gets really excited to see that department stores are alive and well somewhere in the world, but it makes me sad to think that we cannot have them here in the United States. It really makes me sad to see a Sears like this when we've been stuck with pretty shabby stores for the last several years. This Sears would shame most American Macy's stores. It's incredibly nice.
ReplyDeleteI really like the lighting in the Sears. Those chandeliers are a nice touch as are the circular lighting at the mall entrance. Not surprisingly, it seems Sanborns has a similar design. I don't know what that soft thing in the ceiling is either. I would guess it's for HVAC, but I don't know.
It's really strange seeing that vintage Sears logo next to modern video games. It looks like Sears Mexico knew that design of the Sears logo was a winner and stuck with it. Unfortunately, US Sears kept trying to tinker with their logo. Granted, most Sears stores still had the old logo on them when they closed.
I would be tempted to buy a CD from that Sears just to cut the price tag and to keep that as a souvenir. The price printing might fade over time, but at least the Sears logo would stay. That's a nice price tag. It's great that they have movies, music, and real electronics as well. I wish we had that here in the US, but that's long gone now.
It looks like the lawn & garden department still has Craftsman mowers from the US Sears. I'm guessing they've had to find new suppliers in more recent times though. I wonder what Sears Mexico is doing with that. That said, it's really strange seeing mowers at a store this nice, but I suppose that is the wonder of Mexican department stores. That 3D running man in the sporting goods department really grabs one's attention.
I wonder if you've ever talked to the salesmen at these stores and told them how much nicer these stores are than equivalent stores in the US. I wonder if they would believe you. They seem to be doing a good job maintaining these stores and displays. I could get an Icee and spend hours marveling at just the Sears.
The rest of the mall is quite nice as well. It kind of reminds me of the smaller Canadian urban malls, but they have bigger urban malls as well (as does Mexico, obviously). It seems like a nice place to spend time and there's certainly a great variety of goods.
Steren Shop looks like a Radio Shack type store. In fact, I think I remember hearing that Steren was interested in the US market or maybe they were looking at buying Radio Shack or something. That was some years ago now and I don't remember the details.
Miniso must be a somewhat similar concept to the Daiso chain of international Japanese bargain stores.
Actually, AMC started showing out of market NFL games at their theaters in the US last year. Here's an article about it. I think the ticket was free, but one had to buy a $10 meal card to get in. I'm not sure if that was a successful venture or not, I didn't hear anything about it after the start of the season.
As of this post, we are barely above 100 Sears and Kmart stores combined. Our last remaining Sears is really struggling with empty spaces all over the store now. I wonder if Eddie ever went to the Mexican Sears stores at any time during his tenure at the company to see how to run a good Sears department store.
DeleteAs nice as this Sears store looks, it is an older location. It is really hard to tell when you are inside of the store, they make sure to keep the place up.
When I went back to Sears in June of last year, their music selection had shrunk down to one display. Liverpool was getting rid of their music section, so maybe Sears was as well. Thankfully there are a lot of Sam Goody type retailers in Mexico like Sounds.
I did notice some Craftsman product similarities at Sears. Since Lowe's recently pulled out of Mexico, Sears may still be the only place to find Craftsman products.
I keep my conversations short usually and try not to appear too touristy in the stores in Mexico. I am just overwhelmed too, that I have not even thought about mentioning the Sears in the USA.
I did notice the Steren Shop, but I thought the mall was larger so I rushed through the trip on the second floor. I should have probably checked the store out. The night before we went here, we went to the largest mall in Latin America. 4 hours was all we had to go through that mammoth mall, so I missed a ton there.
I wish I had a little more time that evening, but we had some other places to go. That week was filled with so many memories and we made the most of the time there.
I can't believe I did not hear about the NFL games. It would have been an interesting thing to watch on a big screen. The Saints had some good prime time games that probably would have been featured.
That Sears looks fantastic. I especially like your photo of the mall entrance with the light-up rings in the ceiling.
ReplyDeleteIs Pier 1 going out of business in Mexico as well, or are they separate from the US company like Sears Mexico is?
This is a really neat little mall. Sears certainly has an attention grabbing mall entrance.
DeleteI am not sure how the setup with Pier 1 in Mexico is. The Pier 1 website has Mexico listed as an area where they expanded. I can see Sears purchasing the rights to the Pier 1 name in Mexico if they have not already. Pier 1 stuff can also be found at Sanborns locations.
I've seen listings for NFL games at the AMC Willowbrook theater. Never watched a game when I was down there though.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know. I have not seen them at the Deerbrook theater, but I may have missed them.
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