There is a new update to this post from this past weekend. A vast majority of the interior mall is closed to the public. Only a very small portion of the mall is open during unknown hours. (No hours posted at the entrance). This entrance was unlocked and open to visit the mall, and the automatic door was very slow to open. Two interior businesses remain, GEVC and The Elegance Banquet Hall. TechStar Airsoft which has an exterior only entrance is also open.
On our weekday visit in June, and when we initially posted the news about West Oaks. All of the interior access points were locked or boarded up and the employees of the Outlet informed us that there was nothing left, and the mall was closed. As of June, we will still say that West Oaks has ceased to be a traditional mall since the interior mall corridors have been mostly closed to the public and operate on non-traditional hours. If things change, we will update this post. Anchor stores with normal operations include The Outlet, Crazy Boss, Dillard's Clearance Center, and Fortis College. These businesses are still open with no mall access.
TechStar Airsoft entrance which is just to the West of the mall entrance.
The two businesses left inside of the mall are just inside the above entrance in the left side of this image. The rest of the mall access is closed off completely by a short wall as you can see in the far view.
This is the view from the just before the blocked off section of the mall to the entrance.
A look into the Airsoft field which looks like a lot of fun. This business does not have interior mall access, only a window to see inside.
To update the rest of the post, you cannot access the mall at any other entrance. The Outlet Mall entrance is sealed off as you can see below as well as Crazy Boss (Not pictured) and Dillards (Not pictured).
This was the food court entrance, already boarded up.
I have a massive photo collection from April 2023 just before the vast majority of the mall closed. I will post those at a later time.
It really was just a matter of time before they closed off the mall section. The interiors of Northwest and San Jacinto malls weren't nearly as vacant like West Oaks at the time they each closed. It's unfortunate because it's not like the management didn't try to improve the mall in the early 2010's, it just that the attempts didn't work in the long run. If someone told me in 2003 that Sharpstown mall would outlive West Oaks mall, I wouldn't believe them.
ReplyDeletePasadena Town Square is probably next, since it's in even worse shape than West Oaks. Greenspoint is still up in the air, but it doesn't look good either. I think Greenspoint has a small chance at some sort of recovery with the new apartments they are building in the parking lot.
We are getting some conflicting information about West Oaks Mall closing. I have updated my post, but for now the interior mall appears to be closed.
DeleteI saw the Mall's management response to HHR and thought their response was baffling. It sounded like whoever wrote the response didn't have a clue to the current state of the mall.
DeleteThe last time I stepped in West Oaks was in mid-2018 and it was it pretty vacant at that time, so I'm looking forward to seeing the photos of what it looked like before it closed.
You are certainly correct, West Oaks is not the retail center it was advertised as in the mall management response. If someone went there looking for a traditional mall shopping experience, they would be disappointed. That is not to take away from the anchors that are still open.
DeleteIt is pretty astonishing how quickly West Oaks went from boom to bust. Mall management did an excellent job of renovating and filling the mall back up after the 2008 recession hit the mall pretty hard. The unfortunate thing is that the retailers they were counting on were all pretty much doomed. Sears, Agaci, Palais Royal, Toby Keith's Bar, Edwards Cinemas, and Macy's all were not the best choices for long-term success at the mall. Macy's had been leaving all of the older Foley's stores at B&C malls behind to focus only on their A malls. The rest of those companies went into bankruptcy. Even the Dillard's and Fortis College anchors don't open up into the mall, so those anchors didn't help the interior mall survive. The Dillard's clearance center also keeps odd hours which don't help the mall to have consistent traffic on a daily basis. Dillard's had stopped opening their mall entrance several years ago once the interior mall started failing.
RIP West Oaks! It must have closed this week, as I was in there Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI saw and commented on your post about the mall. It is very strange that the Outlet owners contradicted your post and my visit about the mall being closed. I would like to be wrong, but the mall was closed. One entrance is padlocked shut, one entrance is boarded up, the only entrance that was open two months prior has a sign pointing you to go through the Outlet. The Outlet did not have access and the employees near the mall entrance told me that nothing is open in the mall anymore.
DeleteIn a way, this is a surprise, but in many ways, it isn't a surprise. Mike from HHR was at the mall just a few days ago and so it was open then. It must have closed somewhere between Monday and Wednesday. Based on the report from Mike's visit, it is no surprise at all that the mall has closed. There was hardly anyone in the mall (in fact, I don't think there was anyone aside from people who worked there). I know Mike saw your breaking news report and he's planning his own blog post about the closure over at HHR so be sure to look for that. It should be up by the time you read this or very soon afterwards.
ReplyDeleteThe Google Maps page for Greenspoint Mall reports that the mall is permanently closed, but we can confirm that the mall is still open. Google is in error on that and someone has requested that Google take the permanently closed tag off. That said, when we entered 2023, it was almost guaranteed that at least one of West Oaks Mall, Greenspoint, or Macroplaza Mall would close and it seems that West Oaks is the first to fail. I wouldn't be surprised if Macroplaza doesn't make it to 2024 since it is about as dead as West Oaks was before it closed, but we'll see. That'll probably be the next mall to close. Greenspoint still has enough going on that it can stay open through the year, but that's hardly a given either.
There are reports that West Oaks was not running their A/C in their last few weeks and so that might be what did them in. Perhaps they kept the mall open as long as it wasn't too hot, but with the temperatures really going up this week, maybe management threw in the towel. It's hard to say.
I shopped at West Oaks Mall a number of times, especially in the 1990s after the mall re-positioned itself as a mid-tier mall, and so it is sad to see it go. I really liked the Sears there. It was on the small side, but it was quite nice compared to the other Sears in the area. Of course, the Sears has been gone for a while now and I have not been back to the mall since then. The mall itself looked nice, certainly much nicer than Greenspoint and Macroplaza, but that wasn't enough to save it. The mall had too many ups and downs especially considering it had steeper downs than ups. Hopefully the property can be redeveloped into something useful because it would be a shame to watch it sit and rot. At least the mall has a few anchors, but by all reports, The Outlet is in quite poor physical condition.
I read and commented on HHR about the mall. Apparently the mall owners said the mall is still open. I would like to be wrong, but the mall was closed. One entrance is padlocked shut, one entrance is boarded up, the only entrance that was open two months prior has a sign pointing you to go through the Outlet. The Outlet did not have access and the employees near the mall entrance told me that nothing is open in the mall anymore. My West Oaks Mall visit was the first blog visit since April since I have been really busy with work and family. The few remaining stores left when I visited in April besides the dress shop had Friday-Sunday hours only so maybe they are open on weekends.
DeleteIt is a shame that the mall is in this position since a decade ago I posted about the resurgence of the mall. The signs advertising the redevelopment of the mall have long since faded and the Edwards movie theater is sitting there boarded up and fenced off. The Outlet, Crazy Boss, Dillard's, and Fortis College anchors are all going strong, but the interior is done.
I may do a fall visit of the remaining malls to see how things are going. Since A/C systems seem to struggle during the Summer months at failing malls, I will wait until the weather gets better to visit these places.