Here is a quick in person update on the Lufkin Mall in September of 2021. I will also include some more recent developments in the comments as we go.
The former Sears was used as a Spirit Halloween in 2021 and 2022.
Here is a look inside of the former Sears.
Behind one of the curtains of the backrooms, we see the former housewares department and the auto department in the dark corner.
The store did not open up into the mall, but you can see right into the mall corridor.
The front part of the store near the mall entrance that was the clothing departments in the former Sears.
Former electronics department.
Part of the former appliance department.
Another look through a different set of curtains reveals the tool and appliance departments of the past.
Now we will enter the mall corridor.
The former Sears mall entrance.
The mall looks very different with the carpeted floors. The tile that was replaced a couple of years back was in poor condition with lots of uneven spots.
The mall directory. The anchors in 2023 are still the same.
Chik Fil A was closed on this Sunday. The mall location did permanently close about a year ago. AMC still runs the movie theater on the right side of this photo.
Bealls which was converted into a Stage store in the last few years of business is closed along with the rest of the chain. The Bealls name is back in Lufkin with the rebranding of Burkes Outlet into Bealls nationwide. That store is located across the street at the old Kmart center.
JCPenney nearly closed in 2020 with the bankruptcy of the company. This was one of the stores that was saved by negotiations with the landlords. Lufkin Mall would have really been in trouble if this store would have closed. The mall lost Bealls in 2020 and Sears in 2018. In addition to losing these department stores a couple of nearby big box stores closed, Kmart in 2017 and Best Buy in 2021.
For some odd reason, this entrance to the store is no longer used which makes the store seem closed even though the other two exterior entrances are used. This is the mostly visible entrance from the business corridor.
A quick trip across the street to the former Kmart center. The old Kmart is undergoing renovations in mid 2023 to become an Atwoods location.
I actually walked to the back of the shopping center through the entire road back there and around. I didn't take any photos because there wasn't anything of interest back there.
The former Kmart location was a spot for people to nap on the bench in front of the store. Every time I have visited this site since then someone or multiple people have been sleeping there.
Now back to the mall, the walk to the former Kmart in the 90+ degree afternoon was tiring.
The JCPenney mall entrance.
More of the mall as we walk back to the former Sears.
Even though the mall has some vacancies, there are a lot of chain stores still left to shop at.
The closed Footaction store on the right, all Footaction stores were closed in 2022, but this one closed long before. Hibbett Sports and Shoe Department are the only athletic shoe stores left. Foot Locker closed a few years back and the other large shoe chains haven't stepped in yet.
The tall road sign of the mall has two notable absences. Sears and Stage, who knows when these vacant anchors will be replaced.
As the sun sets, we head back to Houston.
More to come, stay tuned.
Atwoods moving into the old Lufkin Kmart is a good development for Lufkin. That should bring some life back to that shopping center that once had Randall's and Kmart. I wonder if the Walkman woman survived all these years in the old Lufkin Kmart, but I guess she'll be gone now at the very least.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Lufkin Mall is somewhere in between successful and struggling. There are enough major tenants in the mall to keep it viable, but there are also some gaps as well. For a smaller city mall like this, that is probably the best Lufkin can hope for. At least the mall had the flooring renovation and, as said earlier, they have enough big-name retailers to keep people coming back to the mall. Like a lot of malls, this one has suffered from some of their anchors going bankrupt, but at least they were able to hang onto JCPenney.
I've always found carpeted malls to be intriguing as I've not been to many of them and none recently. Well, that was until just recently. I took a vacation to the Pacific Northwest and visited the Vancouver Mall in Vancouver, Washington. This is not to be confused for the Vancouver in Canada, Vancouver, WA is just on the other side of the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Anyway, Vancouver Mall is a two-story late 1970s mall which is still doing very well even with a lot of anchor changes in recent years. Two things I found really interesting at the mall was that it had carpeted corridors and the ceilings in the main corridors have a popcorn texture to them like a 1970s house. I found that to be a bit odd at a big mall, but it is kind of neat. Between that and the carpeting, the mall had a rather comfortable feel to it. The carpet most certainly seemed to help control the noise at the mall as it was busy while I was there, but it didn't have that hectic feel to it that busy malls get on the weekends. While I guess there isn't much special about the Vancouver Mall, I did enjoy my visit there. It was nice to visit a new to me mall for the first time in quite a long time.
I happened to be in Portland the day that the old abandoned Kmart, which closed in 2018, caught on fire and caused a four alarm fire. You may have heard about that since I know it became a point of discussion at many online retail circles. It was a bit strange to hear so much about Kmart in the local media that day and I happened to be watching the morning TV news when news broke about the situation. I was certainly not expecting Kmart to be such a big story while I was on vacation!
I did visit a couple of Fred Meyers while I was up there. That was the closest I've come to visiting something like Auchan since Auchan left town. The Fred Meyer stores were run quite well, quite a bit better than our Kroger stores, and I think our Kroger stores could learn a lot from Fred Meyer's operations even within just the grocery context. Fred Meyer kept 4-5 manned registers open during all of my visits and they had much better hot delis than what we see here at any supermarket.
I also visited a few Safeway and Albertsons stores. They aren't tremendously different than our Randall's stores other than that they were a lot busier than most Randall's stores. They also have bigger hot deli offerings than what we see here with a large selection of prepared Chinese foods and sandwiches. Even with a lot of the negative news you hear these days about retail on the west coast, I thought the retail in Oregon was actually quite nice, generally, and it reminded me a lot of the way things were at supermarkets here about a decade or so ago when stores were generally better stocked, cleaner, had more employees, and were just generally less crazy.
Anyway, back on-topic, it looks like Spirit Halloween has started to post their 2023 locations. In Houston at least, they are using recently defunct retailers like Tuesday Morning and, unlike previous years, they don't have anything in old Sears stores in Houston. Oh well.
If I had known earlier about this development, I would have certainly stopped by to see if I could save some of the fixtures still left behind. All of those photos and the Kmart interior sign were still up on the last day of business. Lufkin Mall has probably benefited from the loss of the University Mall in Nacogdoches over the years. Lufkin has a more stable population than Nacogdoches since SFA students come and go throughout the school year. Opening the TJ Maxx a few years ago was huge for the mall. Without that store boosting traffic, the mall would probably be nearly empty including the JCPenney. The AMC is not a huge draw either since there is a newer Cinemark nearby.
DeleteThe Portland Kmart story did cross my Youtube suggestion list. It led me down a rabbit hole of the decline in the city of Portland.
It is funny that you mention the Vancouver Mall, I have actually been to that mall in the 80's. The family took a trip up there to see about a job that my father was being recruited to take. He didn't wind up taking the job, but I am glad we got to visit that area. I can barely remember anything from those old days, but a long trip like that was something we didn't do very often. Looking online at the mall, it appears that it is still doing quite well.
I bet grocery shopping there is very strange with the different names in grocers than you see here. Are there a lot of products that you will not find here in Texas? It almost seems like Houston is a test area for self-checkouts. Just about every retailer large and small has them now. Some places like Five-Below no longer have traditional checkouts since installing the self-checkouts.
I just took a look at the list. You are right no Sears stores nearby to speak of. They are going into the former JCPenney/Burlington at Almeda so that is interesting. I guess the older Sears store carcasses are not spooky enough for them this year.
Part I:
DeleteIt is a bit funny to think of TJMaxx being a big boost to a mall, but I think you are correct about that. When I go to the Champions Randall's, it always amazes me to see how busy the TJMaxx is there and other TJX/Marshalls stores are very busy as well. Although stores like that are helping to finish off department stores, I suppose when they move into a mall like Lufkin Mall, they do help draw enough traffic to make the malls viable.
Wow, I had no idea you had been to the Vancouver Mall! That is pretty neat that I went to a mall you had been to long ago. The mall had more upscale anchors like Nordstrom when you were there, but the mall has successfully courted new anchors who seem to be driving traffic to the mall. The mall has a lot of family activities in the mall, including a public library branch and a family bowling alley in part of the old Sears, so it does seem like an important hub for families.
To answer your question in the other post about Portland, I did make a guest post at the Northwest Retail Blog where I did summarize some thoughts about the retail I saw: https://nwretail.blogspot.com/2023/07/anonymous-in-houston-visits-oregon-and.html
The motel I stayed at was on the far northeast side of the metro area near the Columbia River Gorge. Therefore, most of the retail I visited was in the suburbs of Troutdale, Wood Village, and Gresham. The only mall in this area is an outdoor outlet mall called the Columbia Gorge Outlets. This center reminds me a lot of the Conroe Outlets except that the Columbia Gorge Outlets are still doing well and is full of retailers.
Being in the suburbs, I didn't see too many crazy things or extreme security measures. In fact, other than the Gresham Fred Meyer having guards doing receipt checks, everything else was pretty normal. Nothing was locked up that isn't locked up here. The stores are busy, but everyone seemed to be behaving calmly.
I only visited two retailers in the city of Portland itself, an Albertsons, which was normal, and the famous Powell's City of Books. There was more security at Powell's and at some of the retailers around there, but I will say that Portland has more downtown retail than we do. In fact, they had a Fred Meyer and other grocers in downtown. Some of these retailers are closing, as you've heard, and I suspect the homeless problem and lack of traffic downtown from work at home have contributed to that. I think the homeless issue is less of a problem than it was a year or two ago because some disabled people in Portland complained that the homeless camping on the sidewalks were inhibiting their ability to use wheelchairs and mobility scooters and so the city didn't have a choice but to clean up the sidewalks. That said, there are still a lot of tent cities alongside the freeways in the city itself (freeway traffic there is terrible, worse than Houston, but the regular roads aren't too bad) and I'm sure there are homeless people living in the dense woods that exist in the city.
My overall impression is that Portland certainly does have some homeless issues they still need to resolve, but I think matters have improved a lot from 2-3 years ago when there was a lot of total chaos. I think things would improve a lot for retail and in general if people returned to work in-person in the urban area.
As for the outer suburbs I was in, things are very nice and clean. They are not as chaotic and busy as some of our suburbs like Cypress, especially in Troutdale and Wood Village, and the people are quite nice. I didn't visit the really upscale suburbs like Beaverton, Hillsboro, Wilsonville, and Lake Oswego, but there is a lot of retail in those areas, with new retailers moving in, so I think things are relatively calm in this areas. I suspect it might be more hectic in those areas than Troutdale where I was staying.
Part II:
DeleteOnce you get outside the Portland/Vancouver metro area, things become quite rural very quickly and there is a lot of farming going on not far from Portland. They have all kinds of fresh dairy and produce in that area.
Fred Meyer is a hypermarket owned by Kroger. Fred Meyer stores are quite a bit bigger and with more departments than even the Kroger Marketplace stores here. Unlike Walmart, the electronics and clothing sold by Fred Meyer are more middle of the road in terms of quality and brand names as they have stuff like Nike and Levi's that would not show up at Walmart. The grocery section isn't much different from our Krogers aside from their much bigger delis and bakeries, like what Safeway has, and that inventory control is much better at Fred Meyer than our Krogers. Our Krogers are constantly running out of things like milk or they have terrible dates, but there they have plenty of different kinds of milk and all with good dates. The Fred Meyers I went to are also cleaner than our Krogers.
Self-checkouts are popular in the Portland area, but they still take manned checkouts seriously there as well. Safeway/Albertsons had around 3 manned registers open at all times and Fred Meyer had 4 to 5 manned registers open. At Kroger in Houston, you're lucky if they keep two manned registers open. Sometimes in the evening, after 8pm, they don't have any manned registers open.
Fast food, like gas, is very expensive in Oregon, but supermarket food, including hot deli stuff, is priced not too far off from what things cost here, at least at Kroger/Randall's, so I think that's why the supermarkets and hot delis are so busy up in Oregon. Also, Oregon does not have a sales tax so that helps even up the prices on items like clothing. It would be nice to see some of the hot deli options they have in Oregon here in Houston, but with fast food being cheaper here, it might be a tough sell. That said, fast food pricing here is quickly becoming unreasonable as well.
If TJ Maxx would have moved into the old Kmart, Lufkin Mall would have definitely taken a fall IMO. I am guessing Ollie's would be a good candidate to take over the former Sears or Best Buy locations there.
DeleteI will check out your post on the Northwest Retail Blog. It sounds like you had a good trip and avoided the bad areas of the city. You are right about downtown retail here in Houston, it just doesn't exist outside of some small pockets of businesses catering to the office crowd. Every downtown retail center has pretty much had to turn to restaurant, medical, or office uses. Even the signature Macy's store couldn't make it down there, once they took the chain over from Foley's.
Portland does seem like a very scenic city, one of the memories I have of that trip was seeing Mt. St. Helens in the background. It was so long ago. How is Powell's City of Books in comparison to Half Price Books? It has been probably well over a year since I have been to one of those stores. Pretty much everything they sell isn't of use to me these days. I am too busy to read, most of my tape decks or CD players are broken or inconvenient to use, too busy to watch movies, finances are tight, and we rarely go anywhere to browse these days.
Higher cost of living is another thing I heard about in the Western states. It is good that you didn't see too many differences in grocery items. You are certainly right about fast food; it is difficult to get a decent meal for under $10 at a fast-food restaurant these days. Hopefully the prices begin to stagnate, and our wages catch up to the inflation increases over the past three years. Homeowners in Texas will get a significant increase next year on the Homestead tax deduction, so at least some people will get a slight break there. Those Fred Meyer stores sound pretty nice in comparison to Kroger here in the Houston area. Better selection, more checkouts, and fresher products, it sounds almost like HEB in comparison to Kroger.
I am glad that you were able to take a trip outside of the state for a while and enjoy a different experience. Hopefully you can escape again soon before Summer ends.
Part I:
DeleteHopefully Lufkin Mall can find some traditional retailers to fill the Sears space and also the nearby Best Buy spot can find a tenant. Ollie's would be a good anchor, but someone else would need to fit in the subdivided space. I don't know if Bealls Outlet/HomeCentric (the former Burke's Outlet/Bealls Florida) is already in Lufkin, but if not, maybe they would be a good fit.
The retail situation in Houston is not just really bad in Downtown, but it's increasingly getting worse in Midtown as well. You probably heard that the Pierce Elevated McDonald's was torn down earlier this year. That location had a homeless problem for many years, one that was only getting worse. After Sears and Fiesta were forced out a few years ago, all that is left in terms of traditional retail in Midtown is really the Randall's. I hear people complain about homeless around the Randall's as well even though it is in a nicer area than the Fiesta/Sears were in. Then again, for all the complains about the homeless around the Fiesta/Sears, I never saw anything that was 'scary' as people made it out to be. People might be over-reacting about the conditions in Midtown, but I know there are a lot of homeless people around there and parts of that area are extremely dingy.
Portland is a great place to go if you like beautiful landscapes. The great thing is that you can see wonderful different things all within an hour/1.5 hour drive. Less than a hundred miles away is the North Oregon Coast which is probably the highlight. Not far from Portland at all to the east is the Columbia River Gorge with many waterfalls and just wonderful views all around. You can get great views of Mt. Hood as well. To the southwest, but all around the outer areas, there are family farms growing all kinds of things. We also saw tree farms where they grow stuff for nurseries. That was interesting.
I included a lot of nature scenes in my blog post at the Northwest Retail Blog so be sure to check that out. We also visited Mt. St. Helens, or at least as close as we could get to it. A landslide during the spring knocked out the bridge to the main visitor center there, but you can still get pretty close to it. It is a wonderful drive.
The biggest difference between Powell's City of Books and Half Price Books is that Powell's only sells new & used books. For things like music and DVDs, you have to go elsewhere. That said, just a couple of buildings down is a very big used music & videos store called Everyday Music. I didn't go there since I didn't want to pay for another hour of parking, but it looks like a nice used media store that anyone could shop at. Some used music stores are kind of sketchy and double as a head shop, but not this one from what I can tell.
As for the selection of books at Powell's, it is a huge store, but not all book departments are much bigger than what HPB would have. I was looking at music books, for example, and they really don't have a lot. Then again, they must have a ton of stuff in other genres given how big the store is. The prices aren't as good as HPB either, but then again, HPB's prices aren't what they used to be either so maybe they aren't too far off. Oregon not having a sales tax probably helps bridge the difference.
Part II:
DeleteThe area around Powell's, which is called the Pearl District, is full of retailers that probably otherwise would have been at an upscale mall. Elsewhere in urban Portland, I didn't go to these places, but I saw on Google Maps that there is one of those mini City Targets across from a Trader Joe's. The City Target gets absolutely terrible user reviews, Walgreens/CVS like ratings, with all kinds of complaints including complaints about homeless people. The Trader Joe's, right across the street, has near perfect user reviews with few complaints about the homeless. As we know, Trader Joe's is famous for having many manned checkouts with separate baggers and few, if any, self-checkouts. Target, OTOH, sometimes really lets themselves go on the customer service front these days. It's hard to say, but perhaps having more front-end staff gives the Trader Joe's better security and maybe by having more staff, people who are generally good at customer service, gives the store a more humane feel and maybe the customers/people around the store treat it with more respect. I think this is something retailers are going to have to look at because it seems some retailers are doing a much better job at controlling certain issues than others. That said, the police and city in Portland probably need to do a better job being responsive to small business owners who have their stores vandalized overnight and such. Sometimes they are petty crimes, but even petty crimes can be a big problem for smaller businesses and organizations.
Fred Meyer are really neat stores, I think you'd like them. Where else will you find a Kroger with clothing, hardware, and an electronics department with TVs, video games, and laptops? My understanding is that even HEB Plus has dropped everything except the most basic electronics so, outside of Meijer in the Midwest, they have a really unique store. I'm going to send you a link to a Fred Meyer in Vancouver, WA which is really nice. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/jqG13gAJwsaT3GsK9
One thing which has changed just this week is that people in Oregon are now allowed to pump their own gas. Previously, they had a law requiring a station attendant to handle the gas pump. It's not really full-service and at least you didn't have to tip. Stations are still required to offer service from an attendant for those who want it, at least for the time being, and stations are not required to have self-service pumps, but I'm guessing most will at least set up a few self-service pumps. Anyway, while I was there, gas was actually a bit cheaper in Oregon than in Washington even with Washington pretty much being 100% self-service. Gas prices were high in both places though and big C-stores and car washes are not common at gas stations so I suspect the stations are getting more of their profit margins on the gas itself rather than here where stations try to use low gas prices to lure in customers to buy stuff at the C-store.
Michaels is opening up in the former Best Buy space in Lufkin. Also, Roses has opened in the former Stage store in the University Plaza in Nacogdoches.
DeleteThanks for the updates Phudman. Does the mall corridor connect to the new Roses store at University Plaza? The Michael's opening is a huge win for that shopping center. With all of the vacancies in the main retail district of Lufkin, it seems like the majority of them are getting filled.
DeleteAs you can see, Phudman gave us an update to a few of the Lufkin and Nacogdoches retail spaces we talked about recently.
DeleteYou would think with all of the new high-rise housing developments in Downtown and Midtown that they could get some retail centers going in those areas. I guess the Heights is the go-to choice for these areas to shop and dine. I remember at the Midtown Sears store we would almost always be approached by someone asking for money.
I did read your post on the Northwest Retail blog. It is pretty cool that you were able to make the most of your trip and see some nice attractions. I bet the weather was a lot nicer over there than we have seen here since June.
The Fred Meyer looks just like the Kroger Marketplace locations in Kingwood and New Caney. Those locations have some small electronics but nothing like TV's or computers. I haven't visited an HEB Plus location. I didn't know any HEB stores carried electronics.
A lot of parts of Mexico still require attendants to pump your gas as well. It is strange in today's modern times that antiquated laws still require this, but it is what it is. You would hope for a break in prices for self-serve gas pump as you mentioned the prices are already lower in Oregon in comparison to Washington.
The Willowchase Fiesta post is now live. I went there last night to get a handful of photos to show the new look of the store. It really is a shame that the store has been permanently altered with all of the extra decorations removed. At least I was able to capture the store before all of the changes so we can look back. I really appreciate your work on documenting the store, I would not have been able to put something together with this level of detail and personal experience.