Another article from my archives, a West Hills Mall update from the Summer of 2020. I also have another update from 2021 after all of the anchors closed. Reading the 2023 Google reviews of the mall, show that not much else has changed since the last two anchors closed.
As of late 2020, this mall no longer has any retail anchors. JCPenney and Palais Royal closed within weeks of each other leaving the smaller retailers to fend for themselves. More than half of the mall had already been redeveloped into offices, does the anchor closings mean the end of the retail life at this property? Time will tell, but things are not looking good for the retail side of things. As of this update, both anchor spaces have yet to be filled.
I managed to get close to 120 images of this tiny mall, so please enjoy. I had a feeling that this trip would be the only chance I would have to visit the mall before the anchors closed.
Into the JCPenney, we go. This was a typical small town JCPenney store. Not much had been changed throughout the store over the years. Enjoy the following set of photos.
The fixtures for sale.
Now into the mall we go.
The mall corridor is pretty small. Not much left to see here.
Palais Royal also closing.
From one side of the mall to the other.
Now for the inside of the Palais Royal.
I really like this centerpiece of the store.
Even into 2023, fitting rooms at some stores are closed because of 'Covid'.
The Stage store closing sales seemed to last forever. In the Spring of 2020, the store closures were announced, then by late 2020 the stores finally closed. I really liked their plan to change their store formats to the Gordman's nameplate and go the discount route. Unfortunately, those plans came too late to save the chain.
This is one of the few Stage stores that I documented over the years. We rarely shopped at Palais Royal or Bealls, so I don't have much to say about the stores.
Back into the mall.
One of the strangest things at this mall, is this cut through to the bathrooms. The old Zales was opened up with hallways leading to the bathrooms between the two benches. You can also access the hallway from the other side of the mall across from Lee Baron.
Gotta love the mirror glass JCPenney entrances.
Back into JCPenney. And yet another blast from the past with all of the Covid rules from 2020!
Now for the exterior of the mall.
So now we have seen what the retail half of the mall has to offer. What about the other half of the mall that has been redeveloped?
Here is the other side of the mall that we had not covered until this visit. As you can see, this side of the mall looks almost exactly like the other side. This whole half of the mall was redeveloped into offices and public service uses.
This is where the corridor ends. The other side of the dead end is roughly where the mall entrance to Palais Royal is.
As you can see when comparing the mall side directory with the office side directory, the offices now take up more than half of the available space. Baskin's was the anchor store at the bottom left of this directory.
Now for an added bonus, the last Sears Hardware in Texas that closed in late 2019/early 2020. The building was in the beginning stages of redevelopment.
More to come, stay tuned.
It is interesting to see an update about this mall as I know this is a mall you've chronicled on the blog at least a couple of times previously over the years so it is interesting to see the changes at the mall during that time. Like a lot of malls like this, time has not been kind to it. These photos represent this mall's last gasp at having recognizable anchors...or any anchors at all really barring some kind of redevelopment.
ReplyDeleteThe JCPenney here looked pretty nice for a smaller location. I've certainly seen worse small JCPenney stores. It is kind of funny seeing that makeshift toys department. That looks like something from Sears' last gasp attempt at trying to take advantage of the demise of Toys R Us.
As nice as the JCPenney looked, the star of the post is the Palais Royal. This Palais Royal looks a lot like Palais Royal of older times when they tried to position themselves as a smaller department store rather what they became in their last few years as a retailer with a department store mix of clothing with a store look and feel of a discount store. I was never a fan of the downsized Palais Royals with the discount store feel as someone who spent a decent amount of time shopping at much nicer older Bealls and Palais Royal stores. The newer Mall of the Mainland Palais Royal was a rare exception as far as modern stores went as they recycled Foley's look and feel which was, well, bizarre, but neat.
Seeing some of the merchandise the Palais Royal had for sale in 2020 makes it somewhat clear why Stage disappeared. I wonder if those BBQ rubs were intended to be serious items or if they were intended to be gag gifts! That party speaker looks like a Christmas type item which never sold or that was returned and they were trying to re-sell it.
I didn't realize that Lee Baron had a location in Houston at W. Fuqua and Hiram Clarke next to where Palais Royal used to be, oddly enough. This is the Foodarama shopping center. It's too bad they aren't in a mall here, but I suppose they aren't all that close to any mall.
It is a bit hard to believe that a Sears Hardware survived until 2020 or around then. It seems like such a long time ago that I last shopped in one. It feels like it has been a long time since I was in any Sears even though it has only been about a year since the Sears Hometown fiasco. I guess I've tried to forget that the Sears Hometown fiasco even happened!
It is pretty interesting that the mall has continued to host the same interior stores since my visit in 2023. I just posted the Midway Mall in Sherman Texas from 2021. This is another mall that defied the odds and will still host a small interior retail corridor as part of the redevelopment. Midway Mall was one of the best dead mall visits I have done on the blog, and I wish I could have gone back before they closed off the majority of the mall.
DeletePalais Royal had a lot of oddball items since they were in the process of changing their stores to the Gordman's format at the time. This store was really nice in comparison to the other Stage stores that hadn't been renovated.
The vintage JCPenney did look really good in comparison to a lot of the 1980's era stores that were still left. The store was very similar in size to the Marshall Mall and Nacogdoches locations that are long gone.
Interestingly Burke's Outlet stores have been changing over to the Bealls name across the area and probably companywide. I haven't been inside of one of the locations since they changed over to Bealls.
I’m from around this area and never considered even going inside. People always told me it isn’t much of a mall, but I was unaware that the retail corridors and bigger areas are still open to the public. Thanks for documenting this. I’ve been watching a whole lot of Dan Bell mall videos and have always been interested in the concept of dead malls, though the only mall I’ve ever been to is the very alive and somewhat modern feeling Woodlands Mall. I’ll have to check this one out while it’s still mostly open
DeleteYou should stop by West Hill Mall one day. It is a good place to check out that is relatively untouched over the years. Houston has a few deadmalls to check out as well, but I wouldn't go alone if you are unfamiliar with those areas.
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