This mall is the most disgusting property we have visited so far. A dead bird in front of one entrance, lots of muck from the rotting property, animal damage, and a huge bee's nest in the back entrance of the old JCPenney. To top it off, the parking lot was in complete disrepair with huge potholes. My visit to the mall was nearly three years ago and not much has changed here with the exception of the boarding up now complete.
Sagewood Mall is located in the small town of Alice Texas, about an hour West of Corpus Christi. This small mall of approximately 153,000 square feet was built in 1968. JCPenney, Bealls, and HEB were the original anchors to this mall. US Dollar was a later tenant in the West anchor. I was only a few months too late to visit the interior of the mall. As of April 2020, State Farm and Jackson Hewitt tax services were still operating inside of the mall, but my visit was in October of 2020. Firestone and Goodyear are the only two tenants operating on the mall site, and both have exterior entrances. Everything else has been boarded up. Even though the mall spaces are listed at $12 per square foot, it looks like the owners have given up on the mall. Alice Texas has a population of less than 18,000 residents and has been losing residents since before 1970, around the time that this mall was built. This site will probably remain as it is and continue to rot away.
Update 10/1/2023 Thanks to Anonymous and Mike from Houston Historic Retail, the mystery West anchor was revealed to be an HEB grocery store.
The history of the mall is really challenging to find online. If there is anyone that can send us the names of the stores that operated here in the past would be great as well.
Here are a couple of vacant stores that had exterior windows to look inside.
US Dollar/HEB. This was a 1968 mall built before Walmart and Kmart really expanded into malls.
Looking into the one mall entrance that was not boarded up. The US Dollar/HEB entrance was to the left.
The inside of the US Dollar/HEB.
The inside of this store is beginning to fall apart.
The back of the US Dollar/HEB anchor.
Inside of one of the vacant store fronts in the back of the mall.
The back of the mall looked really sketchy, but we continued on.
This is the glass we looked through earlier into the mall.
One of the discarded signs for US Dollar.
There were a bunch of bees at this former JCPenney entrance so I could not get close. You can see the unpainted bricks where a sign once was attached. Either the catalog or salon sign.
The other side of the JCPenney. You could not see into the store with the tint on the windows and glare from the sun.
The smell of freshly cut wood. Something that had not been smelled on this property for quite some time. Unfortunately it was because the mall was in the process of being boarded up.
This was the best photo I could get in between the boards of the interior in this side of the mall.
The views of the mall from the Goodwill mall entrance. Thankfully the view through the glass was unobstructed to look into the closed off mall.
I really wish that I could have found a way into the mall. This one was relatively untouched since the day it opened.
The Goodwill side of the mall entrance.
The roof was in poor condition as indicated by the stained ceiling tiles throughout the store.
Here are a couple more photos of the mall interior from Goodwill.
Another mall entrance next to Goodwill.
Views of the mall from the boarded-up entrance near Goodwill.
Heavy building damage from neglect.
One of the open exterior windows looking into a former mall store.
The one mall entrance that had not been boarded up. In addition to a bunch of muck on the ground, there was also a dead bird, yuck.
We also went into the Firestone to get a peak into the mall from their mall entrance.
The State Farm which was one of the last businesses operating inside of the mall.
The West anchor US Dollar/HEB entrance.
A look at the Firestone store leading to the vacant mall corridor.
Now for more views of the exterior of the mall.
The Goodwill which appears to still be operating here as of the posting of this article in 2023.
The JCPenney anchor pad.
The JCPenney had a much larger store front than the small town JCPenney stores built in the late 70's and 80's.
As you can see from this wide view of the mall, this is a relatively tiny mall.
If you look closely above the mall in the center you will see the faded Bealls sign. Bealls moved to a shopping center down the street before ultimately closing in 2020 with the rest of the chain.
The updated Firestone looks nice in comparison to the rest of the property.
The former US Dollar/HEB.
Another view of the only mall entrance not boarded up. You can see the sign on the glass which was a generic Covid sign that a lot of places had at the time. It also showed that the mall was open in the early stages of the pandemic.
Now some views from the edge of the parking lot. The lot and street here are in such bad shape, you need to really be careful driving through this area.
One last look at the mall before we leave.
The road sign to the mall has seen its better days.
More to come, stay tuned!