Here is yet another case of arriving too late to see this vintage mall before shuttering for good. I found about the existence of this mall probably months after it closed for good to be redeveloped. From what I read about the mall, it stayed open for mall walkers and had some offices still open up until at least 2016. University of Houston Victoria later purchased the mall structure minus the JCPenney building in July 2017 and has since renovated the property. This was
The former JCPenney which is now the Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church. This is not the first time we have seen a former JCPenney turned into a church (click here) as we saw at the former Southpark Mall in Shreveport Louisiana
The sun was really tough to battle while taking photos of the property on this day.
This was a relatively small mall that only had around 250,000 square feet total and was built in 1969. JCPenney was the main anchor along with Bealls and Walgreens as junior anchors.
Once the much larger Victoria Mall opened in 1981, this mall declined rather quickly. JCPenney left in 1987 for the Victoria Mall. A small renovation to the mall property is listed in 1993, but from the looks of things not much changed throughout the life of the mall. Any comments down below that will help us add more information to this post are greatly appreciated.
As for our visit, there wasn't much we could get access to since most of the property was an active construction site. It was not a wasted trip as you will see in a minute.
The side of the mall that probably housed the former Bealls and Walgreens.
For some reason this section of the mall was detached from the former JCPenney.
This is the only section of the former mall we could access. The former JCPenney mall court and mall entrance. No fencing, no signs, and wide open to pass through.
The old floor was still intact here.
Looking towards the bricked off mall corridor.
The edge of the mall with the former JCPenney on the left side.
As you can see the site was changing.
A peek into what was probably the center entrance to the mall.
I did my best to focus inside, but the distance and sunlight were an issue. It did look like the inside had been completely gutted out unfortunately.
The other side of the mall where Bealls and Walgreens were probably located. The larger structure had offices up until at least 2016.
A closer look at that mall entrance.
A look at the JCPenney court once again.
If you look really closely you can see the green, red, and yellow paint that was on the mall ceilings.
One last look at the mall before we head to our next destination.
As an added bonus, the former Radio Shack right down the street from the mall. This was probably a store inside of the mall at one time.
This was the first of two malls on this trip that we missed seeing before the doors were locked. The Sagewood Mall was the next mall we visited that day that was also mostly closed off.
Happy holidays, Je, it is great to see that the blog is still alive and well as you quickly approach the 15th anniversary of the blog! The blog is quickly approaching 1.5 million views as well which is really amazing because it doesn't seem it was all that long ago we were celebrating 1 million views!
ReplyDeleteAlthough retail-to-church conversions are hardly unusual, especially in smaller cities like Victoria, it is pretty rare to see a Catholic church re-use an old building, especially a retail building in a mall/former mall. The only other Catholic church I can think of in an old retail building in Texas is an old Skaggs Alpha-Beta/Jewel-Osco near Ft. Worth. That one was briefly an Albertsons attempt at a discount store banner after Albertsons bought Skaggs/Jewel in the early 1990s. Of course, that was just a standalone store and not in a mall like what we see here so in many ways, this is more remarkable.
Victoria certainly seems like a one mall type of town and so it isn't surprising that this mall suffered when new competition opened. I looked up Town Plaza Mall in the Portal to Texas History and there are some newspaper articles mentioning the mall, but I didn't see anything too exciting other than news about mall events and such. I certainly didn't go through everything, but there might be something worthwhile to see if you do enough digging. It is neat that you were able to find some exposed elements of the mall though, it is kind of neat to see an indoor mall turn into an outdoor mall of sorts even if it is in the form of ruins.
It is possible RadioShack was both inside and just outside of the mall like they were at Memorial City Mall for decades. Maybe we discussed this before, but the operator of RadioShack stores in Latin America (aside from Mexico) brought RadioShack some months back and may even open retail stores since they have a retail background. We'll have to see what happens there.
I recently made my first visit to a JCPenney since the bankruptcy. It seems to me that not much has changed since my last visit, for better or for worse. Given the general decline in B&M retail, maybe that should be considered to be positive news.
There is a lot of retail news since we last spoke. Most of the good news is in your side of town as the New Caney Target opened (it looks pretty bad though from the photos I've seen) and also the new Humble Big Lots. If you have not seen Mike's report on HHR, however, the news is less good for Big Lots further down on FM 1960. The North Oaks and Willowbrook Big Lots R Us are both in the process of closing. North Oaks is going to be undertaking a major overhaul with Burlington and Five Below replacing the last remnants of the mall/Half Price Books and it seems Big Lots is being squeezed out because of the redevelopment. Fortunately, it seems the Jones & FM 1960 Big Lots is still safe for now.
It is hard to believe that I have been working on this blog for that long. What started out as a small project to document malls turned into a bit more. Even stranger is that as the year began, I never thought that Sears and Toys R Us would be reopening stores in 2023, but here we are. Happy Holidays to you as well Anonymous.
DeleteThe fact that this former JCPenney store was cut away from the mall structure is unique. It will probably be the only recognizable mall building once the renovations to the mall structure are completed. If I ever get the chance to pass through that area again, I will get updated photos. This is one of the few small city malls that survived for several years after the larger, regional mall was built. I just wish that I could have seen it when it was still a 1960's era mall.
I went to a JCPenney not too long ago as well. Not surprisingly we didn't get anything. I am not sure who they are targeting these days, it seems like as you said not much has changed.
As for other retailers, we tried to find in-store deals this season, but there were not too many to be found.
As our budget gets stretched thinner, we find ourselves going to Target or the full-sized Walmart stores less frequently. Besides basic needs, we are not spending much on anything else. Costco, HEB, and the Walmart Neighborhood Market are pretty much getting most of our money these days. I also don't have time these days to poke around a large store looking for things we don't need. I haven't been to the new Target yet, maybe sometime in the future we will check it out.
It is a shame that the last portion of the North Oaks Mall will be lost, but it is good news for that center. As we have seen many times before, shopping centers on FM 1960 can empty out quickly if stores start leaving. As with Big Lots, it seems like the company has been struggling lately. I would guess that Ollie's is beating them out as they continue to expand across the USA. I will have to catch up with HHR later today, my off-time is coming to an end.
i went to that school
ReplyDeleteHow is the building now? Did they completely renovate the inside into a modern look?
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