Time to wake the blog back up with something new. One of the least covered states by retail Youtube sites is Louisiana. Northwest Louisiana was covered on the blog several years ago, but we have not been back since. How is the area doing? What has become of the 3 remaining indoor malls in the Shreveport/Bossier City metro area? Kohan now owns Mall St. Vincent and Pierre Bossier Mall, so things are not looking good. The largest indoor mall in Shreveport, Southpark Mall closed and was converted into the Summer Grove Baptist Church complex nearly 20 years ago. Burlington Coat Factory still maintains a store at the former mall, but it is sealed off from everything else.
We will start with our first stop on the tour, the Pierremont Mall. Opened in 1964 this very tiny mall is anchored by Club 4 Fitness. Stein Mart was previously the main anchor tenant but closed during their 2020 bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Club 4 Fitness sealed off their mall entrance and the indoor portion of the mall is really struggling. Most of the West facing tenants have outside entrances. Here is the mall website if anyone wants to check it out, click here.
The wide view of the mall without the anchor showing.
A wide view of the entire mall.
There is also an art gallery that is not listed here.
Krush had a sidewalk sale going on. On a chilly, rainy day like this, having a covered mall corridor is an advantage.
Unfortunately, that is about the most action you will see inside of the mall.
The entrance to the former Stein Mart is covered up with this neat mural. The public restrooms are on the right.
Gotta love the old school skylights.
Not sure if the store on the right was still open, it may keep odd hours if it is.
The former toy store with the door open.
Didn't walk too far into the store, just enough to look around a bit.
The halfway point of the main mall corridor at the Casa Jimador restaurant.
Now for the other end of the mall. This is the entire main mall corridor. I bet Uncle Rico could throw a football from one end of the mall to the other, lol.
The South mall entrance.
Going back about halfway through the main mall corridor.
Casa Jimador has an outside mall entrance and sticks out into the mall corridor.
This is the whole main corridor view from the Club 4 Fitness side of the mall.
This is the view from Club 4 Fitness to the West mall entrance.
A view from the West mall entrance to the main mall corridor.
The West mall entrance with the iconic sign.
And that is all for this stop. A grand total of less than 10 minutes to document this mall. Up next will be Mall St. Vincent.
It is hard to believe it has been a decade since you last documented this mall. Indeed, things are worse off in here than it was a decade ago, probably mostly because of the closure of Stein Mart. Stein Mart was a classy operation for a closeout clothing store and it fit this mall well, but unfortunately, stores like that just don't exist anymore. Stein Mart and Stage/Palais Royal were pretty much the end of the line for those types of stores. I know Stage wasn't a closeout store like Stein Mart, but they both had a large selection of clothes which could be worn to work.
ReplyDeleteSmall malls like this can only survive with local type retailers, insurance type offices, and government offices. Hopefully this mall can keep enough local retailers around to stay viable. Sadly, with the other local malls being owned by Kohan, it probably isn't far-fetched to think this tiny mall is probably the best maintained one of the bunch!
This is a bit off-topic, but it is related to the region. Do you know what the story is with this Kroger in Bossier City? Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/k4aUwXsL38N1NJGh8
It looks unusual for a Kroger on the outside, like maybe it was something else before, and it looks very retro on the inside, even in the photos from August 2024. Those enclosed produce rooms with dark brick walls and green vinyl tile floors look right out of the 1970s, like some Gerland's Food Fairs and other local Houston grocers from the 1970s/very early 1980s, and looks more retro than even 1970s Kroger Superstores. I think the Kroger Dallas Division runs that store, but it is funny because it is more retro than any Texas Kroger that I know of at least, including some of the older east Texas ones, or any other Louisiana one.
Have you had any interesting Christmas season shopping trips so far? I went to the Willowbrook Mall JCPenney on Black Friday weekend and it was interesting seeing the mall look like an ordinary week in June or something during what used to be a very busy weekend for malls. Of course, things have been quite different for almost a decade now I would say. Sadly, the JCPenney Optical department at Willowbrook closed. It had a sign saying it closed permanently on October 31st and that the nearest location is at Meyerland. I went online and found out that the only two JCP Optical locations left in the Houston area are Meyerland and League City as the Willowbrook and The Woodlands Mall locations closed recently. That's a bummer, I had family who bought glasses from there last year and felt they were a good deal with good customer service. I suppose malls just aren't the place to go for eyeglasses anymore as I think LensCrafters is the only place left in the mall, though I think TSO and Visionworks are in some of the shopping centers surrounding the mall.
As for the store itself, kind of like Sears softlines towards the end, the men's department was by far the busiest part of the store. The women's department was devoid of shoppers. Upstairs housewares and such was pretty quiet too, though there were a few shoppers up there. Parts of the upstairs looked like what you said about Uncle Rico, lol. The mattress department upstairs was quite sad looking, worse than Sears vagabond mattress departments five years ago even. JCP did have some good linens at good sale prices, but rummaging through the stuff reminded me of the quiet days upstairs at Sears stores in the 2010s where you could spend 30 minutes finding the sheets you want without any more than one or two other shoppers being within sight that whole time.
I didn't go to Macy's or Dillard's, at least not yet, but hopefully they are doing better. Maybe the mall crowds just come at different times these days, maybe a week or two before Black Friday and then around the Christmas Eve last minute crush. It is hard to say.
According to Groceteria, the store has been a Kroger since at least 1985. Maybe it was something else before that. The front resembles a modified 1970s era Winn-Dixie.
DeleteThanks for the additional information about the Kroger.
DeleteThe funny thing is that this mall was renovated before the two Kohan malls that are left in Shreveport. Mall St. Vincent was renovated in 2013, and I believe 2015 for Pierre Bossier, even though it was just sign and entrance replacements for the North side of the mall. Pierre Bossier has really taken a turn for the worst, it will be a large post of 170 photos and the third in the series. Mall St. Vincent is hurting, but not quite dead yet. An October revisit to Wonderland Mall in San Antonio and River Hills in Kerrville are also on tap. There is not much else to say about this mall, it is so tiny.
ReplyDeleteI bought a few things prior to Thanksgiving, but the trip this week was my first shopping trip of the season. I actually found quite a few gifts. I think this year may have more cash given out than gifts or gift cards. After hearing about a lot of gift card scams, I am probably going to avoid gift cards this year as well.
The only JCPenney locations I have been to this year are the smaller locations. It seems like their clothing selection has been reduced at the stores I have visited. I also noticed a lot of small gift displays near the checkouts.
I have heard a lot about the lack of customers at physical stores on Black Friday this year. It is a good thing IMO. The issues with packing people together to fight over doorbuster deals was getting out of hand. The fact that retail chains were also pushing the store openings into Thanksgiving was not good either. Not a lot of people want to work Thanksgiving, and then you get the crazed crowds fighting over deals on a holiday. It was a lose-lose situation.