2025 has been a disappointing year for me on the blog. I have not had much time to devote to keeping up with the blog, and I apologize to everyone for my lack of replies and content for most of the year. This has also been the least active year for capturing content with only a handful of places documented. Along with the limited quantity of photos that Blogger will let me download at one time, it really has slowed down the process of creating posts. My newer articles are averaging around 100 photos, and I can only upload 8 photos at a time without getting the Blogger error message. All of this to say, the blog is still going in 2025 although at a much slower pace. I may release some of my backlog with minimal comments to speed up the pace of the blog. There are some new malls that I haven't previously covered here yet, and some long overdue visits to malls that have fallen off since my last visit. Now for the post at hand, North East Mall.
A few years ago, we visited this mall briefly at the end of a Sunday. Pretty much all we had time for was a visit to the unique Penney's location. In 2025, I finally had the chance to finally document the rest of the mall. Of course, the star of the mall is still the Penney's location, but the rest of the mall is doing really well despite the loss of 2 anchors in Sears (2019) and Nordstrom (2020). One floor of the former Nordstrom is being replaced by Primark, and the former Sears future is up in the air as of this post. The mall is doing very well with the only vacancies being around the former Sears and Penney's section of the mall. Simon still owns this mall, and they are one of the best mall operators still left.
The mall opened on March 25, 1971, and has been expanded multiple times. The mall proper is listed at 1,669,350 square feet with the additional outdoor center bringing the total to over 2,100,000 square feet. Currently the mall is anchored by Macy's, Dillard's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Penney's, Cinemark 18 screen cinema, and the soon to open Primark. Former anchors of the mall were Montgomery Ward, Leonard's, Stripling's, Service Merchandise, Sears, Foley's, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nordstrom.
The former Sears auto center outparcel.
Penney's with Sears to the right.
The former Sears still has the painted over labelscars. Despite the success of the mall and surrounding area, the vacant Sears brings down this side of the mall. Many of the former Sears locations have been difficult to redevelop.
Cinemark 18 and Dillard's.
One of the parking garages attached to Dillard's.
Macy's
Dick's Sporting Goods
Macy's with the food court entrance.
The food court has a circus tent style roof.
The former Nordstom that will soon be occupied on the first level by Primark.
Cinemark 18 and the outdoor restaurants.
One more look at the Penney's before we enter the mall.
As far as the Penney's location, the store retains the unique style and signage that we saw on the last visit.
Some of the cool extras that we saw have disappeared, making this store pretty much the same as the other JCPenney stores across the chain.
Second level.
The cafe's on both levels of the store are now shut down.
At least they kept Anonymous's favorite section intact.
The product mix is sparse outside of the clearance racks.
Back down to the first level.
I happened to notice that the special shopping bags are not being used at the checkouts anymore. The normal JCP bags are what shoppers now get. Even this display looks like some were picked out.
Into the mall we go. The mall is pretty massive for being on one-level. The mall was also really busy on this Friday night. I did my best to keep people out of the photos, but with a mall this busy, people are all over the place.
The two-level Dick's Sporting Goods was a fairly recent addition to the mall.
The Macy's court still has a running water fountain. We will have a photo of the fountain in just a bit.
Heading down the corridor to the future Primark.
One of the two corridors leading to the former Sears.
If you need a spot of peace and quiet to escape the crowds this is certainly it.
Since the mall directory is digital, here was the best I could do to document the layout of the mall.
Future Primark mall entrance. This section of the mall stayed mostly occupied since there is a mall entrance just to the right of the anchor space.
Looking down the corridor from the future Primark entrance.
Sears court.
Almost back to the center/Macy's court of the mall.
Looking down the Dillard's corridor from the center/Macy's court.
The mall entrance to the outdoor section with Cinemark is to the right.
The 3-level Dillard's caps off this side of the mall.
Turning back around to look at the mall from the Dillard's entrance.
This is the mall entrance that leads to the outdoor area with Cinemark.
Now for the center court/Macy's area. This 3-level Macy's still has the Foley's style entrance.
Here is the fountain. As small piece of the past that is kept alive in the old mall.
Now we will head back towards the Penney's/Food court area of the mall.
A newer FYE store. One thing about the newer FYE stores is that there is a whole lot less physical media than we used to see in the past.
Now for the food court.
Very few of these tent ceilings still exist in malls, and most of those are in dead/dying malls. Northeast is not even close to dying out thankfully.
The second Sears corridor and mall entrance.
No benches or places to sit in this quiet area of the mall.
Popping back out into the main mall corridor, Penney's to the left, food court to the right.
And we will pop back into the Penney's for a few more photos to end off this trip.
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I am glad that they kept the seating areas in the store. These are good to relax at while our significant others are spending our hard-earned cash.
Not sure if this counter is no longer staffed, but it didn't look like it had been used for a long time.
It was good to finally document the full mall.
And for the final photo, take a look at all of this stuff inside of the former Sears.
More posts to come!
It is good to see that the blog is alive and well! Aside from time constraints, I can certainly understand the lack of desire to document new places. That said, it is always interesting to see new content and it is nice to see the current state of North East Mall.
ReplyDeleteDead anchors aside, it looks like the mall is doing well. It is nice to see a FYE like that, but if that store even has any physical media, it certainly isn't visible from the front of the store. Oh well, it is funny because I run into younger people in their early 20s who are still into buying new CDs and such. I even met one who is into VHS, which certainly led to an interesting discussion. I'm not sure where these people are buying their CDs (well, I think it is Walmart, not that they have much), but it probably isn't FYE!
It is always interesting to see this unique JCPenney store. I recently visited a JCPenney for the first time in a while, the Willowbrook Mall one, and it was a mix of good and bad. While they did have a pretty good selection of men's slacks, the dressing rooms were a mess and women were regularly using the men's department dressing room which certainly led to an interesting moment when I was leaving the dressing room stall and a mostly undressed woman's kid opened the door to their stall as I was walking past. Oh well, lol.
Unfortunately, I had to return what I bought, which led to a 45 minute experience where a simple return with a receipt and items with tags on them required begging. I was not impressed with the customer service. It didn't help that the escalators were broken and apparently had been broken for a long while based on user reviews. Oh well. Maybe the North East Mall location is maintained better.
The food court design here is certainly interesting. I'll give them credit for trying something different. The people watching slogan for the mall is a bit strange, but I suppose it is still part of the mall experience, for better or for worse.
That is unfortunate that Blogger is causing problems. It seems like it is rotting on the vine a bit and Google isn't giving it much attention. I suppose technology trends have gone in a slightly different direction, but I'm glad that you're still keeping the blog alive. I certainly look forward to whatever new content you have. The blog is quickly approaching 2 million views so clearly there are people still enjoying the content here!
This mall has a very bright future and seems to be the best mall in the Fort Worth area. While not as luxurious as some of the Dallas malls, this one more than holds its own. The Sears anchor vacancy is an issue that really needs to be addressed though.
ReplyDeleteThis FYE store had a very small selection of physical media. It was a whole lot smaller than an older FYE store like we found in Austin a few months ago. The markups on the rest of their merchandise are huge, but there are a lot of collectors and impulse buys that should keep them in business.
After the JCPenney bankruptcy, I figured that the chain would limp along before inevitably closing a lot more stores. I really don't know what keeps them in business these days.
When I have a bit more time, I will try to see if any of the issues with blogger have been resolved. I guess with the rise of social media and Vlogs, that Blogger is no longer a priority for Google.