A 58-year run has come to an end. This anchor store opened up as a Foley's on October 3rd, 1966, before the mall opened. In 2006, this store along with the entire Foley's/May company brand was converted to Macy's. This store closed on March 23, 2025, leaving Almeda Mall without a major anchor store. Almeda Mall has struggled as of late losing Burlington in late 2023 and now Macy's. There are still 2 junior anchors at the mall, 365 by Image and DD's Fashions, but the mall is going to really struggle in the short term with the loss of Macy's. If all goes as planned, this anchor space may not stay vacant for long. Credit Houston Historic Retail for this news. It is also possible this redevelopment doesn't connect to the mall corridor from what I can tell from the site plan, depending on what businesses lease the spaces next to the mall. Either way you look at it, the mall is obsolete.
Link to the HHR story 👉Retail News: Grocery store planned for Macy’s space at Almeda Mall – Houston Historic Retail
Here is a peek inside of the Macy's. We will have more photos of Macy's to close out the post.
The mall entrance.
Now for some views around the mall. The food court and Macy's corridor was mostly unchanged since my last visit, so I didn't get any photos from down there. Here are some photos from the Burlington half of the mall. While there are still some businesses down here, there were few people walking in this section of the mall. This is one of the mall entrances near Burlington.
The empty stores down here are looking rough.
The former Burlington mall entrance. Burlington used a little more than half of the first floor of the former JCPenney.
A large gaming store took over the former Old Navy/Steve and Barry's location.
The directory hasn't been updated in quite some time.
It is so weird to see these Amazon lockers in a dying mall. This is the same mall entrance as earlier.
Old school Journey's handprint.
An advertisement of Macy's that will probably remain long after the store is gone.
Back to the Burlington store. Burlington did the minimum to refresh this store while they were tenants here.
A large portion of the flooring in front of the former Burlington is barricaded off due to water leaks. At this point, they might as well block off this side of the mall.
Now back to the Macy's. This store was renovated back in 2008 after Hurricane Ike caused damage to the building. The first floor reopened, but the second floor was closed off permanently.
Along with the renovations, the store also quickly became overwhelmed with clearance merchandise.
In the final years of business, it was obvious that Macy's management was not going to keep this store going for too much longer.
The Toys R Us department had been moved to the other side of the store as things were being consolidated in the sale.
Who buys these POP things? I see them overwhelming stores from Toys R Us, Walmart, Hot Topic, Gamestop, etc. These were Target exclusives at one time, lol.
If the clearance selection wasn't overwhelming at this store, the addition of the Backstage store really pushed things into junk territory. The store entrance here was permanently closed off as well. Macy's stores seem to have extra security measures for the Backstage departments with separate checkouts and the closed off store entrance here.
Looking into the mall from the main aisle of the store.
Children's clothing had been pushed over into this small chunk of the store to make room for the Backstage department. Housewares and the smallest Toys R Us department I have seen were back here as well.
Here is the empty Toys R Us department.
Another issue in the store was the new floor from the 2008 renovation. Cracks, broken tiles, and loose tiles began popping up all over the store. If you pay attention to the next round of photos, you will see a lot of these issues with the floor. Tape seems to be the fix.
A look at some of the random junk that was brought in for the store closing sale. A lot of this stuff was Dollar Tree quality merchandise at marked up prices. Buyer beware at these store closing sales!
A really messed up section of the floor tile problems at the store.
Now for the fixture sale. I am sure that more stuff was brought down from the second floor as the sales floor cleared up more. There was about a month left for the store closing sale at this point.
All in all, this store had been in a decline for many years before closing. It was surprising that the store lasted until 2025 TBH. Macy's was able to squeeze out a few more years out of this store when it seemed like it was going to close after Hurricane Ike damaged the building. We will do an update post of the mall in 2026 to see how things are going.
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