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 Either way you look at it, the mall is obsolete.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.
I finally got a chance to check Almeda Mall out last month after wanting to see it for for a while since it's the twin of Northwest mall. I regret not being able to see it while it still had Macy's and Burlington. The mall isn't at the point of no return, but the mall is starting to die off. A cafe and anime store were being added during my visit, while it looks like the Rainbow store was closing up shop.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the Macy's repurposing, it looks like the rest of the mall is up for sale: https://www.bizbuysell.com/business-opportunity/cash-flowing-mall-noi-1-470-000-for-sale-700-000-sf-67-ac-land/2419049/
The mall might have a chance to recover if something else takes over the Macy's space and the mall gets sold an owner committed to revitalizing the mall.
As for Macy's, I think the remaining Macy's in the Greater Houston area aren't going anywhere unless Macy's as a whole folds.
There are not a lot of options to redevelop Almeda mall outside of Target demolishing the mall itself and putting a store in. Target also has a couple of stores nearby, so that is a remote possibility. Most of the big box chains that could move in are already down the street. If the Macy's anchor is redeveloped as planned, it may help a little, but it doesn't look like it will connect to the mall like Macy's did. A redevelopment like we saw at PlazAmerica's doesn't seem to be a fit either since it didn't work at the nearby Pasadena Mall. There are so many vacant retail/ restaurant spaces in the area it doesn't seem like we will see anything happen in the near future outside of the Macy's redevelopment.
DeleteI had hoped to make it to the Almeda Mall Macy's closing sale since I spent a lot of time at this location and even more so at the Northwest Mall twin location, but I never did make it in there. In fact, I don't think I've been to Almeda Mall since around the time they did the major interior renovation around 2016 or so. The mall was owned by Fox Properties at the time and there was some sense of optimism about the place, and the renovation looked nice at the time, but clearly the optimism has not been realized a decade later as the mall has transferred ownership to some more questionable operators.
ReplyDeleteEven still, as you say, it was a bit surprising the Macy's here made it to 2025 even. This location was a bit of an outlier after Macy's had closed the other marginal stores around town. Maybe the post-Ike renovation helped keep this store around a bit longer, but it seemed inevitable that it would close sometime this decade. The poor physical condition of the flooring was really surprising given that it was all post-Ike stuff and, in the grand scheme of things, not very old.
The hot rumor around the time that the Macy's closure was announced was that Fiesta Mart would move into the spot, presumably to replace the existing store in the old Weingarten/Safeway on Edgebrook. There was some skepticism about that at the time given that Fiesta has not opened a new store in Houston in many years, but the latest plans published by Mike at HHR seem to confirm that a supermarket is planned and Fiesta is a logical guess for who might move in. Maybe one of the Asian grocers in the area will be interested, but otherwise a Hispanic-format grocer is probably likely.
I'm surprised to see those Target exclusive Funko Pops at the Macy's TRU. I wonder if those were normal inventory or stuff brought in for the liquidation. Given that I used to shop at the Target across the street from the mall, it is weird seeing Target stuff in that area again!
On the topic of Macy's, I did some shopping there this Black Friday weekend. It was a mix of good and bad I suppose. I bought shoes and they had some very good deals on dress shoes. JCPenney had the same shoes I bought, and on deep discount, but Macy's was still cheaper. That's surprising, but yeah, I did buy them from Macy's. Some of the other items I saw were hardly bargains though.
Things were neat and orderly this weekend, which is a bit surprising given the larger than usual crowds this weekend (though it's a far cry from the crowds the malls used to get at this time of the year just a decade ago even). Unlike most other stores which put their shoe inventory on the salesfloor, someone still has to get the shoes from the backroom at Macy's, but the days of the shoe salesmen helping customers fit their shoes and lace them are long in the past now. It was kind of an odd experience of old and new.
The escalators at the Willowbrook JCPenney are still out of order. Given that has been the case for a year now, the escalators are probably now permanently stairs. Otherwise, the store was also in surprisingly decent order, though it was not as busy as the Macy's was. Macy's put a lot of effort into their marketing this Christmas season and maybe that has paid off for them.
I have a little bit of free time right now, so I was able to crank out a handful of posts on the blog. Unfortunately, this extra time off is ending soon.
DeleteWe all knew this store wasn't going to survive for very long after the store had pretty much turned into a clearance center not too long after it reopened. Almeda Mall seemed to be going strong despite the proximity of the major retail areas in Clear Lake, Pearland, and the Pasadena/Fairmont area. It seems like those areas have finally won with Almeda struggling badly. As for the sister mall Northwest, urban explorers have been getting in fairly often and the mall has been trashed.
We went out the weekend after Thanksgiving as well and it wasn't anything wild thankfully. I think retailers are going to resort to massive price cuts as December drags on, because the deals just weren't there on Black Friday.
I can't believe JCPenney management still hasn't fixed those escalators. I really wonder how the company is doing these days as they don't seem to have a lot of traction on social media.
Dillards stores still have a traditional style shoe department with salespeople, but they do have clearance shoes on the salesfloor to try out. The athletic shoe stores also have salespeople to get shoes from the back. A lot of them have IPad's or a phone to scan and see if the shoes are in stock before they go in the back to look for them. I am sure the stores keep this model to reduce theft.
Dillards seems to be doing well and even in dying malls, their stores seem to stay busy. I have noticed that they carry some name-brand products from stores that used to have a large mall presence. They also have salespeople that are helpful and seem to be genuinely nice no matter what location you go to.
I think Macy's management has realized that they let a lot of their stores become over-run with junk that wasn't making them a profit. I have noticed the Deerbrook store has been cleaner in the few visits we have had this year. It also seems like Macy's has backed off on opening new locations with the smaller store concept. The Backstage and Toys R Us departments are the areas of the store that still are messy and have a lot of junk, but the rest of the store looks better.