It has been a while since the blog has been active. Here is a second post for the day to make up for the long delay in activity. To see the first post of the day, click here https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2025/12/almeda-mall-with-macys-closing-sale-feb.html
Here is a revisit to one of the few remaining small-town malls in Texas. As of this blog post, the mall is still operating and does not appear to have been affected by the heartbreaking flooding that occurred in this area earlier this year. Unfortunately, the mall is changing as there is a 48,862 square foot Academy under construction within the mall.
If any locals see this post, can you comment below and provide any updates on the mall?
This old mall walker sign shows the route through the mall. The main corridor goes from JCPenney to Belk with mall entrances at each anchor and the main entrance in the middle. It is a simple layout that was repeated in many Texas small-town malls.
The mall still retains the old school look of the past. Besides tenant changes, little has changed over the years besides some new paint and cleaning. And this mall is really clean.
Retro Hibbett Sports store with the JCPenney annex on the left. Hibbett Sports is still open as of this post.
Burke's Outlet changed to Bealls.
As you can see from the photos, this mall corridor only has spaces for stores on one side. One half of the corridor is taken up by the JCPenney annex and Bealls.
Retro Bath and Body Works. Sadly, this store left the mall a few months ago.
The amazing center court with a clean and running water fountain. Hopefully this will remain intact when the Academy is added onto the mall.
RAC dressing company was in the former Bealls space. EntertainMART is now located here as of February 2025. To see the old location in a former Hastings store click here. The old EntertainMART building is set to be demolished for new businesses.
The Belk half of the mall is the quietest. Just a handful of businesses left down here. If I had to guess, this is where the Academy will go. As I researched this article, this appears to be the case as the businesses in this side of the mall have all closed.
This Belk store like the Nacogdoches Texas location is located in a former Kmart space.
The retro Arcade was at the mall entrance next to Belk. We will see the inside of the arcade in a bit.
Maurice's was one of the few stores left near Belk. It has since closed.
The retro arcade was still going. This picture looks more like the 1980's than 2024. Sadly, the arcade left the mall in October as what appears to be a clearing out of the Belk corridor. It looks like they will reopen at some point in a new location, but they auctioned off a lot of what was here.
More photos of the mall as we wrap up the tour.
Elevate Pure Foods was a small healthy snack and drink shop. It looks like they have since left the mall and are looking for a new location. On their Instagram they mention an upcoming demolition of their mall location. Seems like the Academy will go up on this side of the mall
A very retro Claire's storefront that has since closed.
The next three photos are on the side of the mall where the Academy will presumably be built. If they cut off this half of the mall form Academy, hopefully they will still keep the JCPenney corridor open.
Real trees planted in the mall! A rare sight in 2024.
More shots of the exterior to finish up this post.
Nighttime shots.
I hope you enjoyed this mall revisit. While it is sad to hear about the demise of yet another small-town mall in Texas, at least we got to see it and document it before it changed forever. While new businesses are always good for a city, this redevelopment has displaced some local businesses. Hopefully everyone affected will come back stronger than before.
No comments:
Post a Comment