Monday, October 26, 2026

The Shops at Ardmore, formerly Mountainview Mall in Ardmore Oklahoma

Here we go for our first USA mall outside of Texas and Louisiana. We finally made it to Oklahoma for a short visit, and while we were here, we had to make a stop at this place.
This mall may look familiar as it is the same shape, original anchor lineup, and layout as several Texas malls we have covered on the blog. This mall has a unique history despite the similarities mentioned above. 

Mountainview Mall opened in 1980 and is listed as having 277,247 square feet of retail space. The mall has a traditional main corridor with anchors on each end, and a center hallway with a third anchor on one end. JCPenney (Original anchor) anchors the South side of the mall, Bealls anchored the middle, and Kmart which closed in 1995 anchored the North side of the mall. Hobby Lobby and Big Lots eventually took over the former Kmart anchor space. Planet Fitness took over half of the former Bealls space. In 2014 a major renovation of the mall took place with the center court fountain covered up and the skylights were covered up with lit up painted murals. New paint, flooring, and a large bathroom area were added as well. Ulta, TJMaxx, and Aaron's are located in an addition to the South side of the mall. More than likely this section of the mall was originally a grocery store, but I could not find any confirmation online. If anyone would like to add additional information about the mall, please comment below.

One of the biggest challenges of this mall is that the owners also built a nearby big box center that continues to grow and poach tenants from the mall. Ownership renovated the mall about a decade ago to try and keep the mall vibrant, but we all know how this story will end. 

From the entrance of Hobby Lobby, we can see all the way to the other end of the mall. Famous Footwear and another place that we will reveal at the end are the only places open besides the military recruiting office down here. 

The center court with the covered-up fountain. We will see this 

Now I had to double check that I was in the right state. What is this place doing in Oklahoma? This place definitely belongs in Louisiana. 


GNC outlasting Bath and Body Works at this mall. This is one of the rare GNC stores at a small-town mall that still exists. GNC has pulled out of a lot of malls in favor of shopping center locations. 

Bath and Body Works left for the nearby shopping center for new digs.

An old school neon sign in front of the nail salon.

I am not sure what this store was originally, but I like it.

The long wall on the left is store space for Staples. To the right is yet another store (Buckle) that left for the big box center. 

One of the strangest things that was done in the 2014 renovation was to cover up all of the skylights in favor of these domes that are painted like a sky. With that of the way, check out the wood paneled JCPenney entrance. These JCP entrances are very rare in 2026. I took several photos from slightly different angles.




Looking from the JCPenney entrance back to the rest of the main mall corridor.

Former Buckle

The store space next to JCPenney. I believe this is a former Hallmark.

Looking towards the center court. The Staples addition really killed off a lot of this mall corridor.

Another empty store space.

GNC

This space is listed as the former Claires. 

Looking down to the center entrance of the mall.

An advertisement for the mall. The website for the mall has a very dated mall directory, but it helps to see what the former stores were. 

A very old school Chinese restaurant.

Just past the restaurant is the bathroom area that was added in 2014. 

A menu from the abandoned Louisiana drink spot.

The center court with the Planet Fitness and vacant Bealls.

This was a former jewelry store. 

Planet Fitness and the other half of the Bealls store.

Inside the remains of the former Bealls store.

The center court with the center mall hallway in view.

From the center court to the Hobby Lobby entrance.

Hibbett Sports moved out.

Another look at the center court with JCPenney in the distance.

Inside of the Hibbett Sports.

Famous Footwear is one store that I usually don't see in these small-town malls. Shoe Department is usually the last shoe store remaining at these properties.

One of the excellent surprises at this mall. An open Peanut Shack with the retro signage!

Hobby Lobby was the busiest store with lots of people going in and out of the store. You can see the obvious Kmart brick wall to the left of the entrance.

Just to the right of the Hobby Lobby was this Big Lots.

The entrance looks like a retro 1980's style, maybe it was built like this to blend into the mall.

The empty Big Lots.

More shots of the Peanut Shack. I can't think of another mall that still has one of these operating in 2026. The University Mall location in Nacogdoches closed several years ago. 


One last look of the mall interior as we head out.

Now for the outside of the mall. The mall has an additional exterior section of shops attached to the JCPenney much like we saw at the Palestine Mall in Palestine Texas. 

The center entrance to the mall.

A wide view of the mall with the former Kmart on the right.

Hobby Lobby and the West Mall entrance. Big Lots was the empty space on the far right. 

As you can see from the exterior photos, the mall entrances are not marked well. It almost looks like the mall corridors are gone. Thankfully, the interior mall is still open, but for how much longer?

JCPenney is very old school looking. Planet Fitness is in the distance to the left of JCPenney.

Ulta, TJMaxx, and Aarons are in the extension that does not connect to the mall corridor.

A final look at the road sign before we head out.

Coming up next, we have revisits to Louisiana Malls, and Arkansas Malls.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous in HoustonOctober 26, 2026 at 10:38 PM

    This is one of those malls which has a lot of retailers, past and present, which I normally don't associate with malls. Kmart would have been one of those, though we do know there were quite a few mall Kmarts in smaller towns/cities. Famous Footwear is not a retailer I associate with malls. In fact, their location here looks bigger than some of their freestanding locations.

    Big Lots is another retailer I don't associate with malls and when they had locations in malls, it seemed like they liked to de-emphasize the mall entrances. North Oaks Mall comes to mind, they closed that mall entrance off and even left the MacFrugal's signage up there. Your photo of that is one of my favorite memories from this blog! But, yeah, Big Lots not only had a mall entrance, but they had a really fancy one! That might well have been the fanciest Big Lots I've seen in photo form.

    There is a lot of retroness in this mall as one would expect from these smaller malls. Fortunately, not all of the retroness comes in the form of abandoned stores. The Chinese buffet is interesting and it is really neat seeing that Peanut Shack. The JCPenney entrance is retro as well. As for the skylight in front of the JCPenney, well, I've never seen a 'skylight' quite like that! It is certainly...interesting. I'll give them an A for effort, though I don't know if I'll give them an A for execution, lol.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The owners of the mall tried to keep the mall going and open a new big box center nearby. It worked for a little while, but the mall corridor isn't doing well and will probably meet the same fate as similar malls. A lot of the stores that left the mall relocated to the area big box centers including Bealls. Bealls at the new location was rebranded to Gordmans before closing, the sign was still up when we drove by. The loss of Kmart happened around the same time as most of these Kmart mall locations were shut down. Super K and stores that could be renovated into Big K stores were their focus in the mid 90's.

      I wonder if the Big Lots was another retailer or possibly a MacFrugal's before Big Lots took over the space. This mall has so little information online, I didn't even know if the interior mall was open prior to our visit.

      The whole skylight coverup is so strange. The mall is really dark now, especially with so many vacant spaces. I am guessing Peanut Shack had the retro storefront until the 2014 renovation or they possibly moved at some point. The retro signs without the wood panel storefront looks odd.

      I was glad to see this place before any changes happen that will inevitably result in some or all of the mall corridor disappearing.

      Delete