A night out at Valley View Center Mall March 2022

On the way back from a day trip to Dallas, we passed through to see what has become of the Valley View Mall site. 

Check out this video from Retail Mix USA to see how the site looked about a week before our visit.

The AMC theater which was the lone holdout at the mall had recently closed. With the theater closed, the rest of the mall will probably come down soon.

The AMC labelscar is new. With the power still being on, we were able to see the soon to be fenced off spots at the property

A look at some of the old tenants that were at the mall.

The bright bulbs of the entrance were still shining for us.

I never went into the mall after the corridors were walled off. Even though I saw this in videos, it was still strange to see in person. 

I was glad that the power was still on so we could see inside for one last time.

Zoom in and you can see my shadow and what may be an old mall directory.

Even the signage showing the exit to I-635 was still illuminated.

Classic lighting. 

The Valley View labelscar.

Looks like the equipment was in place to start going after the final part of the mall for demolition.

The dark Valley View I-635 road sign.

An oasis in the middle of abandonment. 

Now for a drive around the property. 

And a bit of drive through. Yes this is the slab of the former Foley's/Macy's/Sanger Harris. This lot was wide open for anyone to drive into, although there was construction debris around. Just glad we didn't get a flat here.

This is part of the mall corridor that was left intact. 

A look at the remaining center court of the mall.

More of the same but from a different angle.

Part of the old floor was still intact.

The outline of the storefront. 

Looking into the vast emptiness where the Macy's/Sanger Harris anchor used to sit.

AMC was gone, but this sign was a reminder.

The way they demolished the mall with AMC still open is so strange. From I-635 the site didn't look too bad, but when you drove around the ring road it looked terrible. Practically most of the mall was gone and even the sides no longer had anything besides sheetrock walls keeping the interior closed off. In 2022 the difference between the Valley View site and Red Bird is enormous, both sites began their transformations at about the same time. Red Bird is booming with construction, new businesses, and new living spaces. Valley View is this, a partially demolished mall with nothing new going up yet. With AMC out of the picture, there should be nothing left to stop this site from redevelopment. While it is sad to see yet another mall wasted, Valley View never had a chance with the Galleria practically around the corner. 

 

Randalls #1776 Kingwood Texas "Randall's in the front of Kingwood"

A special thanks to Anonymous for locating the opening dates of all Randall's locations to help complete these articles. 

The featured Randalls opened on August 15, 2000 as a replacement store to anchor a new shopping center.

The original store was located at 23824 Highway 59 and opened on September 1st, 1986 as an anchor at the new Northpark Plaza shopping center. It was originally store #38 and was later listed as store #2038 when the company grew bigger in the 1990's. The Highway 59 store closed when the new store opened. 

Here is the very scratched up directory from the old Randall's at Northpark Plaza, photographed in 2013. This directory has since been removed. The plastic cover was pretty scratched up so this is about the best I could do.

 

Now for the replacement store located at 600 Kingwood Drive, store #1776. This store closed on February 15, 2020. This was the main anchor store for the Kingwood Commons shopping center. This store is listed as 63,990 square feet. We visited this store on February 6, 2020, a little more than a week before closing.

Randall's announced the closing of both Kingwood locations in early 2020, two months prior to the height of the pandemic restrictions. Both Kingwood Randall's stores had been upgraded when Albertsons and Safeway merged. Then Hurricane Harvey and the resulting flood inundated the Randall's in the back of Kingwood causing that store to undergo a full renovation. We will see that store featured here soon.

As you walk in you are greeted by the typical ice machines. The other side entrance had claw machines and drink machines. This Randall's had one set of doors on each side of this enlarged foyer area, and another set of doors to go into the main store.

The shopping cart corrals were located on each side of the interior doors, you can kind of see them to the far right in the first image.

Looking from the foyer to the exterior. The claw machines and vending machines were to the right of this image.

As you walk in to the right of the store, you have the typical floral, deli, bakery, salad/soup bar, and produce areas.

The meat and seafood counter was just past the produce section on the far right corner of the store.

The back wall was an extension of the meat department. Then you went to the cold cuts, cheese, frozen meats, juice, and in the back corner dairy.

Let's roll through the aisles. 

The kiosk to the left of this photo was a fairly new Starbucks. These were added about a year earlier to both Kingwood Randall's locations and closed along with the store.

More of the back wall of the store.

There were a lot of displays in this part of the store that had already been taken down at this point.

The back area of the store was looking really empty at this point.

The greeting cards aisle was still pretty full. 

Not much left in the pharmacy area.

Still a good amount of alcohol left at this point in the sale. Alcohol was one of the least discounted items in the sale. 

Piles of stuff was just thrown into the shelves here. The store closing sale went by so fast, there wasn't a lot of time to consolidate items properly like we see at store closing sales at retailers.

Pharmacy was long gone at this point. 

I think this was one of the health and beauty aisles.

Some seasonal items at the front of the store near the pharmacy area.

The back left corner of the store featured dairy, eggs, and dessert items.

More health and beauty items.

To see where the discounts were at just look at the left ceiling sign. The empty shelves were in front of the pharmacy area.

Lightbulbs had been consolidated into the rest of the inventory.

Air filter and cleaning supply fixtures.

Snack and chips aisle.

Soda aisle.

Frozen foods.

Rolling back to the self-serve meats looking to the back right of the store.

More aisles. Dry goods, canned goods, baking supplies, and more pictured here.

Cereal and coffee aisle.

Looking at the checkout area. Customer service booth and Starbucks kiosk also pictured here.

Deli and bakery counter.

A much better look at the Starbucks kiosk.

Bread aisle to the right, international foods, pasta, dry goods, and more pictured here.

That ends the tour of the store while it was open. Now we will see the store on February 18, 2020, three days after closing.

As of the making of this post, the store is still vacant. Power to the store appears to be off, and all exterior signage has been removed. No concrete plans have been announced for the redevelopment of this building.