Oakwood Center Mall opened in 1966 in the community of Terrytown just outside of the New Orleans city limits on the Westbank. Sears opened on April 13 and the mall on October 17. Sears had all of the usual departments and more including farm and garden, French Quarter coffeehouse, pet shop, and a fine fur department.
The original logo of the mall from the grand opening advertisement.
Stores at the grand opening of the mall in 1966 were
Allen Shoes
Bank of the South
Barricini Candy
Barnett's
DH Holmes
Florsheim Shoes
Goldrings
Gus Mayer
Hardy Shoes
Hausmann's
Holmes Car Care Center
K and B Drugstore (Katz and Bestoff)
Kinney Shoes
Magi Gift Shop
Miller-Wohl
National Shirt Shop
Oakwood Barber Shop
Paris Hats
S.H. Kress
Sears
Sears Auto Center
Stein's
Steven's
Werlein's
Winn Dixie
Zales
The list of stores that opened up just after the grand opening.
American Thrift Finance
Chatta Box Beauty Salon and Boutique
Cinema I/II
Halpern's
Holloway House Cafeteria
Jiffy Cleaners
Martin's Shoes
Mayfair
Oakwood benefitted for many years as the only regional mall on the Westbank of New Orleans. Oakwood survived despite aggressive competition from the Belle Promenade Mall opening in 1983 in direct competition just five miles away. Oakwood expanded and took back their market share and Belle Promenade eventually failed as the mall did not expand. Oakwood gained the Mervyn's anchor in the mid 1980's, and Maison Blanche moved into the mall in the late 1990's just before Mercantile stores was taken over by Dillard's. Maison Blanche had an older store down the Westbank Expressway in the Westside North Shopping Center roughly where the Academy is today. Had Belle Promenade been built as the super regional five anchor mall that the developers anticipated; Oakwood more than likely would have closed and/or been redeveloped into a big box center. The owners of Oakwood took early action in the mid 1980's by expanding the mall to compete with the new Belle Promenade Mall. The New Orleans Centre, Riverwalk, and Canal Place Malls also opened up just across the GNO bridge from Oakwood but for different reasons did not affect the business at Oakwood.
After Belle Promenade died Oakwood was the only mall left on the Westbank again, but another major setback occured in 2005.
Oakwood Mall was partially destroyed by looters and a large fire in 2005 shortly after Hurricane Katrina passed over the city. The mall was partially down down and most of the mall was rebuilt and renovated. Mervyn's which was damaged by the fire never reopened because the company left Louisiana in late 2005. The mall reopened in 2007 although some of the anchors opened up before the mall did. The inside of the mall is much more modern than most current shopping malls and does not have a boring color scheme like many of the newer mall styles of the 1990's and 2000's. In fact the mall has several different colors, and the fountain was retained and improved with a color changing light scheme in the center court.
DH Holmes original anchor store; now partially filled with a Forever 21 store.
Dillard's which moved from the original Holmes building.
JCPenney which was built as a Maison Blanche; JCPenney closed at Belle Promenade and opened here a few days after the Belle store closed. When Dillard's took over the Maison Blanche name this store was closed giving JCPenney the opportunity to leave Belle Promenade.
The is the entrance to the lost corridor of the mall. Rite Aid and Mervyn's did not return after the fire. Mervyn's had already planned to leave the New Orleans market, so the store would have been closed by the end of 2005 if the hurricane had not happened.
K and B which became a Rite-Aid after the conversion.
Mervyn's with all of the mall signage stands out from the West Bank expressway. I am really surprised that Macy's did not put a store here after opening a store at Lakeside and reopening their store at The Esplanade Mall. There was a Macy's just across the river at the New Orleans Center Mall that did not open after the hurricane also.
This is the mall entrance near Sears and the food court.
The Sears here is a classic style from the 1960's, but has been updated to the modern style.
A labelscar from the Musicland store which later became a Sam Goody.
The original Sears labelscar with the cursive letters. This was once an entrance but was blocked when the mall expanded and the corridor to Mervyn's was added.
The mall directory does not show the closed corridor to Mervyn's which would be below Sears on this directory. The mall is almost completely full except for the closed corridor.
The mall has a very interesting design and looks much better than before the hurricane.
Maison Blanche had some higher end entrances to their stores, and JCPenney did not modify this one too much. The front of the JCPenney has two staircases that go to the second level.
The view from the food court to the center court fountain.
These are some views of the mall from the center court. This one is looking towards the food court.
Looking towards the closed Mervyn's corridor and Sears second entrance.
The fountain that has been here since the 1966 mall opening.
Looking down the JCPenney corridor.
Back to the Sears/ Mervyn's corridor.
Looking from the Sears/ Mervyn's corridor to the center court fountain.
Looking from the fountain to the closed off mall corridor and Sears entrance.
The lonely Sears entrance just before the mall dead-ends.
Just past this wall is the closed down Mervyn's/ Rite Aid corridor. There is space for at least 20 more stores in this closed off section of the mall.
There was a space in between the doors to the closed off section of the mall to barely see what used to be there.
The lost corridor of the mall. How many malls still have payphones? The next five photos are how the mall used to look before the fire in 2005. You can see this part of the mall by walking along the glass near the former Rite-Aid store.
The entrance to the former K and B (later a Rite Aid).
I was surprised to see the lights on still even though this part of the mall has been closed to the public since 2005.
Dillards near the food court.
The food court entrance has been dramatically changed since the remodel.
The food court is full of restaurants and even a Daiquiri shop.
