Now Open Clarewood Mercado at Plazamericas Mall

Welcome to the Clarewood Mercado at Plazamericas Mall in Houston Texas.







The first of the two Mercados is now open for business. The site is still under construction and about half of the stores tonight were open and doing business. It is a rare event that a twelve year vacant department store re-opens into a mini-mall. This mercado breathes new life into this long vacant section of the mall and appears to be nearly fully leased. The mercado includes a supermarket, laundromat, a mini food court, and several small stores. Most of the stores closed early and I took these pictures just before the market closed for the night.

Only ten months ago the former JCPenney was a vacant rotting shell.





Now the building has a new beginning; here is a look at the new mall entrance.




Here are a couple of shots in the nearly finished Supermercado which will have entrances from the food court and outside access.




There is a small food court here on the first floor; five of the six outlets are filled. Notice the mirrors still on the poles from the old JCPenney. There are a few signs still in place from the old JCPenney including the one above the escalator below.




I am not sure what is going in here on the second floor; maybe a junior anchor or storage. There are three entrances to this area under construction.




The owners of the new mercado kept the escalators exactly the same from the old JCPenney. Gotta love the nostalgia here.




Clothing stores, jewelers, snack shops, cell phone booths, car stereo outlets, furniture stores, toy and novelty stores, tattoo shops, and several other businesses are open or moving in.










This is the space behind the Laundromat; it appears to be a dollar/ discount store.

Quick Update El Mercado at Plazamericas Mall

Here is the mall entrance to where the new mercado is under construction.



Here are a couple of pictures from the second floor of El Mercado which is under development at the Plazamericas Mall in Houston Texas. Both floors of this section of the mall have been gutted out and will be reconstructed as a mini-mall or mercado. The rest of the mall has seen some changes as well; the food court has brand new seats and tables. The mall has a few new inline stores opening soon. The Clarewood Mercado at the mall has also opened up in the former JCPenney.

May 16th Demolition pictures at Greenspoint Mall

There is not much left; they are moving fast with this demolition. As for the old Sears; the labelscars have been painted over just like at the old Montgomery Ward.

May 12 update on Greenspoint Mall

Thanks Pseudo3D for the heads up at the Greenspoint Mall JCPenney. I visited this JCPenney for years with my family when Greenspoint was the only mall in north Houston outside of Beltway 8 with a JCPenney. This was a large two story JCPenney with two mall entrances. The store also had two outside entrances that went in directly to the customer services, salon, and catalog sales on different ends. The store design was actually very similar to the JCPenney at San Jacinto Mall but with two floors. Once JCPenney expanded to Willowbrook Mall, The Woodlands Mall, and Deerbrook Mall all within a few short years this old dinosaur was put to rest. I look forward to seeing this part of the mall come alive again. Unfortunately Sears has closed leaving another part of the mall that needs to be redeveloped.

2009



May 12, 2010











Sears is now closed; the store closed this past weekend.

Highland Mall Update May 08, 2010

We visited Highland Mall this past weekend to give an update for the blog. The food court has lost five tenants, but there are still 9 tenants that serve food or snacks in the mall. In the recently closed Dillard's south wing; several new stores have opened up on both floors, but none are national chains. It is good to see the mall gaining tenants even with the loss of an anchor store. Macy's is still going strong and the Dillard's clearance center was doing brisk business as well. Unfortunately a few stores have left the mall, but the mall is working to rebound.




Here is the outside of the closed Dillard's south. Dillard's has consolidated into the smaller store, but the smaller store is clearance only. Dillard's had two stores at the mall until last year.





Dillard's south has closed, but the lights are still on for now.






Here are some inside shots in various parts of the mall.

New Links

Be sure to check out my new links. I am in the process of getting links for all of the malls and stores featured on my blog. I have some new articles coming soon as well including a full feature of retail in the Houston suburb of Humble Texas.

Ghosts of retailers past at San Jacinto Mall

Here are two of the three ghost anchors at the San Jacinto Mall. The Montgomery Ward is sealed up and the entire mall wing that Montgomery Ward was on is closed off, so I am unable to get pictures. I have featured Service Merchandise and Mervyn's in my tour. JCPenney, Sears, Marshall's, Palais Royal, and Macy's are still open at the mall. You can call these anchor closings a case of bad luck for this mall. The mall has also gained some new inline tenants since my last visit.

Service Merchandise; this anchor closed with the last round of Houston closings in early 2000. I only visited this store once while it was open during their electronic clearance just before the whole chain folded.

Picture from 2006; the labelscar is not as visible anymore.



Inside photos from 2010






Mervyn's; this store closed with the last round of Houston closings in 2006. This store was one of the smallest Mervyn's that I visited. All of the windows are wide open, so you can see inside of the store from inside and outside of the mall.

The labelscar has been painted over; the first picture is right after the store closed in 2006.



Inside photos from 2010