South Park Mall Shreveport Louisiana (Summer Grove Baptist Church)

I had the unique experience of visiting this former mall one afternoon recently. This mall is located at 8924 Jewella close to LA 3132 in South Shreveport Louisiana. If you are into deadmalls this is a great former mall to check out that is open to the public. The mall was nearly empty of people with the exception of a custodian cleaning the floor in the center court. I visited the mall around an hour before nightfall which gave the mall an even creepier feel. The former stores of the mall are used as school class rooms, church craft shops, church offices, and there is a cafe. As an added bonus the former Montgomery Ward was open with a thrift sale filling the entire first floor of the store which was also open to the public. As you can see from the below photos and labelscar article the mall has not been changed much with the exception of the JCPenney church. The reuse of this building shows what can be done to save a failing retail property without demolition and do something good for the community.

Burlington does not appear on the directory.

Burlington is the last true retail holdover from the former mall.

JCPenney is now a church.

You can see the labelscar from this side of the former JCPenney.

Dillard's still has labelscars over each of the three entrances.

This is the entrance next to the former Dillard's that was open to the mall.

The former Stage store also has a labelscar.

This looks to be where the Picadilly Cafeteria was.

Montgomery Wards appeared to be as tall as a three story anchor but was two stories.

The paint is peeling away from the columns of the former Montgomery Ward.

This is the first mall that I have visited where you can play basketball directly in front of an anchor store.

You can see the former Spencer store on the right of this photo.

This is nearly the same spot that this flicker photo was taken from (click words for link).

The Dillard's entrance.

Basketball or Burlington?

No more gag gifts to be found here.

Champs

Bath and Body Works is long gone along with every other store. The green reflection near the center court is from the cafe in front of the entrance to the church.

This place must be hopping on a Sunday, but not on this weekday afternoon.

The cinema has not been modified from the past and even had some of the lights on.

This is the former Montgomery Wards corridor.

Surprisingly some of the lights over these skylights were on, but after nearly ten years only a few are working.

The mall entrance to the Montgomery Wards has seen better days; the roof and wall is damaged.

The former Montgomery Ward store was open to the public for a Goodwill style resale shop. Enjoy this look into the store over ten years after the store closed.

There were a few signs still intact from the store; I wondered if the elevator still worked but I was not crazy enough to try.

A peek into the second floor; the tarp did not help to get a good photo of the upstairs. The upper floor was probably where the Electric Avenue was as the first floor appeared to have been mostly clothing departments.

South Park Mall San Antonio

This is the first of two different South Park Mall posts and the first of five new malls to be featured on my blog. Southpark Mall San Antonio is the main mall off of I-35 south and Military that serves the south areas of San Antonio. South Park Mall has Sears, JCPenney, Macy's, Bealls, and Anna's Linens as anchors. The mall is almost full and seems to be too small for such a large population in the nearby area. The closing of nearby McCreless Mall has helped to fuel business at the mall. Mervyn's (the only empty anchor) lasted here until the last round of Texas closings shortly before the company completely closed in 2008. The malls opening date is listed as 1968 on Wikipedia.

The Macy's (Foley's) was added onto the mall in the 1990's.

This is the original section of the mall.

The food court is located just beside the former Mervyn's anchor.

A still active F.Y.E. store; this was the company that took the Sam Goody and Musicland chains over. A bunch of these stores have closed since CD's are losing popularity.

Only one space in the Mervyn's corridor is empty; the rest of the stores are still going strong..

The mall owners covered up the Mervyn's outside entrances with bags, but you can see the inside still has many of the fixtures.

The entrances have a late 1990's style multicolored neon nameplate.

With the exception of the closed Mervyn's anchor the mall is nearly full and busy.