Moving just a little bit further down the corridor, here's a view back towards the central court. Even with the issues on the bridges, it's impressive how the vast majority of the neon here is still functional -- I wonder if whoever owns this mall these days is actually maintaining it, something that's extremely rare with true neon these days.
Wikipedia says that this mall is owned and managed by Brookfield Properties, the same company that owns and runs the numerous former Homart (Sears)/GGP malls in Houston such as Willowbrook Mall, my local mall, and Deerbrook Mall. Brookfield's malls are usually pretty high-performing malls so I suppose it's a bit of a surprise that this mall still has some vintage elements, but I don't think Brookfield does a lot of full renovations. At least they don't around here. They usually do small things here and there over the years to keep things fresh. Willowbrook Mall still has a lot of leftovers from the last time it was fully renovated in 1992! Of course, Willowbrook Mall never had neon in any significant amount.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit surprising to see a Famous Footwear at a mall. The only ones I knew of in malls were Famous Footwear Outlet stores in outlet malls, but some research shows that Memorial City Mall in Houston has a Famous Footwear in it as well. Huh, who knew? It's also interesting that Famous Footwear is next to Foot Locker, but there's probably a joke to be made that modern malls are just one shoe store after another broken up by the occasional women's fashion stores, lol.
Ah yes, I remember I looked that up but then completely forgot. Brookfield also owns Westlake Center in Seattle, which did get a big (and rather awful) remodel recently, but thankfully that didn't happen here!
DeleteInteresting, I didn't realize those were rare in malls! I guess I just have the same shoe stores = malls association you do! 🙂