This mall was built in 1997, making it one of the newest malls I've ever visited, and it's remained all but untouched since, so we're in for some interesting sights here! Malls aren't exactly my thing (grocery stores are), but they're undeniably an important historical and cultural part of the American retail scene, so I feel like I need to document them before they all disappear -- plus some are just really cool, and this may just be the coolest mall I've ever been to. (It's not visiting malls I don't like, but rather posting about them -- they don't lend themselves all that well to my photo-plus-description posting style. I may well experiment with description-less posts in this series.)
1997 is quite new for a traditional indoor mall. The newest traditional indoor mall that I've been to, at least in the US, is The Mall at Robinson in the Pittsburgh, PA suburbs. That opened in October 2001 and the mall is currently owned by the Australian state of Queensland. Yeah, don't ask me why the Australians are interested in a mall in Pittsburgh, lol. It is quite a nice mall...or at least it was when I went there in 2011. Of course, the mall wasn't even technically a decade old at that point so I suppose it better have been nice! But, yeah, it seems like retail has held up well in that area even in current times. The last Kmart I likely will have ever visited was right nearby as well. It was actually a Super Kmart.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you saw this, but Je of the Louisiana & Texas Retail Blog recently posted some brand new photos from the Toys R Us department at his local Macy's at Deerbrook Mall in NE Houston. If you have not seen this, it might be worth checking out. This is not the flagship TRU that will be built at the Memorial City Mall Macy's in Houston, but I guess it's a good look at what Macy's is up to with most of their stores. Link: https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2022/09/toys-r-us-returns-to-houston-area-and.html
It really is! I believe I've only ever visited one newer mall, in Canada (and it's close to 20 years newer than this place!).
DeleteI hadn't seen that! It looks like the Toys R Us department there is quite a bit nicer than the ones I've seen pictures of so far. It will certainly be interesting to see what the actual "flagship" locations look like!