The area around JCPenney looks like an addition due to its bland flat ceiling, but as far as I can tell it is actually original to the mall. I guess it was intended to be another court like at the Bon Marche (the other original anchor), but it's really just a section of corridor with slightly higher ceilings. Maybe it made more sense with the original design, but it just looks like an odd after thought these days.
Just like I said in the last picture, just a few steps down the line we have not one but two more cell phone shops -- a kiosk and a full-size shop, right next to one another. I don't understand how all these places have enough customers to stay in business!
Uh oh, it looks like a clean-up is needed in aisle, uh, well, I guess we can call it cell phone row, though that might describe the whole mall!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like there is/was a Seattle Mariners store there on the left side, but it doesn't look to be open. Maybe it just has dull lighting. I can only remember one Houston sports team having a mall store and that was the Houston Rockets having a store at Memorial City Mall back in the late 1990s, but I don't think it lasted too long. I did go there once or twice, but I didn't buy anything. I think I heard that the NBA has opened an NBA store of sorts at one of the big Houston malls, probably either Memorial City or The Galleria, but I have not been by there obviously. I did see an Ottawa Senators team store in Ottawa's ByWard Market when I was there a few years ago.
These days, with Mariners merchandise probably being sold at several stores in the mall and with ticket sales being mostly online, I wonder if there really is much of a need for a specific team store unless maybe they have some game-used merchandise or other rare stuff. Even then, I don't know if they'd get enough traffic from that to justify a store.
I'm not sure if the Mariners store was open in 2021, but it's definitely gone now. There are a bunch of empty spaces in that area now (one of which is where Potato Corner is moving to, but I'm not sure which). The Mariners are down to just their downtown store and the one at the stadium; the only team that seems to have its own mall store these days is the Kraken with a store in Bellevue (despite their lack of success, Kraken merchandise seems to be a lot more popular than any other team around here).
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