November 17, 2009 | Posted by Prange Way | Posted in Dead Malls, New Mexico

Albuquerque is the largest city in sparsely populated New Mexico, America’s 5th-largest state by area.  With a metropolitan population of approximately 850,000 people, nearly half the population of the entire state of New Mexico lives in the Albuquerque area.

Albuquerque is known for its natural beauty and Spanish and Native American influences, which have together created a very distinct culture unique to New Mexico and the American Southwest.  As Albuquerque has progressed into modernity, it resisted the types of growth found in other cities.  The impetus for growth in Albuquerque was not the manufacturing age and the industrial revolution – as was the case in many eastern and northern cities – but the Atomic Age during and after the Cold War.

The establishment of Kirtland Air Force Base, Sandia Base, and Sandia National Laboratories during the 1930s into the 1950s positioned Albuquerque for immense growth, and from 1940 to 1960 the city grew from 35,000 to 200,000.  The area has grown at a fast pace since, and in 2007 was named by CNN and the U.S. Census as the 6th fastest growing city in America.

As much of Albuquerque’s growth occurred after World War II, developers assumed people would rather drive than walk places, so development patterns followed suit.  Albuquerque’s major streets are on the grid system, with shopping and convenience centers at major intersections.  This is a very typical development pattern throughout much of the American Southwest and Sun Belt region in general.  Also, due to both geography and the positioning of Albuquerque’s industry, growth patterns favored filling in the valley to the east of downtown.

In response to its tremendous growth, Albuquerque decided to jump on the mall-building trend and began planning the state’s first mall in 1960.  Due to development patterns favoring the sprawling east side, combined with the pending completion of Interstate 40 across Albuquerque around the same time,  a centrally-located site was selected along Interstate 40 at Louisiana Boulevard – about 6 miles east of downtown.

Once the site was selected, Victor Gruen - the Grandfather of malls - was hired to design Winrock Center, which opened in March 1961.  It opened with 42 stores, anchored by Safeway, Kresge, Walgreens, Fedway discount mart, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney.  Wards and Penneys flanked the eastern side of the center, and the rest of the anchors were located along the western side with a semi-enclosed mallway in between.  The semi-enclosure consisted of a roof with open grillwork to allow the free flow of air into and through the center.  In addition, two completely open-air plazas existed on the east and west ends of the center.  A good illustration of Winrock’s 1960s layout can be found here, and Malls of America has a great photo of Winrock from this era.

Not only was Winrock a shopping destination, but it was also a pioneer of mixed-use developments, housing a Best Western motel and offices on site, starting in 1963, with housing on its periphery.  Also in 1963, the Fox Winrock Cinerama Theatre opened in the mall’s north parking lot.

Eager to capitalize on the instant success of Winrock, another developer built a competing mall kitty corner to Winrock in 1965.  Called Coronado Center, it was anchored by Sears and Tacoma, Wa.-based Rhodes; and, like Winrock, Coronado contained a single level of open air shops.   However, despite the opening of Coronado within sight of Winrock, Winrock’s fortunes didn’t immediately suffer – it would take another three decades before Albuquerqueans favored Coronado over Winrock.

The 1970s brought many changes to both of Albuquerque’s malls as they attempted to modernize and adapt to competition from each other as well as the peripheral retail strip and smaller shopping centers popping up all over town.  In 1972, Dillard’s arrived at Winrock, replacing the Safeway/Fedway area on the west side of the mall.  Then, in 1975, both Albuquerque malls decided to expand and fully enclose, providing a fully climate-controlled environment in the relatively harsh Albuquerque weather (wind, heat, cold), as well as providing an edge over other non-enclosed shopping venues in town.  The Cinema was also replaced in 1975 by the larger Winrock 6 complex.

After it was enclosed in 1975, Winrock has retained much of the same overall design.  Many Gruen-esque features remained after the enclosure and subsequent additions, such as high ceilings, large windows, and wide mallways.  The mostly-’L'-shaped mall features an oddly canopied second level existing on only one side of the mall, ending in a very interesting configuration for the Dillards Womens anchor on the northeast end.  The upper level exists from that anchor down to the food court, located at the crux of the ‘L’, where there is also a small basement level and an impressive three level atrium.  Both the upper level and small basement court have been permanently closed off as of 2009.  Considering Winrock Center’s website is now defunct, Mall-Hall-of-Fame has provided an excellent illustration of the mall’s current layout on its site.

Throughout the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Winrock and Coronado competed head-to-head, even in spite of a new 2-level showplace mall – Cottonwood Mall - which debuted on the northwest side of town in 1996.  Despite being almost across the street from one another, Winrock and Coronado contained mostly complementary stores and anchors.  This harmonious co-existence between the malls came to an end during the 1990s, however, as Coronado tweaked its image and stores in order to better market itself to the masses.

Beginning in the mid-1990s and lasting into the 2000s, the balance of power began to change between the two malls.   In 1990, JCPenney jumped ship and moved across the street to Coronado Center, but this was quickly remediated by another Dillards taking its place.  Also in 1990, the huge Montgomery Ward store was subdivided, with 30,000 square feet of its space going to Marshalls.  Winrock became known as a haven for seniors, and the stores started to reflect this.  Coronado tweaked its tenancy to provide better stores, and vacancies started to erode the customer base at Winrock; more and more people began choosing the hipper, cooler, and most importantly, variety-laden Coronado Center.

In 2001, Montgomery Ward went broke and closed all their stores nationwide, delivering a massive blow to the already-flagging Winrock Center, and one from which it would never recover.  Anchored by two Dillards locations, the mall began losing even more stores, especially the high-volume popular national chains the mall counted on.  After Wards closed, their space was converted to a Bed Bath and Beyond, which didn’t nearly replace the same amount of traffic.  However, as late as November 2003 Winrock was 100% leased for the holiday season, albeit with a fair share of temporary tenants.

In 2002 following the Wards closure, and again in 2005, realizing the 874,000 square-foot mall was near the end of its useful life in its current state, owner PruWinrock LLC (owned by New Jersey-based Prudential) decided to remodel Winrock Center by returning it to an open-air mall, adding offices and apartments.  In doing so, PruWinrock decided to let many of the remaining store leases expire without renewal, beginning in 2005, forcing the mall to become even more empty – but this time on purpose.  The 174-room Best Western Winrock Inn also closed in 2005, after 42 years of business.

The new “Lifestyle Center” – called Winrock Market Center – would capitalize on the New Urbanism ideal, allowing people to potentially live, shop, play and work in the same space.  It would juxtapose the enclosed nearby Coronado Center with a fresher, more modern environment and possibly give it a run for its money.   The plan was presented in May 2005, and included 66 multifamily units, a 174-room hotel, a movie theater, and retail, restaurant and office space.  Similar plans like this one in other cities have showed promise and have met with success, so it all seemed like a done deal, until…

At the same time Winrock’s owners were seeking to de-mall and revitalize their center, an El Paso-based company – Hunt Building Corporation – decided to enter the open-air mall building race, with a goal of beating Winrock to the punch.  They secured city approval and permits, a builder, and lined up tenants for a project directly across the street from Winrock and also next to Coronado Center, all in time for a Fall 2006 opening.

Their project is called ABQUptown, and the first phase of the project featured retail offerings not previously found in Albuquerque.  Stores like Pottery Barn, J Jill, Apple and Coldwater Creek opened, which previously required a daunting 900 mile round-trip drive to either Phoenix or Denver.  A second phase featuring 198 upscale apartments has also opened at ABQUptown, and a third phase featuring more retail, offices, and condos is planned.   ABQUptown was instantly successful, with several of the popular chain stores posting record sales, on par with markets in much larger cities.  As a retail metaphor for what was happening, one of the last major tenants at Winrock, Borders Books – which opened in the mid 1990s – jumped ship and moved from Winrock across the street to the new ABQUptown development in early 2007.

Embittered and beaten by ABQUptown, Winrock’s owner – PruWinrock LLC – became quickly disillusioned, and wanted out of the deal altogether.  Amid controversy, lawsuits, and disapproval from the city of Albuquerque, Winrock Center was finally sold to a pair of local developers - Gary Goodman and Mike Kelly – in September 2007, with high hopes that a successful new project could soon materialize on the site.

In June 2008, Goodman and Kelly unveiled grandiose, extremely impressive plans for Winrock’s redevelopment.  About half of the mall would be saved, including existing stores Dillards, Bed Bath and Beyond, Sports Authority and Toys R Us; the rest would be demolished and reconfigured.  In addition to those anchors, a new 16-screen movie theatre with IMAX would be built on the north side of the property.  Also, at least one full-service hotel, community gathering spaces, a park, communal gathering plazas, a higher-end neighborhood supermarket and about a dozen restaurants would be built.  The retail portion will represent a “cross section” of local and national brands, and one area will be devoted to ethnic foods, according to Goodman. In place of a fountain, a 400 foot long recreation of the Rio Grande River would be created to illustrate the river’s ecology.

Wow!  Sounds really exciting – if it could all come together, that is.  The recent economic downturn wrecked the earlier, aforementioned sales records at ABQUptown and put a pall on the Winrock project, which - as of November 2009 - has yet to break ground.  Goodman and Kelly have had a really tough time securing financing for the project, even with the help of local government.  In December 2008, the Winrock redevelopment was given a $137 million TIDD – a Tax Increment Development District – which donates a portion of gross state tax receipts to help specific projects.  Because the Winrock development is infill – and green-friendly –  and will create over 5,000 jobs over the life of the project, it was deemed important enough to provide assistance.

As of May 2009, the Winrock project is stalled, and owner Goodman expressed frustration that financing has yet to materialize.  His frustration was amplified by the fact that there has been considerable enthusiasm by retail entities willing to commit to the project, with 2 leases ready to be signed and 9 letters of intent committed.  As expected, Goodman has pared down the initial phase of the project considerably, and has rejiggered the first phase to consist of only the construction of the IMAX theater, remodel of one of the Dillards locations, and the demolition of the vacant enclosed mall, along with some site improvements.  In desperation, Goodman has even approached New Mexico Senator Bingaman, in order to possibly secure a loan from the federal government to get the project off the ground.

We have no new concrete updates about the progress of the Winrock redevelopment, so we’ll assume everything is still status quo until further developments arise.  We visited Winrock in November 2009 and were astounded that the mall was still open, seemingly exclusively for mall walkers and the like.  The exterior entrances of one of the Dillards locations, as well as Sports Authority and Bed Bath and Beyond seemed to have permanently closed, but the lower level Dillards entrance on the northeast end of the mall was actually open.  We assume that once financing is secured for the redevelopment, the mall will close as quickly as possible for demolition.  So, if you want to see this gem, better get there as soon as possible.  Feel free to add your own comments, whether you have extra light to shed on Winrock’s history, past or present, or your reactions.

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November 06, 2009 | Posted by Caldor | Posted in New Jersey

I keep an eye on the comments, and I know there’s been a few stats junkies who’ve been paying attention to the ratio of malls-to-population that we’ve posted. I know there’s also been some (undeniably true) grousing that we haven’t posted anything about New Jersey in ages. Well here you go! The catch is, you get something boring. Sorry.

The Brunswick Square Mall is a really dull one, but I’m tired and I had a bloody mary a little bit ago, so this is what the vodka will let me bang out at this hour. The photoset here is also a bit old–taken November 2006–when I did a swing through New Jersey that got photos for a few other malls on the site, including Monmouth Mall and the Shore Mall.

The Brunswick Square Mall is a Simon-managed, 769,000 square foot enclosed mall located along New Jersey route 18, a little southeast of New Brunswick. The mall is more or less a modified old dumbell, with JCPenney and Macy’s as the primary anchor stores and Barnes & Noble and Old Navy as junior anchor tenants.

Brunswick Square was originally developed by DeBartolo in 1970 with JCPenney and Bamberger’s as anchor stores. There were plans in the late 1980s to turn the relatively undersized mall into a larger destination with a second level, but plans were ultimately scaled back significantly due to concerns over traffic and a poor economy. Instead, there was a much smaller expansion at the end of the 90s that brought Barnes & Noble into the center.

Brunswick Square is one of the smaller and less interesting malls in the glob of Jersey suburbia, but given the traffic-clogged nature of the region’s roads and the high population surrounding the mall, it seems to do okay (more major malls like Freehold Raceway Mall, the Quakerbridge Mall, or the malls in Menlo Park/Woodbridge kind of flank it on all sides but none are especially close). This particular area of Jersey’s suburbia is dense, busy, and overall pretty mid-market, having been developed primarily in the explosion of post-war suburbia around New York. But like most of New Jersey, there are isolated pockets of affluence scattered about, even if Brunswick Square is a defiantly plain-jane, middle of the road kinda place. I saw an old dude sleeping on one of the massage chairs here once, and that pretty much sums the place up. I doubt anyone goes out of their way to swing by this palace of excitement, but it’s close to home for an awful lot of people.

Hey, I said it was boring. But as They Might be Giants once sang:

New York has tall buildings, New Jersey has its malls
Pisa has a leaning tower will it ever fall
The ocean has the fishes
London has a tower
In Holland they have windmills , lots of banks and pretty flowers

But where…?
Where do they make balloons?

And you guys sure DO love them Jersey malls. Fill us in.

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November 06, 2009 | Posted by Caldor | Posted in Retail News, Retail Stores

This isn’t a shocker, but according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (which has been reprinted all over the place, including the San Francisco Chronicle), Borders plans to close another 200 of its Waldenbooks stores, leaving a paltry 130 remaining in the chain. Despite what the article says, it’s unlikely even those are long for this world.

In an era where the long tail of content is well-served online, Borders and Barnes & Noble have survived by positioning themselves as cultural and social gathering spaces. Plus, the stores are big, so they can carry a lot of titles. Waldenbooks and B. Dalton–who B&N is closing up at the same time–have no such luck. These tiny stores were always meant to bring a representative selection of literature to shopping malls and small towns, and like record stores before them, there’s just no need anymore.

It’s still a little sad, since I have plenty of fond memories of shopping at the Waldenbooks in my local mall when I was young.

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October 31, 2009 | Posted by Prange Way | Posted in Dead Malls, Illinois

Recently I’ve been following coverage of some pretty extensive renovations taking place at Lincoln Mall, a long-beleagured super-regional mall in south suburban Chicagoland.  Initially I was excited at the prospect of even a modicum of success here, especially considering I’ve never seen the mall even close to its potential.  I first visited Lincoln Mall about a decade ago, after it fell in the toilet but before it drowned.  I recently re-visited for the first time after some of the renovations have materialized, and was extremely dismayed – both by the progress of the renovations and also by a personal, not-so-fun experience I had there.

Matteson, Illinois (pronounced matt-uh-son) is a diverse suburb of Chicago, located about 30 miles south of downtown.  With a population of about 17,000, Matteson is economically middle class, squeezed in between poverty-stricken Chicago Heights to the east, and wealthy Frankfort to its west.

Within Chicagoland, Matteson is part of – and centrally located within – a larger economic region known as “Chicago’s Southland” – a regional economic development and tourism consortium comprised of nearly all of the suburbs south and southwest of Chicago.  Made up of 86 communities with a population of nearly 2.5 million people, the region is simultaneously diverse yet allied by common goals.  Much of the region, specifically the suburbs directly south of the City of Chicago and east of I-57, has been negatively impacted by the loss of heavy industry during the latter part of the 20th century.  In an attempt to promote the region’s shift from a manufacturing to a service based economy, the consortium advertises the region’s proximity to Chicago, the transportation network – numerous rail lines as well as 5 interstates converge here – and the region’s affordability in comparison to the western and northern suburbs.

Suburban blight, crime, and poverty have become significant problems in the Southland region, with some good examples in postwar suburbs Harvey and Chicago Heights.  In fact, one of the most famous dead malls in the country is located in Harvey, and – as of late 2009 – is still standing after being abandoned for almost 25 years. However, this traditionally blue collar region is by no means lacking in riches; some of the Chicago area’s wealthiest zip codes are in Frankfort, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Olympia Fields and other areas within the region.

Matteson is home to a concentration of numerous strip malls and big box stores, mostly located along Route 30 and Cicero Avenue (Route 50).  It’s one of several areas in the south suburbs of Chicago with a high concentration of retail strip, and also home to one of the south/southwest suburbs’ first super-regional malls, Lincoln Mall.

Lincoln Mall opened in 1973 on the southeast corner of the intersection between Route 30 (Lincoln Highway) and Route 50 (Cicero Avenue), just east of I-57.  When it opened, the mall contained nearly 1 million square-feet of retail space shared between 4 anchors – Carson Pirie Scott, Wieboldt’s, JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward – and two levels of mall space connecting the anchors.  The original design of the mall was very similar to Yorktown Mall in Chicago’s western suburbs, which is still open and successful, and the former Lakehurst Mall in north-suburban Waukegan, which closed in 2001.

Lincoln Mall was an instant success, predating Orland Square by three years and the enclosure of River Oaks Mall by two decades.  In fact, it wasn’t really until the late 1990s when things began to dramatically go south, despite the closure and 8 year vacancy of the Wieboldt’s store when that chain folded in 1987.  In fact, the mall was refurbished with a major remodel and update in 1993, and Sears moved into Wieboldt’s old location from nearby Park Forest Plaza – an outdoor center that predated Lincoln Mall and died due to its competition – in 1995.

The 1990s saw the beginning of the end for Lincoln Mall.  In 1993-94, nearby River Oaks Center was enclosed and up-sized.  In response, Lincoln Mall remodeled and filled in the dead Wieboldt’s anchor with Sears, but in the end it wasn’t enough.   The unsurpassed growth of the 90s moved the almighty dollars westward, and cities in the Orland Park and Frankfort corridor saw the most growth and the best incomes in the Southland.  Thus, the retail strip surrounding and including Orland Square, along 159th Street and Route 45 got the best stores.  This is still true today.  Lincoln Mall’s retail portfolio began to slowly disintegrate, as middle tier and popular national chains began to leave and were replaced by local stores and vacancies.  The core demographic of the mall’s clientele changed too, slowly yet surely, from racially diverse to predominantly African-American by 2000 or so, and the stores began to reflect this.

In 1999, Montgomery Ward closed up shop at Lincoln Mall, about two years before their nationwide shuttering, and in 2000 JCPenney left during a round of closings in a lousy period for that chain.  These two blows left only Sears and Carson’s at the helm of a sinking ship.  During the early 2000s stores began to leave in droves, and the mall was put on life support.

In 2005, a commercial realty partnership from Texas, Realty America Group, was contacted by the mall’s owner to sell the mall.  The owner apparently wanted to cut their losses and get out, but Realty America said “Wait just a dog gone minute!” – I’m paraphrasing now – and decided that Lincoln Mall was more of an asset of opportunity than a dead mall that should be left for – well, dead.

So, after completing due diligence, Realty America went to the Village of Matteson and apparently made a stellar presentation for redevelopment, because they were awarded $45 million for the project in April 2005.  Groundbreaking took place in August of that year, with the construction of a new four-lane road behind the mall connecting Route 30 and Cicero.  The theory behind this was that prospective new tenants wouldn’t want to be at the “back” of the mall with restrictive visibility and access.  The new road essentially eliminates the idea of the “back” of the mall altogether, providing – in theory – the same level of access on all four sides of the mall.

Renovation proceeded with some pretty grandiose plans, including the demolition of both dead anchors, complete renovation of the interior space, structural updates, outside facade updates including a new entrance, and a cherry on top.  A cornerstone of the entire renovation project is the Promenade at Lincoln Mall, a non-enclosed district comprised of retail boxes, other shops, restaurants, and entertainment taking the space of the anchors that were demolished as well as along the new four-lane road.  The new open-air space would comprise between 400,000 and 500,000 of new retail space, restaurants, and a planned movie theatre, bringing the total square-footage back to the original size of the enclosed mall – about 1 million square feet.  The end idea, according to Lincoln Mall’s general manager, was to create a “best of both worlds” scenario, complete with an enclosed mall for people who want a climate controlled environment in the harsh climate of the upper midwest, along with an outdoor area for big box stores and other tenants who don’t want to be in the enclosed part of the concept,  as well as to indulge the somewhat-nonsensical fad of outdoor shopping for outdoor shopping’s sake.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?

In Summer 2007, the new road behind the mall was complete, just in time for Target to open their new 126,000 square foot store on a parcel south of the mall, south of the new road.  Then, in Fall 2007, JCPenney opened a 106,000 square foot store southeast of the mall, also south of the new road.  Then the project kind of stopped.  Whoops.

In October 2008, the village of Matteson threw another $10 million at the project, to get the next phase running  – the filling in of the demolished anchor pads, the exterior/interior renovations of the remaining enclosed mall, addition of other tenants, etc.  About the same time, in September 2008, the Texas partnership of Realty America, who owns the mall, apparently stopped making mortgage payments on it, according to their lender, Texans Commercial.  Not so, said the manager of the partnership, Rives Castleman (what a name); instead, he claims that the lender is forcing them into default by playing dirty tricks and instead owes them $20 million; they have filed counter suit.  This is all from court documents, as both Castleman and his lawyer, Eugene Geekie (another name!) have refused to comment to reporters. Texans had agreed, in 2004 – when this entire project began – to finance the initial stages of the redevelopment, in addition to the $45 million received from the village at the get go.  The loan had an outstanding balance of over $37 million at the time of the foreclosure.

The court case began in January 2009, and has apparently screeched the renovations to a halt.  As of October 2009, the enclosed mall looks like a weird retail Frankenmonster (hey, it’s Halloween) – there are gross, visible concrete seams and an unappealing mess where the dead anchors were torn off and demolished, and a temporary fence sits along the half of the mall where the demolition took place.  They, at least, cleaned up (most of) the rubble, and the JCPenney and Target are operating in separate buildings south of the new road they constructed.  It honestly looks like a terrible mess, and if I were a resident of Matteson I’d be really embarrassed of this eyesore.

Here’s an obvious question – why didn’t they just put Target and JCPenney in the mall?  They had two vacant anchors, and one of them even WAS JCPenney, and they had 2 anchors to put into place.  Seems like simple math to me.  The mall would have definitely been reinvigorated by having two brand new anchors, including the ever-popular Target, so how is putting them outside and essentially across the street going to ever help the interior part of the mall that they wanted to keep?  We’re really scratching our heads here.  Unless it really comes together into something cohesive and pedestrian-oriented, linking Target and JCPenney and funneling people into the mall, the Promenade at Lincoln Mall is nothing innovative nor remotely beneficial to the mall structure.  It’s been done before – ever see businesses on a mall’s ring road?

The interior portion of the mall today is kind of sad.  There are some popular national retailers, like Old Navy, Bath and Body works and Express, but there are seemingly more vacancies and local stores.  You know your mall is unwell when Dollar Plus is listed under the food ‘catagory’ (sp) on the directory map.  Also, they converted an old Sbarro into a place that advertises a combination of Mexican and Italian food.  Furthermore, the center court area has been sectioned off with cages where you can pet live tigers, and a temporary stage is set up near one of the demolished anchors where magic shows are held nightly, performed by a mullet-clad man named Joe Exotic.  The show itself costs no money to the mall, and Joe even suggests on his website that his shows are great for dead or dying malls. This is a unique and possibly innovative idea, but obviously temporary and not a real solution.

We visited the mall in October 2009, on a weekday night, and walked around and took pictures of the mall as usual, when we noticed we were being mysteriously followed by someone who appeared to be an employee of the mall – a janitor?  He had a walkie talkie or a cell phone, but we weren’t sure; the mall wasn’t that crowded, and this person was definitely following us.  It appeared to be time to leave, due to this turn of events, but as we were leaving a security guard by the name of C. Mack popped out from somewhere on the 2nd floor of the mall and approached us with fervor.

Uh oh.  Here it comes, the “we caught you photographing in the mall” spiel.  We’ve heard it before, and it’s never pleasant, but what actually transpired here was unexpected and sort of shocking, but ultimately kind of hilarious.  He got out a little notebook – the kind real police officers use to take statements – and got out a writing utensil and kept up with our pace (we didn’t stop to indulge him), all pretty intently.

“I have reports that you were soliciting.”

“[WTF??]”

“There have been reports based on your description that you were soliciting in the mall.”

“Well, I haven’t opened my mouth or talked to a single person since I entered the mall, so no.”

“Well, the description I was given was definitely you.”

“Again, no.”

At this point, I was admittedly a little freaked out, and a few thoughts whizzed around in my head.  Why was I being accused of soliciting when I honestly hadn’t spoken to anyone, at all, since I entered the mall?  I had only been there maybe 10 minutes at this point.  I was taking pictures, the ones featured with this post, but that’s not soliciting.  Did someone not know what soliciting means?

At any rate, after I denied soliciting a few times he immediately backed off and started walking the other way.  I wasn’t kicked out of the mall, and nothing else happened.  I did leave immediately, as planned, and maybe this was their intent, but it’s still kind of puzzling.

I have a few questions to pose to y’all:  Is this mall a case of biting off more than one can chew, resultant of the current state of the economy combine with the greed and mismanagement of non-local entities looking to make a few bucks?  Or is it just a case of bad luck and some honest tries?  Maybe it’s a combination of all of these factors.  Or maybe we’re completely off the mark here.  Leave comments and let us know!

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September 27, 2009 | Posted by Caldor | Posted in Texas

Here’s something kind of authentically Texan: a shopping mall that’s home to “the world’s largest pair of cowboy boots,” a 40′ sculpture outside of Saks Fifth Avenue. Pretty wild!

San Antonio, Texas is a large and sprawling metropolitan area of just over two million people in south-central Texas, and is home to many of Texas’ oldest landmarks (including, most notably, the Alamo). In recent decades, development sprawled almost un-checked in every direction radiating from downtown to such a great degree that the city had to build beltways around beltways.

Most of the city’s major shopping malls were built around what is now the “inner” of these two beltways–I-410–and most of *those* malls are clustered along the city’s northern half. Of these, North Star Mall is the largest and most successful of the fully enclosed malls near San Antonio (there is one newer outdoor mall that arguably has since rivaled it).

The North Star Mall is a 200 store, 1.2 million square foot enclosed mall anchored by Dillard’s, JC Penney, Macy’s, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Originally developed in 1960 by Community Research & Development Corporation (which would later become The Rouse Company), the mall was initially a far smaller center anchored by Wolff and Marx, H-E-B, and Walgreens, along with about 50 in-line merchants. Shortly thereafter, the mall was expanded slightly to include a movie theatre and a new anchor in Frost Bros. By the end of the decade, the mall underwent another expansion, with Wolff and Marx moving to a new five level store and renaming themselves Joske’s.

Also, in 1968, North Star got a buddy–the adjacent Central Park Mall, just across San Pedro Avenue. The 650,000 square foot mall was anchored by Sears and Dillard’s and was, for some time, something of a twin for North Star. You can see a 1982 aerial photo of the mall here. But the continued expansions at North Star would ultimately bring its demise.

The landmark cowboy boots showed up in 1980. Named “The Giant Justins,” and built by artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade (What a Texan name!), the boots were originally constructed a year earlier for the Washington Project for the Arts.

The arrival of the giant kicks kicked off a 1982 revival at the North Star Mall, wherein the center began a major renovation to add a food court and a sub-terranean “music court” as well as add a Foley’s on the original H-E-B site. Three years later, Saks Fifth Avenue was added as yet another anchor. Only a year after the arrival of Sak’s, a new two-level wing was added to the mall, including Marshall Field’s and a new food court. In 1987, Joske’s was acquired by Dillard’s, while Frost Bros. went out of business in 1989 and was replaced three years later by Mervyn’s. Marshall Field’s exited the Texas market in 1997 and their store was converted to Macy’s.

In 2001, the now-dwarfed Central Park Mall packed it in. It was mostly demolished in 2003 although Sears still remains.

In 2004, the ever-evolving North Star Mall began yet *another* renovation, this time by new owner General Growth Properties (who had just acquired The Rouse Company). Renovations aside, the mall continued to see significant churn in its anchor tenants. Due to the Federated/May Merger of 2006, the Macy’s store was shut and the Foley’s store was rebranded with the Macy’s name. This created a space for JC Penney to enter the center, and they opened in the space in 2007. In 2008, beleaguered Mervyn’s exited the Texas market entirely, closing their store at North Star. (More on the North Star Mall timeline)

That’s the straight history, but what makes North Star Mall so interesting is its layout and architecture. Take a look at the directory and try and follow along:

The original section of the mall is the upper “T,” closest to Dillard’s and Saks. This was originally a one-level mall that received a second level and then was soon thereafter twinned (with the lower “T”) in the mid-80s. Strangely, the second level on either side of the mall is discontiguous, meaning that the only way to walk through the entire center is by going downstairs to the main, first level. The passageway between the two “T” areas is somewhat narrow and winding.

The floorplan at the North Star Mall alone kept me pretty entertained, but even aside from the weird layout the place just felt immense. With all of the various additions over the years, the mall doesn’t have much stylistic consistency, creating all sorts of nooks and crannies and twists and turns that look different from each other. All in all, it was a pretty exciting place.

And, as I mentioned earlier, although North Star Mall is San Antonio’s largest and most successful enclosed mall, it’s facing some tough competition. The very large Shops at La Cantera, a massive outdoor mall/lifestyle center, opened far northwest of the city in phases beginning in 2005. In sheer size, this place seems even bigger than North Star and appears to have an even more upscale roster of tenants, without any of the vacancies that plague North Star (which still hasn’t filled the Mervyn’s space that was vacated a year and a half ago.  Actually, whoops: Forever 21 plans to open a store to fill the vacant Mervyn’s).

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