EscapeToCity
13 March 2006, 01:41 PM
http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2006/03/13/daily1.html?jst=b_ln_hl
Bad news for what was once Austin's pre-eminent shopping complex. This is a huge 2-level store that opened in 1971. It is the sole remaining original anchor store (Joske's was converted to Dillard's in 1987 & Austin-based Scarborough's was bought out by Dillard's in 1992)...
Penney is constructing two new stores in town, one in the far north and one out at the old SouthPark Meadows site.
With the whole Foleys-Macy's conversion coming up and the brand new Macy's that will open alongside Neiman's next year at the Domain mall, I fear Highland is doomed...I'm not sure Federated will want to operate a Macy's at both Domain & Highland.
If that scenario came true, Dillard's would remain as the only anchor. I have seen a mall exactly like this...the Plaza at Lake Forest in New Orleans East..surely one of the most surreal, abandoned malls ever. Huge Dillard's all alone with a completely empty (yet open) mall concourse...
I guess we are on our way to having our very own *dead mall*...
(I know many people hate malls and will say 'good riddance'...but Highland was, for many years, a well-maintained and popular mall. It has also been a source of solid tax revenues for the City of Austin. So far as a possible redevelopment, I don't see it in the near future. This is one section of town that is not doing well economically. The St. John's neighborhood immediately adjacent to the mall continues to slide into poverty and the surrounding retail strips are fading as well...there have been meaningful redevelopments of the Capital Plaza & Hancock Center projects in the last few years but they are much smaller than Highland)
Bad news for what was once Austin's pre-eminent shopping complex. This is a huge 2-level store that opened in 1971. It is the sole remaining original anchor store (Joske's was converted to Dillard's in 1987 & Austin-based Scarborough's was bought out by Dillard's in 1992)...
Penney is constructing two new stores in town, one in the far north and one out at the old SouthPark Meadows site.
With the whole Foleys-Macy's conversion coming up and the brand new Macy's that will open alongside Neiman's next year at the Domain mall, I fear Highland is doomed...I'm not sure Federated will want to operate a Macy's at both Domain & Highland.
If that scenario came true, Dillard's would remain as the only anchor. I have seen a mall exactly like this...the Plaza at Lake Forest in New Orleans East..surely one of the most surreal, abandoned malls ever. Huge Dillard's all alone with a completely empty (yet open) mall concourse...
I guess we are on our way to having our very own *dead mall*...
(I know many people hate malls and will say 'good riddance'...but Highland was, for many years, a well-maintained and popular mall. It has also been a source of solid tax revenues for the City of Austin. So far as a possible redevelopment, I don't see it in the near future. This is one section of town that is not doing well economically. The St. John's neighborhood immediately adjacent to the mall continues to slide into poverty and the surrounding retail strips are fading as well...there have been meaningful redevelopments of the Capital Plaza & Hancock Center projects in the last few years but they are much smaller than Highland)