Plaza Paseo - A dead mall teeming with Tex Mex Pulchritude | Pasadena, TX | ExLog #37

[Music] [Music] hey what's up guys my name is Sal and this is another expedition log on today's expedition were continuing the golf mall tour of 2018 and were embarking on a journey out to Pasadena Texas to visit them all that has seen many names and today is known as the macroplaza mall formerly known as the plaza paseo nei born as the pasadena town square this mall has a rich tex-mex culture and the centerpiece for the mall is a desiccant lazy river it looks like a completely dried-up riverbed it's a fascinating structure and it goes way beyond a typical mall fountain we're also going to take a walk around two abandoned buildings that share the same parking lot as the mall each of these buildings has incredibly unique architecture one being near brutalist and designed with long cement columns and the other taking inspiration from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright these buildings are really fantastic looking [Music] so come take a walk with me through this troubled charming Pasadena mall but first a word from our sponsor Willy the hillbilly and his pitch for Mountain Dew back in the day - but Clem was right smart he appealed to her heart with that gal gettin good old mountain before we jump into the mall I wanted to take you for a quick walk around these two abandoned buildings which are situated right in front of the mall right in the same parking lot this building was built in 1967 and the locals around Pasadena they just call it quote the old AT&T building this building and the three-story parking garage that's attached to it you'll actually see that on a couple of minutes but this building in his garage they were appraised for about 1.6 million bucks in 2012 the building itself has been vacant since late 2011 when 18t donated it to the City of Pasadena in exchange for relief on tax fees and stuff like that the deal was approximately about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars both ways between the building and what they got from Pasadena so it wasn't really a donation they did get something in return as a 20-18 when I filmed this building is obviously still abandoned [Music] back in October of 2014 Pasadena councilmember Phil Katyn said when we first got this building I went all through the building and if we had a hurricane come to Pasadena that's the building I'd want to be in it is structurally sound the concrete columns are over designed it's a really strong building and a quote so this building is incredibly sturdy so I really hope that they repurpose it so you can still see some of the branding on there you see those blue characters so the SBC that stands for the Southwestern Bell company so this is still part of AT&T up until 2011 [Music] this second building used to be the first Pasadena State Bank and it was constructed in 1963 the architecture of this structure is utterly fascinating and once we get closer you'll see some design elements that are incredibly similar to Frank Lloyd Wright because the firm that built the Bank who is McKee and cam Roth there were devotees to mr. Wright and his unmistakable aesthetic language the geometric intertwining concrete slabs and networks of overlapping compartments are a dead giveaway despite the beautiful aesthetic language that the architects employed to bring this building to fruition you won't have to look very hard to see just how dilapidated it's become over the years [Music] from years of neglect to tons of storms and scrappers trying to get into the place and take things out it really is a shame to see how far this building has fallen in the years that it's been around I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to explore this area because I drove in from New Orleans and it was six hours one way and I was visiting a few other places in the area but all along this road there are other abandoned buildings there's an abandoned Hospital right up the street from this and there's all these little fascinating shops and restaurants and stuff this area really is fantastic and I hope that it finds a revitalization soon we're coming around the side of the building right now and you'll see some pools of water that are just completely stagnant and there's broken concrete everywhere and this place has been ravaged by Mother Nature over the years she has not been kind to the structure but if you look at the top of the building you'll see some beautiful cantilevered leaded glass hanging over the side which is a direct tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright's ample use of leaded glass in his work you'll find that in a ton of his properties [Music] this building was the central hub of Pasadena Texas and a silhouette of this building was even printed and on children's report cards as the symbol of the town by the 1990s the building wound up in foreclosure and by 2005 the city issued a demolition permit for the vacant structure Katy Realty development purchased the building in the late arts but in 2008 Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc on the structure the stained glass was mostly destroyed and there was massive flooding and most recently Harris County appraiser's stated that the building only adds an underwhelming 100 dollars to the entire lot plans to renovate the structure have not come to fruition and it still sits vacant to this day you can get a glimpse at the wall right there see the red awning this is right in the same parking lot there's a lot of windows that have been broken out of this structure scrappers have gotten in they've even tagged up the top floors so they've been up to the top and people have been inside of this building and they've been really tearing it apart up there so if I were Katy Realty development I would really work to redevelop this property sooner rather than later take a look at this flooding that water extends all the way throughout this structure in the basement and even in the 18 t building it's completely flooded you get a wide shot here of the parking lot that has incredible damage that it's sustained over the years but then you see more of these geometric shapes that awesome pastel color from back in the 70s that kind of design doesn't really happen anymore and there's also a squirrel running on the roof awesome [Music] the design elements of this place all these geometric shapes and stained leaded glass on the top of the roof how cool is this place and back in the day I can't imagine any other place being the center of this town there were doctors lawyers you name it on the board of directors of this bank and they've had offices all up and down so when you walked into this place it wasn't just a bunch of bankers it was everyone in the community holding office here and it really was their central hub and it's kind of sad to think that their central place of business of their community has gotten this bad so as we inch closer towards the mall we'll get one last look at the gnarly parking lot and a wide shot of the bank itself but I'd also like to take a look at that 18 t building one more time and the parking garage next to it so there's a wide shot of the old 18t building and this is the parking garage that's right next to it originally I thought this was the malls parking garage but this was definitely part of the 18 t building and it was locked up you couldn't get in there [Music] for what it's worth the structure didn't look so bad on that parking garage it could probably be repurposed with minimal effort and money that is one hell of a label scar amidst palm trees [Music] so we're about to get into the mall but before we do I'm trying to get a peek inside of this Macy's because I saw some people working on it and I thought that might have been inside I could have opened the door got a peek but unfortunately I think they were just surveying the land and they never went inside let's get inside the mall the building that we're looking at that has the Macy's label scar that building opened on August 25th 1962 as a Foley's existing as a standalone department store and there was no mall it was just that department store for quite a while fast forward 20 years and plans to build an entire mall around that Foley's materialized pretty quickly in 1982 the 745 thousand square foot 15 million dollar Pasadena Town Square mall was built by Chicago based JMP properties their original anchor lineup consisted of the already existing Foley's and a brand new jockeys and Palais Royale we got to do it again right now the accoutrement you will need accoutrement thank you very much funny in 1986 Canadian real estate an investment company Kempo purchased the allied brand including all 27 remaining Joss keys rebranding the chain to Dillard's by 1987 all of the courtyards and wings in this mall feel pretty dead and as we get deeper into it you'll see that a lot of the businesses are centered around the dried-up river fountain body of water small mall ocean whatever you want to call it there are still businesses in here it's just that the wings of the malls are dead santa's line is also pretty dead too they look incredibly bored [Music] [Music] ownership changed hands to the lender American general life insurance company in late 1995 after JMP left them all fallen to foreclosure and then two years later after American general bought them all they decided to construct a fourth anchor and in November of 1997 a brand-new 160,000 square foot Sears was opened bringing them all finally to its ultimate grand total of seven hundred and forty five thousand square feet so the mall was a little bit smaller than that before this years which we're looking at right now I'm not sure if that Sears is still open so let me know in the comments if still open I also don't know if this whole dried-up lakebed is still there I have heard some rumors that that whole thing was covered up by a stage but I don't know if that's the stage we're looking at right now so let me know in the comments if the Sears is there and if that whole dried up mall ocean is still there five years after the Sears opened American general sold the mall Pasadena mall investment which was a subsidiary of Mya properties Mya properties which is just one of the many holding companies led by Los Angeles investors kam Mateen and Bob yari they acquired the Pasadena Town Square Mall through the purchasing arm of Mya properties called de Realty Advisors the purchase price was undisclosed and I couldn't find one record of it no SEC filings no tax assessment records nothing but if I had to guess it would probably be in the neighborhood of about 30 to 40 million dollars but that's a guess just four years after they bought them all the Folies was converted to Macy's and in the same year 2006 the Dillard's shuttered the mall just sort of sat there and it was just a part of the community it was the local mall that wasn't really exciting and nothing much happened there but for about 10 years the mall really didn't do much but then in August of 2015 guardian equity LLC purchased them all from Bob yari and planned extensive renovations to occur over the next year the mall received a fresh coat of paint new lighting shiny new stage on that dead mall dried-up ocean and it got a new name in August of 2015 the mall was renamed to Plaza paseo now I do have corroborating sources saying that these renovations happened but again I'd like you to tell me if you're local to this area if that stage that we saw there was at the stage that they put in or is it now different [Music] Guardian equity had huge plans for this mall and they wanted to cater more towards their Hispanic community and you'll see a lot of branding across the mall and a lot of decorations that are geared towards some more ethnic crowd cynthia adams who is a regional manager for guardian equity was quoted saying the following quote guardian equity only buys properties that are a little distressed or not well managed in Hispanic communities we promote bilingual advertising and try to meet the needs of the community from this point after 2015 after the new name after the rebranding the mall would gain more Hispanic charm and the management was actively working to cater to the needs and desires of Pasadena's more diverse community [Music] by November of 2016 the proposed renovations were complete and the mall had its grand reopening which was now called Plaza paseo exactly one year to the day of when I'm saying this March 26 in 2017 Macy's closed at Plaza Paseo but a few years prior to the closing all of the merchandise on the second floor was moved to the first floor and the second floor was closed off to the public and that was closed for a long time Harris County Texas has the second largest Hispanic population in the United States second to Los Angeles County California the largest Mexican city across the border from Houston and Pasadena in that area is Monterrey Mexico and the guardian equity is making a conscious effort to cater to the Hispanic community using this city as its inspiration as you saw through the video there's a ton of Hispanic influence there's a lot of stores with Spanish names and in the food court you saw some Mexican themed artwork the tex-mex charm in this mall is abundant the owners took inspiration directly from the 400 thousand square foot town square in Monterey called macro Plaza so in 2018 guardian equity changed the name of the mall from Plaza paseo to macro Plaza and they're actively turning them all into a community center with a huge emphasis on the thriving Hispanic community I think this mall has a pretty decent chance of surviving and while there are a lot of dead stores in here I think with the proper renovations and turning this place into more of a community experience center I think that this mall will have a good chance in revitalizing this community at this point I've traveled all over the country even into Canada and I've even seen some dead malls in Europe but the one thing that will always strike me no matter where I am and no matter what countrymen no matter what mall I'm seeing is during the holidays when a mall even as dead as this with dead courtyards in every end goes out of their way to decorate them all beautifully for Christmas there's something beautiful about that and it's always drinking now here this is a rare sighting in the wild of the lady at the shady massage parlor trying to rope me in for a massage but of course I had to bail because there was another dead wing that was calling out to me that I had to see as always I'd like to thank every single one of you for watching this video our channel has just gotten over 17,000 subscribers it was just yesterday that we had 500 subscribers and we're inching closer towards 20,000 even the discord server were approaching 1,000 members and that community has grown so so far we have amazing conversations there and I appreciate every single one of you on the discord server you can find a link to that in my description below I'd also like to thank my patrons you guys Rock you guys make this thing work and you put gas in my tank to get to these places so thank you so much and I'd also like to thank the dead moles of discord family and a quite Studios research team so for everyone that was involved in this and everybody that's been involved in the channel up until this point thanks again everybody take care [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sal

Views: 51,773

Rating: 4.8276582 out of 5

Keywords: century iii, century 3 mall, dead mall, pittsburgh, mall, vaporwave, urbex, mallsoft, fiesta mall mesa, schuylkill mall, metrocenter mall, 80s, exploring a mall, mall walking, moonbeam, decay, food court, expedition log series, abandoned, sears, pennsylvania, sears holdings, jason heine, mountaineer mall, mountaineer, lums, sal, exploration, Baltimore, schuylkill, documentary, film, texas, plaza paseo, macroplaza, pasadena town square, dan bell, this is dan bell, dead mall series, black hole

Id: HB4ePySapKs

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/gueede]

Thanks for the share, OP! I’m so glad I got to see even just the remnants of the “fountain”. Epic mall!!