I forgot all about this until reviewing my blogs tonight.
This was back in 2015. This is a series of posts from the summer of 2015.
That summer Grammy (May), Arianna, Olivia, and I drove out to California. After a few days in California, I flew back home, to Grapevine, Texas.
I posted a blog for each 24-hour period, from the day we left for California; our drive out to Los Angeles; my few few days in California; and, then the rest of their time in California based on notes from May; until their return to Texas.
Unfortunately, the postings are in reverse chronological order. One can read them as they are, in reverse chronological order, or one could quickly link back to the very first post and the move forward.
Regardless, the blog brings back some incredibly memories. Sophia was born in 2014, so in the one picture from 2015 with her dad, Sophia is one year old, and that's why she did not join us on the trip.
The first post is of Grapevine Mills which I posted after I had returned to California. That one can be skipped.
Deep in the Malls of Texas, a Vision of Shopping’s Future
DALLAS
— Scott Beck, the chief executive of a local real estate company,
remembers riding his bike as a child to Valley View Center, a shopping
mall in North Dallas. Cars filled the vast parking lot and anchor stores
like Bloomingdale’s, J. C. Penney and Sears teemed with customers.
Now,
the bustle of shoppers has been replaced by the din of construction —
led by Mr. Beck, whose company is clearing the way for a new $3.5
billion development of restaurants, offices and housing.
“We’re not trying to repurpose the mall,” Mr. Beck, 43, said. “We’re simply repurposing the land.”
Many
malls across America have hit tough times, squeezed by changing
demographics and competition from e-commerce, discount stores and newer
malls with more diverse offerings. Morningstar Credit Ratings recently
called the changes in the industry a “seismic shift” and warned of more
financial pain ahead. Hundreds of department stores, mall anchors for
decades, are expected to shut their doors this year.
Photo
The exterior of a Sears at
Valley View Center in Dallas. It was the first and the last store at the
mall, which is to be the site of a new $3.5 billion development.Credit
Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
Several
shopping centers in Texas give a peek into how mall owners and
developers are responding. In spots where the shopping activity has
slowed, the response is clear: Move away from strictly shopping, and
expand the mix to include more restaurants and entertainment, or health
care and education. Or, in the case of Valley View Center, start over
from scratch.
“Dining
and entertainment is the new anchor — not Sears, not Macy’s,” said
Allan Davidov of Misuma Holdings, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., which
is transforming two shopping centers in Austin, Tex.
At
Grapevine Mills, a popular shopping destinations in North Texas, the
“experiential” formula is a major part of the marketing strategy.
Owned
by Simon Property Group, one of the country’s biggest retail real
estate owners, Grapevine Mills feels almost like an amusement park. In
addition to more than 200 retail outlets and restaurants, it has a Sea
Life aquarium, a Legoland and a Round One Bowling and Amusement, which
includes 24 lanes of bowling, billiards, video games and a karaoke
studio.
Photo
Ember Kirkland ate ice cream at Grapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine, Tex., one of 16 Mills-branded shopping centers nationwide.Credit
Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
What
was once a J.C. Penney Store is now Fieldhouse USA, a
106,000-square-foot indoor sports complex with nine volleyball and nine
basketball courts.
The
mall, about two miles from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, is
one of 16 Mills-branded shopping centers nationwide. Gregg Goodman,
president of the Mills division of Simon Property, said Grapevine Mills
drew from a “very wide distance,” including surrounding states, with a
strategy focusing heavily on families and intended to encourage repeat
visits and longer stays in the mall.
On
a recent Friday morning, dozens of schoolchildren escorted by teachers
and parents trooped through Entrance Five to visit the aquarium and
Legoland.
“You
get the kids here, the parents here, everybody’s happy,” said Stephanie
Zafiridis, a preschool teacher from nearby Flower Mound.
Two sisters, Julie, 8, left,
and Jessica Lacy, 9, explored Sea Life Aquarium at Grapevine Mills.
Experiences are part of the marketing formula for the destination
shopping center, which has more than 200 stores, a Legoland and a
bowling alley.Credit
Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
About
200 miles to the south in Austin, Highland Mall is getting a different
kind of makeover. It is being reincarnated as the 11th campus of Austin
Community College, under a nearly $900 million public-private initiative
that has stirred new life into the surrounding North Austin
neighborhoods.
Highland
Mall opened in 1971 as Austin’s first enclosed suburban mall, but, like
Valley View Center in Dallas, it was ultimately outflanked by
competition from newer malls. It closed in 2015.
In
2009, RedLeaf Properties paired up with Austin Community College to
convert the mall buildings into a campus to ultimately serve up to
20,000 students. The first phase opened in 2014 in a former J. C. Penney
anchor store and serves about 6,000 students per semester.
The
campus, four miles from downtown Austin and the Texas Capitol, will
serve as the center of an 81-acre development that will include retail
stores, offices, about 1,200 residential units and three new parks
connected by jogging trails. The overall vision, said Matt Whelan, the
founder of RedLeaf, was to transform a dying mall “into an
academic-anchored mix-use area where people could learn, people could
work, could live, and play and recreate.”
Photo
The Legoland Discovery Center
in Grapevine Mills. ‘Dining and entertainment is the new anchor — not
Sears, not Macy’s,’ one developer said.Credit
Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
The vision Mr. Beck had for Valley View Center in Dallas is even more ambitious.
The
project is called Dallas Midtown and is often described as a city
within a city. Renderings show clusters of office and residential towers
overlooking parks and other green space. It is expected eventually to
include boutique shopping, high-end restaurants, two luxury hotels, a
branded surgical center, a 10-screen movie theater, an athletic club and
a 20-acre park that Mr. Beck described as “our version of Manhattan’s Central Park.”
That
is a far cry from the Valley View that opened in 1973, riding a wave of
retail expansion and grabbing national attention when a shoe store at
the mall offered a free eight-ounce steak with any purchase of $5 or
more.
About
a decade later, Galleria Dallas popped up as a competitor. And while
the two coexisted for many years, the Galleria eventually won out.
“What
effectively happened over the subsequent 15 to 20 years thereafter is
that you had two malls,” Mr. Beck said. “The new shiny object, which was
the Galleria, sucked the best tenants out of the Valley View Mall.”
Photo
Ehryn Jones, 2, lounging in a
pool of Legos at Legoland in Grapevine Mills. ‘You get the kids here,
the parents here, everybody’s happy,’ a recent visitor said.Credit
Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
Today,
Sears is the only remaining store, though not for long. It is scheduled
to close in two weeks, and a black-and-yellow “Store Closing” banner
hangs just under the roof near the entrance.
The
rest of the mall, much of which has been closed off for demolition, was
virtually devoid of foot traffic, except for a pair of security guards
and a few other pedestrians. Colter’s Barbecue, which has operated at
the mall for more than two decades, had served only four or five
customers by the middle of the afternoon. “When we opened in 1995,”
recalled the manager, Santos Castro, “we had four registers open all
day.”
Louis Schultz, 71, a retired Navy officer, walked down a near-deserted corridor after seeing a movie at the AMC theater.
“You can walk around and it’s like a ghost town,” Mr. Schultz said. “It’s an area that just sort of got neglected.”
Mr.
Beck said he had mixed emotions about all the changes, as he remembered
Valley View in its glory days and looked ahead to the vast new
development about to replace it.
“What
I’m excited about,” Mr. Beck said this week, “is being able to restore
this portion of Dallas to the stature that it really had when I was a
kid, and the opportunities it brings to the surrounding neighborhoods.”
May called from the Los Angeles airport. They arrived safely about 8:00 a.m. for a 11:00 a.m. departure. Everything went very smoothly. May casually asked a flight attendant if they were in the right line for getting to their gate. She said "yes," but the line was so long, they would never get to their gate on time. The flight attendant took them to their gate. Interestingly enough, the plane departs out of the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Apparently there are few international flights taking off this time of day, and the other gates are so full, some domestic American Airlines flights are leaving from the international terminal. Obviously American Airlines has a number of gates in the international terminal.
Arianna and Olivia are in a great mood. They are off to having breakfast now. May did call Kiri and Betsy to let them know the flight was delayed for a few minutes, but apparently no big deal.
May, Arianna, and Olivia went to the Los Angeles Zoo.
I drove to Amarillo, Texas, to see the armadillos. Haven't seen any yet.
Data points for the trip back from San Pedro to Grapevine:
Gallons of gasoline: 175
Mileage (mpg): 27 mpg
Cost of gasoline: $175
Lowest price: $2.44 in Wichita Falls, TX (in Amarillo, I saw lowest price to be $2.39/gallon) Highest price: $4.30 on I-210, northeast of Los Angeles; more expensive in Needles, though I did not get any gas there
Then, she and the granddaughters headed up to Little Tokyo, having arrived safely a few minutes ago. They visited the Japanese American National Museum and sent some nice photo from the tea restaurant. Arianna knows her teas and enjoys tea. Olivia tried tea for the first time (?).
Meanwhile, I will be starting my trip back towards Grapevine, TX, or Williston, North Dakota, depending on updates from Williston.
May brought Arianna to urgent care clinic because her throat was still bothering her after 7 or 8 days. The throat swab was negative for strep and the Monospot (a finger prick for blood) was also negative. Diagnosis: viral pharyngitis, resolving.
We had planned to go to the beach today but May decided it was best not to go swimming in the ocean. If the finger prick opened up in the ocean, the blood might attract sharks. Yes, that is true; that's what we did not go to the beach today but instead went to swim in Flavio's and Cindy's pool.
Bruce has made the decision to start driving home in the next 12 - 24 hours in case he needs to go to Williston to see his father who was recently ill.
Today, while out
shopping with Grammy May, Olivia told Arianna
that from now on, Olivia needs to be involved in all
clothing purchases by Arianna since Olivia will eventually
get them as hand-me-downs.
For dinner beer can chicken and pasta.
****************************
May reminded us at 7:15 p.m. that 7-11 stores offered FREE
Slurpees on July 11. We walked down to the 7-11 in our neighborhood only
to find that the offer ended at 7:00 p.m. I bought Olivia a Slurpee for
$1.73. The cashier threw in two bags of Doritos for free and one pair
of really cool sunglasses, also for free, which Olivia forbade me to
wear on the walk home.
Looking south from The Getty Museum, you can barely see downtown Los Angeles way off in the distance. The buildings in the foreground are West Los Angeles, not downtown LA:
We spent the day at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific:
For the archives. May has already sent these photos to everyone, but I'm including them here for archival purposes.
First: Arianna's English Trifle from her Harry Potter Cookbook:
Then two creations from Olivia. The first is the present she made for Arianna for her birthday; it is a hedgehog house. They've gotten more mileage out of those hedgehogs than Barbie dolls. Quite remarkable all the things they've done with and for their hedgehogs.
The second Olivia creation is a hedgehog catapult. LOL:
A most delightful day; a long stroll along the coast.
I rode my bike to Huntington Beach today. It's a 20-mile trip one way; I turned around at Bolsa Beach.
Along the way, I picked up some tools and an air pump to carry with me.
It took me about 2 hours 30 minutes to get to my end point in Bolsa Beach, Huntington Beach.
On the way home I had a front flat tire, a slow leak, due to a thorn. The pump helped: 60 pumps filled the tire and it lasted about 20 city blocks. I first noted the flat just as I was leaving Seal Beach and entering Long Beach, I suppose about 12 miles from home.
Things were going along peachy keen until somewhere in Long Beach (in addition to taking a long round-about way to get through the city), my rear tire also went flat. Unfortunately that flat was too severe for the pump to do any good good. So I started walking.
I arrived at the corner of Western Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway about 5:47 p.m. I wasn't sure about the time so I checked the "World Clock" on the internet and yes, indeed, it was 5:47 when I got to this corner. I assume it's about three miles from this corner to home, so about another hour. I will be walking more slowly, so it might take ninety (90) minutes. [I arrived "home" at 8:15, tired but in excellent shape.]
I do not know what May and the granddaughters were up to today.
*******************************
Meanwhile, Back in Grapevine
Sophia enjoying toast ...
.... and then relaxing:
Sophia may win the Nevin Award for Relaxation. Notice her legs/ feet up on the chair, completely relaxed.
Arianna's throat is feeling better. She wants to go to Mitsuwa's for lunch, and then shopping. Mitsuwa's was her great-grandmother's favorite restaurant after they retired in San Pedro.
In the photo below: May as an infant; May's mother (Mariko); Arianna's great-grandmother; and, Mariko's Aunt Yone who raised Mariko (in Japan).
The fourth "person" in the picture is a doll, not a real person.
We all survived the Fourth of July party on the patio at the back of the house; it went quite late. Arianna and Olivia went to bed immediately. I soon followed. May was up until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. watching something on television; perhaps more fireworks, though our fireworks in the neighborhood continued well into the night.
This morning we are all up though Arianna is a bit tired and has a minor sore throat. I took a good look at her throat and it looks fine: no inflammation whatsoever, possibly a slight bit of irritation on the left tonsil, which I think is the side she said it hurts. She had breakfast, and is now having "warm/hot" tea and is in very good spirits.
May sent me this note, after overhearing them in the TV room:
Olivia saying to Arianna, as they negotiate the trading of rocks they
bought at the Grand Canyon, "I want to put this out there, but you're
not going to get much for your pyrite shards. They're just shards; I
don't know why you got them; they're not worth much."
I don't know about that. Arianna might make a tidy profit for her fool's gold if she finds some fools on the beach. Shouldn't be too difficult.
