Some recent photos of Somersville Towne Center in Antioch. Hoping to catch the 90% off sale at Gottschalks liquidation, we found the store already shuddered. Alas, too late.
For a Saturday, the mall appears nearly deserted. Although it looks worse than it really was, one has to question the viability of a mall with little foot traffic. Since our last visit a few years ago, a number of shops have closed. However, this mall isn't "dead," yet.
With few options for a new department store to take the place of the shuddered Mervyns or Gottschalks, Somersville Towne Center could be on the endangered list. However, JC Penney is no where to be found in east county, so perhaps this will be a new opportunity after the economy recovers. Yes, it's ironic since Penney's left the mall in 1997. But with the competitors gone, who knows what can happen.
Enjoy the photos,
Scott
Read my guide to Somersville Towne Center
Visit the current Web site.
2 comments:
There is(or about to be) one of the new strip mall format Penneys way on the other side of Antioch near Lone Tree Way and new Hwy 4 bypass.
Since all the other "big box" players are out that way as well, it makes me wonder if this is where the center of East County retail is going; especially with all the growth in Oakley and Brentwood.
Were it not for Macys, I would say that Somersville mall is pretty much done. But the Macys is a relatively new one, not to mention one they built from scratch as opposed to taking over an older building. (The old JCPenney which started out as a Grant City was demolished to make way for Macys)
Bottom line is that it's too good of a location and that something will eventually be done there. My guess is that eventually the mall gets demolished and that a mixed use lifestyle concept gets built around Macys and the other remaining anchors(which right now is just Sears)
But like everything else right now, any redevelopment of Somersville will have to wait for the economy to shake out, especially being in a town that's been hit hard by foreclosures.
They really ruined this mall when they converted it from open air mall to enclosed.
It used to make sense, where you could travel from store to store all by foot.
Now it's all disjointed. The front part of the mall where 24 Hour it located seems like a separate unit until itself compared to the inside mall. When they built Gottchalks, they disrupted the parking lot so you could no longer easily drive from one side to the other.
The inside of the mall is all uneven surface. It feels like you're walking up and down when going between stores.
They're hardly any place to eat unless you want to go to Sbarros. In the hey day there was Kings Table. I also remember (a much better) Orange Julious, and Baskin Robbins.
I remember they used to have a Longs-type store (Thrifty? or Value Giant?) which brought in traffic. And JC Pennys there used to have a restaraunt.
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