Strawberry Mall

Strawberry Mall was a local mall in Northern Pasadena, located at 2225 Strawberry Road, before it was demolished in 2024. The story of the Strawberry Mall begins with the construction of other shopping centers in the area. The first mall in Pasadena was Market Center Mall, which opened in 1960. A tiny mall compared to its closest competitor, Gulfgate, Pasadena Plaza was a considerable distance from those on the North side of the city. In response to this, in a tale mostly lost to time, work began to redevelop a neighborhood in Northern Pasadena into what would eventually become Pasadena Town Square Mall. With backing from Foley’s and Pasadena City Hall, demolition began. By 1962, enough work had been done for Foley’s to begin building a freestanding store, and plans for the mall were being drawn up. By the end of 1962, the Foley’s Pasadena branch had opened, but work on the rest of the mall had stalled. From what I can tell, work on the mall may have stopped after some residents rejected a buyout of their neighborhood. While the city wouldn’t give up on building the central mall, progress stalled, and the need for new retail space grew. Property developers began tossing around the idea of building another mall to meet the demands of local stores planning to move into it. Unable to use the land tied up in the future Pasadena Town Square Mall site, developers would have to look elsewhere in town.  A few blocks South of the proposed mall, the developers found a vacant 10-acre site at the corner of Strawberry and Pasadena Ave. It was far too small for a conventional mall, but with the belief that Pasadena Town Square would eventually be constructed on a much larger plot, the developers of the Strawberry Mall hedged their bets on a small local mall as a stopgap.

Construction on the Strawberry Mall started in late 1967. The main draw of the mall was to be Ivy’s, a small department store, which would have likely ended up in the planned Pasadena Town Square Mall otherwise. With Ivy’s on board, the developers courted Kress and A&P to fill the mini-anchor spots in the building. The stores along the mall corridor were quite typical of a late-60s mini-mall. Options included Vincent’s Beauty Shop, Hyde’s Children’s Clothing, Jac-Ques’ Sportswear, Ye Olde Shoppe (A Hallmark distributor), Boyd’s Shoes, and Traynor’s Menswear. In the few years it had taken to purchase and develop this plot of land, work again started at the future Pasadena Town Square. The piecemeal demolition of the neighborhood behind Foley’s and the development of the Pasadena State Bank tower helped convince the remaining holdouts to eventually move. While PTS would still be delayed, this development encouraged the Strawberry Mall to speed up construction. In fact, all the stores listed above opened months before the planned grand opening, which occurred in October 1968. After the grand opening, a few other stores would open, including a Rexall Drug and a tape shop.

From day one, the Strawberry Mall was always a bit “dinky.” It was just above a sidewalk mall in terms of offerings, but it was unique in the area and found a niche. After opening, the mall would fill out a bit, hitting an all-time high of 14 tenants in 1970. The early years for the mall were pretty good, with the anchors seeing steady business, and most of the smaller boutiques that closed were leased to others. While it was apparent this mall would never take off like the Galleria, it was predicted to have a good run over the next few years, or at least that’s how it seemed. Broader economic conditions in the United States led to a decline in local oil production. Pasadena would be one of the areas most directly and immediately hit by this, and in 1971, shops in the Strawberry Mall would start closing for good. A&P closed its grocery store, leaving a large empty space on the West side of the mall. The grocery store had closed as part of a larger chain restructuring that nearly led to its exit from Houston that same year. As a result, the space would be leased out temporarily. The first new tenant was an auction company that used the space as an auction house, starting off with fixtures from the Shamrock-Hilton Hotel. While A&P was on the way out of Houston, it had been a traffic generator, and with its exit, smaller tenants began to suffer. By the end of the year, Kress had left, and most of the remaining boutiques would close or, in the case of more successful stores, actually leave the mall. Around this time, other non-retail businesses, such as gyms and offices, would begin leasing large portions of the mall.

The real kicker to the mall seems to have been the death of Ivy’s. To the best of my knowledge, Ivy outlasted Kress and A&P by a few months. It also seems that those associated with Ivy’s may have been a driving force behind the mall’s construction in the first place. However, with the building almost empty by 1972, the owners needed a way to turn their investment around. So they began seeking non-traditional tenants. While the mall did have some non-retail tenants,  they attempted to sign non-traditional retail tenants to bring foot traffic back into the quickly failing mall. One example of this was the Sam Andy Family Food Reserve. This company offered one might refer to today as prepper supplies. Freeze-dried foods, MREs, composting toilets, dehydrated water, everything you might need to survive the apocalypse, all at the Strawberry Mall! Unfortunately for Sam Andy’s owner, the apocalypse didn’t happen, and they left the mall shortly after. The mall would sit nearly empty, with only a handful of shops and a small portion of offices, until the end of 1974. While the mall had failed, a new plan was brewing. Pasadena ISD, which had expanded rapidly during the 60s, needed space. While the district had built new schools, the size of its administrative staff had also increased, and it needed more room to house them. The district lacked the budget to build a new building and decided to lease space at the Strawberry Mall.

Initially intended as a stopgap to address budget issues, PISD quickly expanded its space at Strawberry Mall. At this point, the mall was still technically open and had some seasonal retail, but very little year-round. Attracted by cheap leases, other government tenants began leasing space in the mall, including a driver’s license office and a game warden. While the corridors were left open, PISD also began reconfiguring some of the former store spaces to better fit their needs. By 1975, the district was leasing over 15k sq ft of the mall for $1,500/month. The space was used as a library processing center and A/V support, and since it was set up for public access, it also had a district tax office. The lease was for 10 years, with an option for the district to extend it for another 10 years in 1985. By 1977, Harris County had joined other government entities in leasing space for a 12k sq ft medical clinic in the former mall. By this point, most anchor spots were again filled by non-retail uses. While a couple of retail tenants managed to hang on inside the mall, it was dead for all practical purposes. In 1982, with the decision date for their 10-year extension quickly approaching, PISD had to make a choice. When PISD moved into the mall, plans were to try to pass bonds to build a new administration building, but voters repeatedly rejected them. With the renewal date approaching, the district offered to buy the mall. With the entire mall under their control, PISD could move its administration offices into the old mall. However, the mall came with commitments, specifically, the remaining mall tenants, some of which had multi-year leases. Faced with this decision, PISD bought the mall and began planning to take over the entire space.

When PISD took ownership of the Strawberry Mall, they had seven tenants, including the district offices. The other mall residents at the time were a DPS Driver’s License Office, the aforementioned county clinic, and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. The last retail tenants were a small recording studio and a gym named Fun & Fitness. The mall was also the HQ for Pasadena Cablevision. Over the next five years, these offices and shops would close, with PISD slowly taking over each closed space, and by 1985, the mall was all theirs. The plan, as of the date of purchase, was for PISD to renovate the mall into a new, complete administration building, which would cost around $5 million. However, PISD’s financial outlook was still too negative to finance this type of construction, so the remodel budget had to be cut back twice, all the way down to $1.5 million. The main plans called for a central HVAC system to replace the store’s air conditioning units and some wiring updates to better suit the school district. The mall corridors and exterior would stay intact, but the mall would be closed to the public from 1986 onwards. The plan was to eventually demolish the mall’s interior and replace it with office space. However, from what I can tell, this construction was again largely deferred, with work on the stage taking place over the next 30 years. PISD would eventually move all operations to the former Strawberry Mall, officially rechristening it as their administration building, a job it would hold until 2024 when a replacement was finally constructed. The facility was demolished in 2024.