Old Tucson Mall (Phoenix, Oracle: sales, real estate market, lease)

[SerSaguaro]

Does anyone have any info about the original Tucson Mall on Oracle. It currently is mostly empty w/ the American Home Furnishings on the side of the building.
My interest is this, the other night I was outside in the parking lot of Sears at the new Tucson Mall, and just got to checking out the big structure across the way and thought, that place is way too big to be just a location for one furniture store, unless it were on the scale of an Ikea, maybe -- lol.
Anyway, then I really took a good look at it for really the first time (been in Tucson for close to a decade, my head's been in the sand, I guess ), and saw the huge skylight on the top which almost looked like a small aircraft hangar and thought, I need to check this out. What is this thing with its loading dock in the back and its own multi-level parking garage attached?
Well, I finally found the entrance to the garage and drove up to level 4, where there is still the Grand Cinemas in operation. On the way up, it finally dawned on me, 'this is an old mall.' Went inside, and through some big windows from the cinemas lobby I could see the old abandoned mall, light coming through that big skylight in the ceiling, the multi-levels and escalators connecting them. It was absolutely fascinating! Like an abandoned city!
I asked the young man in the ticket window what was this place? He said it was the old Tucson Mall. I asked when it was built? He said he thought it was 1982. I said, oh, I would've thought earlier (for no particular reason, just a feeling). He said, he thought it was pre-1985, at least. I said thanks a bunch and left, not planning on a flik but had, incidentally, been looking for a cheap theater to catch movies that had already left other places.
Now, does anyone have anything further on this fascinating old structure? Any links to it? Or, even better, and pics, from inside?
I'd just Love to get in there and explore the place. Though that's probably out of the question. Hope this post isn't too long/boring, but I am incredibly intrigued by it. Now I'll

[Salpointe59]

Huh??? I've lived there all my life and only remembering one Tucson Mall at that location. My nephew who is in prison did 53 car jackings there from 95-99 when I turned him in.

[azdr0710]

it never was the "old Tucson Mall"....when built in the 80s, it was called the Tucson Galleria and had grand aspirations of being an upscale shopping center with covered parking, multi-level shopping, glittering brass and glass, the whole bit....I don't know what the reason(s) are for its failure, but I'd guess it's because of the difficult, confusing, and uninviting facade and access.....the parking entrance off Oracle is not obvious and appears to be very industrial.....in fact, it appears to not be a shopping center at all.....

after a few years, American Home Furnishings bought the entire building, I think, and used much of it as a showroom....the theater also remains as a budget, second-run affair....haven't been there in years, but, yes, it's fascinating to see what was and what could've been....

[SerSaguaro]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, it does have more of a Galleria feel to it. Kind of like a pocket battleship, it is rather crammed into a limited space and built up. It's funny, because driving through the parking structure, it is easy to imagine that it was a very tight fit for cars not only parking, but coming and going.

I really hope that someone comes along and can make something of it. Sure, it's outside structure is pretty massively nondescript/industrial (which is why I think I missed it all these years), but it's got plenty of room and the right occupant(s) could, I think, do wonders with the place. However, they do need to advertise better on the outside of the structure.

Otherwise, this place could be slated for implosion in the near future...

[tumamoc]

I like the IKEA concept .

[azdr0710]

Originally Posted by tumamoc

I like the IKEA concept .

yeah, it does seem like an IKEA kind of building....however, I fear IKEA's business model forbids locating in any metro area with less than 2 or 3 million people.....heck, even Phoenix had to wait until just a few years ago for theirs....

[Jukesgrrl]

I worked in that building for American Home for several years. The store was huge and the showrooms covered floors two and three of the building, joined by the escalator you saw (there's also a glass elevator and a boarded-up kitchen that had served a restaurant that was in the galleria). The fitness center that's still there shared the ground floor with AH's storage room and loading docks in the rear facing Dillards. Some of the indoor parking on that floor was leased by the office building next door. AH customers parked on the ramp, depending which floor of the store they would be shopping on.

The first floor of the showroom (level 2 of the building) contained room settings of the better furniture for livingroom/formal dining rooms/bedrooms — everything from modern, to traditional, to Southwestern styles. The mattress department and a huge selection of upholstered and leather sofas, sleepers, chairs, even futons, was also on that level. The second floor (level 3) had patio furniture, casual dining, and a gigantic selection of room decor pieces — rugs, lamps, art, mirrors, statues, holiday decorations, and every kind of houseware you can imagine (fine and casual china, crystal, collectables, etc.) For years, AH was the major store in Tucson for outfitting a home from floor to ceiling, especially in the Southwestern style so popular for Spanish colonial and California contemporary homes.

American Home was founded by two Czechoslovakian-immigrant cousins who learned the furniture business as teens from relatives in Texas. They moved to Albuquerque, NM, to strike out on their own and at the end of the Great Depression started what would eventually be widely recognized as the largest home furnishings emporium in the Southwest. It's quite apt to compare the Oracle Road store to IKEA in size.

One of the secrets of the cousins' success was their enthusiastic marketing to Spanish-speaking customers, so expansion into Tucson was a natural. At the time I went to work there, the company was run by one of the founders' sons, Lee Blaugrund. He was an older man, thinking about retirement in the early 21st century. He presided over multiple stores in Albuquerque, Sante Fe, Farmington, and Tucson that burgeoned as the population of the Southwest grew tremendously after the 1970s. I believe he still owns the building you are so curious about, as well as the huge furniture warehouse at Prince and I-10, not to mention tons of other real estate.

When Mr. Blaugrund's children and grandchildren showed no signs of wanting to take over the very demanding furniture business, he sold out to a group of eager young venture capitalists (no, not Bain, but with that delusion of grandeur). They knew nothing about furniture, nevertheless they had ambitious plans for expanding the company even further. The closest they had previously come to furniture was a fitness machine manufacturer they owned. At the meeting where we sales people met them, they told us they would be opening branches in Las Vegas and Southern California and if we wanted jobs in the new stores they would enable us to move.

Perhaps Mr. Blaugrund was prescient or perhaps just lucky, but in a matter of months, the mortgage and real estate markets began their rapid slide down. It was the venture partners who took the dive, not Mr. Blaugrund, who had the business sense to retain ownership of the real estate. He immediately rented the shuttered AH warehouse on Prince to his former competitor Levitz. The building on Oracle is in TERRIBLE disrepair, so perhaps he's just sitting on the property waiting for the Tucson Mall owners to buy him out. It certainly is a good location. The American Home company went into bankruptcy protection in 2008 and the court ordered it to close every one of its stores in Arizona. Hundreds of people lost their jobs (managers, sales personnel, interior designers, and warehouse workers), so that behemoth of a building is not a pleasant sight for many of us.

American Home is still open in Albuquerque but representing a much smaller number of furniture manufacturers with, to my mind, lower quality than the inventory of AH's Tucson headquarters. I still run into customers who bemoan the loss of AH in Tucson. They have yet to find any store to replace it. I'm sure they feel the loss in Sonora, too. We had many customers who traveled from Mexico to shop at AH, in spite of the difficulty of having rooms full of furniture delivered across the border. And then there's the city of Tucson ... they were collecting city sales tax on everything we sold no matter where it was being delivered. So lose-lose there, too.

I can't imagine what you have in mind for the building on Oracle, SerSaguaro, but you'd need deep pockets to fix that place up. In spite of its interesting history, it needs a wrecking ball.

[SerSaguaro]

Thanks for the reply Jukesgrrl! Outstanding info!! And sorry to hear about your job, and the fate of that company though the owner was obviously one wise old bird. Yeah, I have to agree with you that the place does not seem to be in very good repair, I fear the wrecking ball is probably it's ultimate fate, also. I'd love to see it turned into some type of 24 hr mall hangout place, with that much space and some interior design overhaul it would be an awesome refuge for a night owl like myself. But that's just me dreaming

[jksn75]

Bally fitness went out of business. All that is left is the theater. Hopefully, Tucon Mall buys them out and turns it into something great.

[themudpuppy]

I went there the other day to look at furniture. I had no idea it was closed. I had seen the sign on the building when I was passing by going somewhere else, and I was excited to find it because it looked like such a huge store where I could probably find everything I needed. I followed the signs to park on the second level for the store. I parked there and the doors were locked. Went to the 4th floor and walked into a movie theater. They told me the furniture store had gone out of business a long time ago. Went to Levitz instead, but didn't find everything I was looking for.

Are there any other decent furniture stores in Tucson? Most of what I've found so far are either super small or super expensive "fine furnishings".