Foothills Mall: The Mall That Died Twice | Dead Mall Documentary | Retail Archaeology

It seems that I've fallen into the "shopping malls with very 80s aesthetic" part of YouTube once again Please dont rescue me, i quite like it here

They need to film an early 90's movie here. It's beautiful and has so much 90's character.

The late 80s loved their roman columns in malls, my local one went one further and stuck fake ivy all over them too.

Great work man. Don't let the assholes get to you. Everyone acts like Dan Bell is the only one allowed to make these type of videos and that's not fair to other people like yourself who do a damn good job.

People can say it's ugly but I think it's a unique mall look, especially suitable for AZ imo.

When the mall was dead the first time... there was a toy train store! You could push a button and the trains would go around. I used to work at that mall in its second wind. There was a CD City and a Sam Gooding. They used to have a Dillards. That empty restaurant was the "Old Pueblo Grill" it was ran by the McMahan restaurants.

This mall had gone under once before and was bought by Ross Perot's son. He completely remodeled it and made it amazing and the best mall in Tucson. I loved this mall and it breaks my heart to see it completely vacant in 2022, except for the theater and the Barnes and Noble. The closed restaurant you are referring to, with the fountain, was Carlotta's Mexican Restaurant, and it was extremely popular. My family and I spent a lot of money and so much time at The Foothills Mall. I miss it and have very fond memories of this unique and beautiful mall.

Nice floors. I like the floors.

When the church goes into a mall, that is the death blow!

I use to live near this mall back when I was in Arizona. And damn this was the place to be in middle school. Every Friday a bunch of people from different middle schools would just go to this mall to chill. It was a nightmare for mall cops. When I would scroll through MySpace Friday nights everyone had uploaded pictures from being at the foothills mall. And then people grew up and it went to shit.

A mall so nice, it had to die twice

I go to that AMC fairly regularly. It was a surreal experience to watch so many stores close there doors. The closed store you walked past that had the Volkswagen Claw game was an Old Navy. That kiosk with the tarp over it in the food court was a Wetzels pretzels and then a Jamba Juice. The Screen Covering one of the restaurants in the food court used to be a Taco bell. There used to be a Nike Store that brought in a lot of people, but its gone to. The closed restaurant with the fountain had always been closed for as long as I can remember. There also used to be a brewery, at 16:00 you can see the old brewing tank that the restaurant used to advertise their own beer.

Amazon will be coming to Australia by the end of the year - until now we never felt a tangible online threat to mall retail. I wonder if the dead mall trend of America will hit our local plazas.

As a Tucsonan, it breaks my heart to see this thing so dead. It's my favorite mall in town. Sucks that they've already junked the indoor section of the El Conn Mall, that thing was an architectural masterpiece. Shame it died so soon, would have loved to see you do a video on that. You should hit up Park Place on a super slow day. It's got plenty of stores, but it's an interesting mall, too. Though Tucson mall is boring.

Me too. I have never seen an Arbys inside a mall. I mostly see subway.

This mall is so 1993. It's like a time warp.

I loved this mall. I lived in Tucson from 2003-2015 and I noticed towards the tail end of being in Tucson, the mall really started to deteriorate. A lot of stores were closing up, as is the case at many malls around the country. I had even noticed that at the Tucson Mall.

The Storage area used to be a SEGA owned bar and grill. That was awesome.

The restaurant was originally called Keaton's. Then it became Old Pueblo Grill. Both were great places. It had a fantastic bar area. It became a Mexican restaurant, I think called Carlotta's before shuttering. The original movie theater entrance was near the current food court. I remember seeing Return of Jedi there on opening night (12:01am) in 1983. The lines wrapped all around the inside of the mall. Thanks for posting this video, brought back some great memories.

This mall is so dead I went there a while ago I was surprised it was still hanging on.