College Park Mall

It’s hard for me to give you one star, but if they had half stars that’s what this place would get. I don’t believe this mall was ever a great mall, but it was for the area. A few shops shut down and after that the rest is history. When my beloved Corn Dog 7 shut down i had enough!!! The place seemed to keep it’s head above the water by small additions like «goodies» and others, but they soon fell like the rest. Then half of the mall was shut down as well. Now there is absolutely no reason to go there. I just don’t see how that building stays up. Not to mention thats the second mall in corsicana that has done this.

When the mall opened up in the mid-1980’s, this actually was a good, nay, great mall: Eateries, music store, clothes stores, arcade, hair salon, health food store, bookstore… Basically all the things that would constitute a normal mall.
The mall remained this way for a while during the 1990’s, and some stores closed along the way, or changed names. Natural evolution, right?
Then the stores started closing, and nothing replaced them. Sure, Bealls, Cato, GNC, Regis, and Corn Dog 7 stayed the course, but pretty soon they were the forefront of the whole College Park Mall experience.
A few stores came in and out just as quickly as they were announced, but when the old Wal-​Mart left the mall to move across the street into a super mega hyper combo center, this is when the mall truly died. I just don’t think anyone’s had the heart to tell the poor thing. Cato and GNC fled to a new shopping center across from the new Wal-​Mart.
The 2000’s have been nothing but unkind to College Park Mall. Bealls still remains there, as do a few clothing shops. Over half the mall has been walled up where the old jewelry stores used to be, meaning half of the shopping center is completely inaccessible to people. Too bad for the senior mall walkers that once frequented the place and did their paces every morning, right? Corn Dog 7 looks like it could/​would almost be open, but it turns out that whoever owned that place, must have done a fast abandonment. You can still hang out at Corn Dog 7, just don’t expect any service there. Or food. Ever.
The mall is a sad, sad place these days. Many locals bemoan the high rental costs it takes to run a store there as to the reason why nothing new comes in anymore, from high-​profile store to even a local business. So if the landlords wanted their own personal empty mall to ride bikes in or roll a ball from one end to the other uninterrupted, good job! They achieved their goal.
It’s depressing even walking into the tiny section that’s still left open. The even more bitter pill comes from knowing that it actually used to be a top-​notch shopping experience for Corsicana.