Macy’s closure raises worry about Fiesta Mall’s future
Though Mercedes Tucker’s catalog of Valley memories spans nearly three-quarters of a century, she easily recalls the excitement that surrounded the birth of Mesa’s Fiesta Mall more than 30 years ago.
“It was one of the biggest malls being constructed around
here at the time,” said Tucker, 74. “Everyone was so happy. They loved it.”
Now, Tucker worries she might witness the death of the mall, too. Macy’s Inc. announced Jan. 8 that it would close its 159,000-square-foot Fiesta location as part of a nationwide cost-cutting effort, capping off at least a decade of slow decline for the mall.
“I don’t know how this mall can survive without Macy’s,” Tucker said. “If you go to the food court, you already see vendors leaning against the counter, waiting for business. This can’t continue.”
Adolfo Lopez, manager of Fiesta’s Dairy Queen/Orange Julius, confirmed Tucker’s observations.
“This mall is already really slow, and now it’s going to be even more slow with the closing,” he said.
Final clearance sales at the Fiesta Macy’s, expected to last 10 to 11 weeks, began Jan. 13. That afternoon, the closing and discount signs hanging from rafters and plastered across clothing racks drew a thin but steady crowd of shoppers.
Macy’s has said it may offer the 98 Mesa employees positions in nearby stores, if available, and it will offer severance benefits to eligible full-time and part-time associates it lays off.
Aspokesman for Cushman & Wakefield of Arizona, which recently took over management of Fiesta Mall, said that while the real-estate brokerage “wasn’t crazy” about the news, he couldn’t speak to the impact the closure might have on the mall as a whole. A representative for special servicer LNR Partners Inc. also declined to discuss the broader impact.
Mesa economic-development officials, who have focused efforts on revitalizing the surrounding area, said they didn’t have any information beyond what had come out.
Mesa Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh, who represents the Fiesta District, said the Macy’s closure aligns with recent department-store industry trends.
For one thing, he said, brickand-mortar stores have been hit hard by online sales that often are not assessed sales taxes.
Further, old-line stores have seen competition from lowerpriced competitors such as Kohl’s and Target, as well as continuing rounds of consolida- tions that parallel those of the airline industry. Macy’s itself swallowed up the RobinsonsMay chain that had a store in Fiesta Mall.
Since Macy’s owns its building at Fiesta Mall, a common practice among departmentstore mall anchors, Kavanaugh is “curious as to what plans, if any, they have for that site.”
Despite the blow of losing a major retailer, Kavanaugh remains optimistic about the Fiesta District overall. He noted that three shopping centers in the area — Poca Fiesta, Mesa Fiesta and Fiesta Crossing — have gotten new owners within the past two years, and those “new owners are reinvesting into those properties.”
A potential redevelopment is in the works for the southwestern corner of Alma School Road and Southern Avenue, adjacent to Fiesta Mall, he said. And a fast-food restaurant is looking to set up shop on the north side of Southern, on a site surrounded by the vacant Fiesta Village center.
Interest in building a multiuse indoor sports arena in the area, an idea that has circulated for several years, also persists.
Though the changes may have sparked some nostalgia for Tucker, she ultimately sees them as the mark of an evolving region.
“The East Valley has grown so much over the years,” she said. “This is part of that natural movement and growth.”