As April drew to a close, so did the limping finale to Highland Mall. Unlike the frequent sad fates of other malls as per Dead Malls, Highland will live on with a better purpose…a campus for Austin Community College (ACC).
You can catch a pretty cool story/sound file here. I wish I had a time machine to see Highland during its glory years in the Eighties; an internal movie theater, a Gold Mine arcade and maybe something worth eating at its food court. Pretty impressive track record given how close it was to Austin’s original airport too.
Today, the more popular equivalents are the Domain in the northwest (a mixed-use setup containing uber expensive apartments, an unimpressive movie theater, stores in bloc organized by price and very little to eat unless you prefer $25 taco plates); Barton Creek in the southwest (when I first moved here, this place was on the ropes); and Lakeline up in Cedar Park. Northcross in the north/central continues to get by minus its movie theater and the lion’s share of stores/restaurants face out.
Highland was the mall during my first few years here. It had a WB Store, Disney Store, Nature Company, a pet store, Suncoast Video and the same old retailers you saw in every mall across the US. For a long time I could count on Austin’s buses to get me there from my apartment on 38th and Guadalupe reliably. It was on the way as I commuted via bus from home to Apple’s old 183 and 290 location. If I timed it well, I could leave the apartment early, squeeze in some quick shopping and clock in with time to spare (I used to start at 11:15 or 11:30). This mall was a perfect meeting point after work for me to rendezvous with Doc and Eiko whenever we did our Friday-night movie ritual at either Highland 10 or Lincoln 6.
Alas, I can’t recall the last time I ever went to Highland while it was 100-percent dedicated to being a mall. I’ll go out on a limb and say the early Aughts. Those annoying shitbirds were often a hazard of parking near an anchor store. When we moved to Pflugerville, the need to go there declined noticeably. Barton Creek getting Austin’s first Apple Store was probably the death knell and the Domain’s opening was the coup de grace. Oh yeah, the city bankrolling the conversion of the Mueller Airport into an east side Domain knock off probably had something to do with this. I would throw in racism since Highland was within the economically poor neighborhoods of Austin’s shrinking Black population.
Highland’s demise is merely one of dozens every month around the West. Hell, I think I read about a mall built in China which never opened. The point is, people’s shopping habits have changed. 99% Invisible recently had an episode dedicated to a pioneer of the indoor mall named Victor Gruen; an expert they interviewed said malls like Highland peaked in 1990 and have sliding ever since. There’s online options, stronger competition from Wal-Mart/Target, very popular venues can find cheaper rent (specialities like toys, books and music if they remain) and here’s the whopper from my youth, teenagers have different outlets and means to congregate at to socialize…when their faces aren’t buried in their mobile devices. Yeah, yeah, get off my lawn, screw you Millenials with your cliché riposte. I’m confident key scenes in Weird Science, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Night of the Comet puzzle younger people.
Thanks the great memories Highland. You made the transition to living in Austin great because you were superior to what I had in Bloomington-Normal and were on par with what I missed in Milwaukee via Southridge.