Sunday was the last day for Best Buy‘s Pleasant Valley location. All this week the store is moving to their new, highly visible location in the Crabtree Valley Mall "Convenience" Plaza. Formerly occupied by a Big Star grocery store, a fabric store, 2 movie theaters, a Hardee’s, a florist, and a post office, the plaza now contains a Mexican restaurant, Barnes & Noble, and that same post office.
The Friday opening of Best Buy promises to be a short-sighted mangling of the term "convenience" and leaves many of us scratching our heads as to why Crabtree didn’t take advantage of a perfect time to reinvent themselves in the face of stiff, new competition (unless they paid off the road contractor to mess up the I-40 paving job – just kidding).
Wow, can you imagine how difficult it will be to get in and out of that place.
Convenience???? Whatever!!!
I have wondered the same thing. I work a mile from Crabtree, and *never* go over there because of the traffic headaches and poor layout.
Southpoint is a *much* easier mall to navigate.
Foget Southpoint, give me Triangle Town anyday!!!
I don’t understand where they are going to park. Getting in and out of the “Convenience” center is not much fun. I try to avoid it even if I am going to Crabtree. I don’t think Crabtree is hard to get in and out of. It maybe for the uninitiated but if you lived here long enough you know how to work the roads. I know that Crabtree faces competition from Triangle Town Center and Southpoint. I for one live in west Raleigh and I’d much rather go to Crabtree than deal with the traffic and the mess that is Capital Blvd. Same goes for Southpoint and dealing with I-40. Crabtree has a great mix of stores and a look that I think will outlast the “theme” of Southpoint and the way it looks inside. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Lord and Taylor part. I just was in Richmond and their newest mall Short Pump Town Center had an area that was destined to be a Lord and Taylor before all the trouble happened and they have turned that area into extra shops with the likes of West Elm and other higher end stores. Maybe that will happen here…West Elm would be quite a nice addition.
I have it on pretty good authority that the powers that be are upset that they ever put Sak’s at TTC. It’s not doing well, apparently, and rumor is that it may not last. On the flipside, some other high-end stores (Another Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus) are looking at Crabtree. And I, for one, find Crabtree much easier to navigate than either TTC or Southpoint (which I like).
Agreed AW… Crabtree (the mall itself) is actually very easy to deal with once you’ve become familiar with the parking decks. I actually prefer the deck system instead of trecking across acres of parking lot at the more suburban malls. In addition, discounting the absentee luxury department store, I think Crabtree has the superior store lineup. Unforunately the “convenience plaza” does not share the same praise as its big brother. Best Buy now has a great location with dismal parking – it was hard enough to park on those 3 little strips when Toys”R”Us was there
On the contrary, I heard that this Saks store ranks #16 in women’s sales and #4 in men’s sales in the chain.
The original plan I had heard from Crabtree mall management was that they were going to extend the mini-parking deck off of Belks over to the “convenience center” to try and connect that area with the mall.
That was before Lord and Taylor left and I think that made them rethink their plans.
why don’t they move barnes and noble into the old l&t space, that would help a little with best buy parking. they need to do something, parking is going to be a nightmare over there.
I work at store 299 in Crabtree, and while the store itself is really nice and fresh I can’t stand that we are in the “convenience center” of the mall. Its a pain for everybody involved, the parking is horrible and the traffic is just as bad if not worse.