Gulfgate Center, also known as Gulfgate Shopping City or Gulfgate Center, is a shopping center located in the

East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, United States.Map
."

East End Management District East End Houston, managed by the East End District (EED), is a district in eastern Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the Unite ...

. Retrieved on March 8, 2010. The mall is located northwest of the intersection of the Gulf Freeway and Interstate 610. This is not an indoor shopping mall, it is a center of individual retail stores.

History

It was the first regional mall in the Houston area, opening as Gulfgate Shopping Center on 20 September 1956 with Joske's,

Sakowitz Sakowitz was a chain of family-owned department stores based in Houston, Texas, United States. The store was founded by two brothers, Tobias and Simon Sakowitz, in Galveston, Texas in 1902 as a gentlemen's haberdashery. Other family members were ...

, Weingarten's, J.J. Newberry and W. T. Grant. The architects were John Graham & Company. Popularly known as Gulfgate Mall, many remember this being the first Air Conditioned mall in America Gulfgate Kiddieland opened in the mall on 21 March 1957. In the early-1960s, while the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) was under construction in the

Clear Lake area Clear Lake, or the Clear Lake Area, is a region in parts of Harris and Galveston County in Texas, United States. It is part of the Galveston Bay Area, which itself is a section of the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area.Ki ...

, NASA personnel opened temporary offices in center in about of floor space donated for the purpose by the Gulfgate management. MSC had a continuing operation there until additional office, engineering and laboratory space could be leased and made ready for occupation. Operations at the Gulfgate offices were largely concerned with procurement, personnel and public affairs."JSC Origins" ''JSC at 40'' (NASA)
Retrieved March 25, 2011. The shopping center was enclosed around 1967 and, after years of decline and competition, shuttered in 2000. In 2001 the original mall and the former Mervyns (across Woodridge) were demolished and redeveloped into a strip mall configuration, anchored by H-E-B,

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

, Marshalls, and

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

Anchors

* H-E-B *

* Old Navy * Marshalls * Ross Dress for Less * Staples *

(Gulfgate West across Woodridge) * Claire's *

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

* Panda Express * The Children's Place * Wingstop * Party City *

Cicis Cicis is an American chain of buffet restaurants based in Coppell, Texas, specializing in pizza. The company was founded in 1985, and started franchising by 1987. There are 299 franchised and corporately owned restaurants in 24 states. In November ...

KFC KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...

Chuck E. Cheese Chuck E. Cheese (formerly known as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza and simply Chuck E. Cheese's) is an American family entertainment center and pizza restaurant chain founded in 1977 by Atari's co-founder Nolan Bu ...

Former mall anchors

All stores demolished in 2001 * Joske's 228,900 sq. ft. (became

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The ...

Clearance Center in 1987) *

128,900 sq. ft. (closed in 1985, remained vacant) * J.J. Newberry 69,400 sq. ft. (became HJ Wilson Catalog Showroom on unknown date) * W. T. Grant (closed in 1976) * Weingarten's (closed in 1983, became Pic 'N' Save, then MacFrugal's in 1991) *

H. J. Wilson Co. H. J. Wilson Co., also known as Wilson's, was an American catalog showroom chain based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Founded in 1947 as a jewelry store, it was acquired in 1985 by Service Merchandise. History The store was begun by Huey John Wilson i ...

(became Service Merchandise in 1985) *

Clearance Center (closed in 1997, remained vacant) * Service Merchandise (closed in 1999, remained vacant) * MacFrugal's (closed in 2000) *

Anna's Linens Anna's Linens was an American retailer. It was based in Costa Mesa, California. The company was founded in 1987 by Alan Gladstone, who named the store after his mother. The first location opened in Los Angeles, California. In 1993, the chain fil ...

(closed in 2015)

Former Gulfgate West anchors

Globe Shopping City A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glob ...

Membership Store (closed in 1978 and became FedMart) * FedMart Membership Store (closed in 1982 and became Mervyns in 1984) * Mervyns (closed in 1991 and remained vacant for several years until it was demolished and rebuilt as

in 2001)

References

External links

*Barlow, Jim.
More to Gulfgate than meets the eye
" '' Houston Chronicle''. Sunday July 10, 2001. Business 1. *Vaughn, Carol E.
Gulfgate demolition building up neighborhood
" '' Houston Chronicle''. March 14, 2001. {{Houston Shopping Shopping malls in Houston Shopping malls established in 1956