Location Laredo, Texas, USA Closing date 2003 Owner Morgan Stern Realty Opened 1977 Number of anchor tenants 2 | Opening date 1970 Developer Morgan Stern Realty No. of stores and services 80+ Number of stores and services 80 | |
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Similar Veterans Field, Gateway to the Americas, Republic of the Rio Grande M, Zacate Creek, Lake Casa Blanca | ||
River Drive Mall was a regional 385,000-square-foot (35,800 m2) indoor mall located in the north Rio Grande bank in downtown Laredo, Texas. River Drive Mall was Laredo's main mall from 1970 to the mid 1980s. It is set to be demolished in 2014. It will be replaced by a new multi-story open-air outlet center to be named The Outlet Shoppes at Laredo set to be opened in 2015.
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History
The River Drive Mall was built in 1970 making it the first indoor mall in Laredo, followed by Mall del Norte constructed in 1977. The mall was succeeded by Mall Del Norte in the late 1980s as the main mall in the city. Major anchors located at the mall were Frost Bros., JCPenney, Weiner's, and KB Toys. River Drive Mall closed its doors in 2003 due to high vacancy rate.
El Portal Center project
Morgan Stern Realty bought the property in 2003, renamed it El Portal Center and started renovating it until 2005. It had been planned for Morgan Stern Realty to turn "El Portal Center" into an indoor outlet mall. Their main emphasis would have been outlets stores, restaurants, and entertainment. In 2006, a spokesman for Morgan Stern Realty stated, "Our progress has been impeded primarily on the barrage of negative, national news coverage of Laredo that has depicted the violence in Nuevo Laredo as spilling over to Laredo, while unfair and inaccurate, has nonetheless caused a delay in our factory outlet leasing program." El Portal Center project was never completed and the mall never reopened.
The Outlet Shoppes at Laredo
On June 12, 2013 Horizon Group Properties and the City of Laredo announced the development of an outlet center in place of the River Drive Mall. The outlet mall will feature from 80 to 90 outlet stores in a newly planned 3 level open air building. El Portal Center will be demolished in 2014 for the new building. The Outlet Shoppes at Laredo is expected to open by 2015. Since then they've said to release the names of the outlet stores on July 8th,2015
Area
The Outlet Shoppes will be located on the northern bank of the Rio Grande west of the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge connecting Laredo, Texas with Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The combined population of both cities is 636,516 according to census figures in 2010 from Mexico and the United States.
Other buildings in the planning stages for the area around the Outlet Shoppes at Laredo include a Convention Center, a World Trade Center, a 5 star hotel, and a weir to make a low level lake in the Rio Grande known as the River Vega Project.
Outlet stores
The following is a list of outlet stores planning to open at The Outlet Shoppes at Laredo.