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| - Still the best mall in Phoenix. I've been coming here since the mid 1980's. While a lot of the popular chain stores like Gap and Old Navy have long since bailed and moved to newer, cheaply built malls like Scottsdale Quarter / Kierland Commons, many of the stores and eateries that remain at PV Mall are unique and have charm.
Paradise Valley Mall was built in 1978 and is an architectural treasure from an era when Phoenix was really starting to boom. If you were a kid in the 80s or 90s growing up on the street side of North Phoenix, you would have spent a good portion of your childhood hanging out here (kids on the avenue side hung out at MetroCenter.)
Despite the best efforts by the current owners to ruin the aesthetic of the place (by tearing down a portion of it and putting in a Costco) the mall has not declined nearly as much as MetroCenter or any of the other once iconic malls in the Phoenix area. The mall has maintained a sort of local, eclectic quality to it, frequently holding arts events. Don't be fooled by some of the unfamiliar establishment names, the food court at Paradise Valley Mall is one of the best in town, featuring some amazing family owned restaurants where the owners really take pride in their food.
I had not been to this mall in nearly 10 years. Initially I was somewhat shocked to see so many empty stores, but as I've continued to come here I've noticed a resurgence, with more and more people starting to come back. PV Mall is still a prominent community center and the mall is sustaining itself through support of grass roots businesses. If the corporate owners can recognize the historical, architectural and cultural importance of Paradise Valley Mall as an iconic North Phoenix community center, then it will be creatively and successfully revived. This place doesn't have to end up being another dead mall.
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