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Shops of Grand Avenue
Rating Details »
- Hours:
Mon-Fri. 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Sat. 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Sun. 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Garage
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
11 reviews for Shops of Grand Avenue
Alas, Milwaukee's much-balyhooed Downtown mall has gone the way of nearly every other Downtown mall in these United States. Perhaps it's time to that we all recognize that when you shoehorn a suburban shopping paradigm into an urban center all you're going to get is mediocrity. It just doesn't work.
Downtown Milwaukee is becoming an ever better retail destination. But it's happening in spite of, not because of, the Shops of Grand Avenue.
I give it three stars because I am able to get a fair amount of shopping done here without having to deal with the crowds of other area malls.
How sad! I used to live on the East side and Loved The Grand Ave. I stopped by today and the place is 1/2 empty and The only decent Stores are a Boston Store and a Radio Shack.
The Culvers at the mall on Tuesdays they have $1 Butterburgers. When you buy any milkshake you can have two mix ins - I normally get oreos and andes chocolate mints.
1 Previous Review:
-
5/2/2009
The Old Navy downtown location is closing down as of May 5th. Check out the sale.
It's sad to see such potential go to waste. Oye, what to do with old malls? It's a curse that will plague my generation.
My time in this fucking mall always goes horribly wrong. And yes, I am a visitor, a FIB as they call us, and yeah, Im not here on...lets say a regualr Tuesday, when shit is actually normal. No, im usually in on the weekends, when everyone is there, everything is crazy, kids flying off the walls, parents yelling, etc. And since im nevere ever in the mall and in a weird city of course i have to have so completely fucked up request...like "i need a black belt". Sounds simple, right? Nope. Not these days. This time I was in town for an outdoor concert....it was cold, rainy, and I didnt want to wear a jacket...oh no, Mikey is way too cool for a jacket. I needed a hoodie. Sounds like a simple request, right? Especially in a mall with lots of stores, in Wisconsin no less, where the women sometimes get marriend in Packers or Badgers sweatshirts all the time! I guess the idea of actually finding a hoodie - a simple request right? - was just a dumb idea, especially in a mall with more than 4 or 5 athletic apparrel stores...stores operating and maintaining a business via sales of hoodies! So how do you not have a hoodie? I checked 8 stores, 8 frickin stores and not one hoodie. Now I understand its June and hoodies arent made to be worn in the summer, but damn....I eventually run into a store with a clearance on hoodies ( the guy in the ref shirt was shocked they were even out and available). Of course not a regular hoodie..oh know, they were only selling the expensive Kudi Cudi-style hoodies....thats not exactly true but i did have to spend 80 bucks on a Roc -A- Fella hoodie (giving Jay-Z even more money....dammit!) so i wouldnt freeze my ass off all night. I expected to spend 20 bucks on some hoodie with cheese or Brett Farve's name on it and here I am 9 stores deep spending too much on a hoodie that costs more than my watch, shoes,pants, hat, shirt, socks, glasses.etc...you get the point. Oh well, im wearing the fuck out of this hoodie now, getting my money's worth...but c'mon. This is why I dont go to malls, because they generally end up sucking and not having what you want, even if its the simplest of things.
This mall is in a mixed-use set of buildings with everything from offices, a continuing education center from UW-Milwaukee, the YMCA, condos, and hotels all connected up via skywalks.
The food court offers a variety of fast-food-style dining options for downtown conventioneers or visitors, including a Culver's.
Practical stores like Radio Shack, OfficeMax, the most crowded and under-sized Walgreen's I've ever seen, and stores like the Boston Store and Borders make it a useful shopping destination.
With such intensive all-day use and foot traffic by many residents and visitors alike, it is surprising that this shopping mall has so very few offerings that appeal to the many people who are there every day or live nearby.
I give this mall a very low score (2 stars) because it could be so much more. It could be a genuine, urban, downtown, practical, down-to-earth, simple shopping resource selling modest, simple, day-to-day items of use to people who live downtown, but instead it seems to cling to a vision of retailing (the perfumed suburban mall) that has long ago passed away. The many empty storefronts are proof of this.
I love Culvers but if you go to this one, even if there is only ONE person in front of you, expect to wait at least 10 minutes, but you get to watch the employees chat with pretty girls that walk by!
I also remember visiting Grand Avenue when I was a kid. It was SO cool to go downtown (from Brookfield, about 10 miles away) to Grand Avenue. The mall featured shops in the old Plankinton Arcade, what my mom says was an early 1900s office building later transformed into a shopping area. There was also a modern part, that featured a third-story food court that used to have this big bear statue on a tightrope swaying back and forth over the diners. That was the kid's big draw to the mall.
During the late '90s on the few times I headed down to Grand Avenue, I was sorely disappointed. There was a period when there was literally a few stores left in the whole mall. It seemed half empty, and there was almost no one walking the halls. It was eerie even.
While its not the Grand Avenue of the 80's, with a new Borders bookstore, Linen's N Things and Office Max as well as some other chain mall stores, there is at least some draw to this mall. Sure, it's not what it used to be, certainly not a place to shop for clothes, but for books, home stuff or a TJMaxx fix, it serves a purpose.
I walk the halls of this place at least weekly to get to the food court for lunch, but I'm only rarely tempted to try one of the stores. During the lunch hour, the hallways are pretty well packed, so walking with more than one other colleague isn't quite practical, though it is nice to have indoor walking paths when the winter winds start whipping through the downtown streets.
Going to this mall recently made me very sad. This archecture of this place is very pretty and the mall itself used to have very cool stores. Now, there's hardly anything worthwhile. I hope they do something to fix it up, some of these stores in there are getting borderline 7 mile fair.
If I could give this mall one and a half stars, I would give them an extra half star simply because there's a TJ Maxx inside of the mall. Other than that, I probably won't waste time going here again, unless I happen to be in the vicinity and there's absolutely nothing else to do. For quick and cheap food, the food court is adequate for most needs. However, if you want to go to a mall to get some serious shopping done, I'd recommend going somewhere else!
