I took some photos of the mall I hadn't before. I managed to get inside the old Hot Topic because the current tenant left the gate open. Did anyone know the original slot walls had iridescent marbling? I would've never known if I never went in. Other than that, no new discoveries were made that day. Just seeing the mall rot a little more.

Recently I went back for a meeting with a tenant about designing a logo for him. Again, nothing really new learned that day, just walking around and taking in the place. They're building a food court within the food court upstairs. Seems like a waste of labor. I spoke with the owner's lawyer a few days ago and it seems that the city still plans to demolish the mall and create the "Vista Grove" project that they've had in mind for years. I honestly do not think it'll happen, but, I'd be happy to be wrong. I was told that floor plans are not an option right now due to the mall being in the middle of redevelopment talks. It just isn't the kind of documentation they're comfortable giving out. The theater also wasn't an option due to safety concerns.

My friend Zucchino has been visiting the project off and on by making a base using the many reference photos I took and f-spy to get it as accurate as possible.

Currently I have a handful of newspaper clippings about the mall, some photos from the Dallas Morning News and the Lewisville tourist center of the mall from the 90s-2000s (surprisingly not a lot... I refuse to believe a photo of Bob Eubanks at opening isn't somewhere...) and hundreds of photos I took myself of anything between the courts to the sockets on the sign sconces. I did make a few posts in local groups asking for photos, however surprisingly I only managed to get two people who were generous enough to share what they had. Because of them I now have one photo of the food court in its original form with red neon, and a handful of photos taken in various places, including the food court during the 2000s when it used to have cloud murals around the skylights.

I also have some high definition scans of the mall's coverage in the Japanese book American Shopping Centers, which was sent to me by my friend and curator of the CARI, Evan Collins. This is an excellent resource given that they're the only photos I have of rotunda court's projections, palm court's marketplace, and the mall's original sconce signage. I did contact the photographer if I would be able to get scans from the film so I could get a clearer picture without halftone rosettes, but his quote for getting film scanned (about 200 dollars a photo if I recall correctly) was a bit high.

I do have a model of the rotunda fountain that I'm fairly proud of and I currently use as a wallpaper for my computer. I also modeled the trash cans that decorate the mall and 3D printed one for my desk. Besides that, those are the only models I've done so far. It's a bit daunting to start something this big, but I think once I start it'll be easier to continue. A friend, who was originally working on an interactive mall model himself (though its own thing, not a recreation) has been happy to help me when I need it.