With the opening of nearby malls Grapevine Mills and Stonebriar Centre, Vista Ridge's performance and notoriety slowly declined. Vista Ridge's mall politics and social decline has been well documented and discussed among its fans and its coverage on Wikipedia, however its design and operations have been seldom covered.

Vista Ridge Mall was designed a bit more thoroughly and specifically than other malls at the time. With a consistent motif of marble and blue steel piping, the mall demanded glamour and status. The mall has three courts, center court (originally named palm court), hexagon court, and rotunda court.

Palm court, named after its massive palm trees, is the center of the mall's food court and, originally, the "mall street market," a group of kiosks specifically arranged to the court's floor plan built into the tiles. This market, with kiosks made of brass tubing and neon signage, seemed to have only been used during it's first 5 or so years operation. Today, the floor plan, still obvious in the tile work, has been abandoned. The court's fountain, doubling as a stage, has been used for many radio sponsored concerts for anything between children's performances to Tiffany. Today, the fountain is often covered by a larger stage shroud, which was originally only used during events. Around the court at the balconies of the food court and the entrances of the first floor hallways and stores, was glass signage with the names of the stores behind them. As these stores closed and were replaced, it seems the mall didn't take the time and money to have new signs made. So, many of these glass signs are missing today, with giant gaps between the two Vista Ridge logos that still hold them up.

Hexagon court, named after it's hexagonal shape, has a staircase leading to the second floor that curls around an encased waterfountain that flows from above; an indoor water curtain. It's uncertain how long this curtian was in use, but it seems by at least the early 2010s, it too, was abandoned. Today it's still obvious and the center of attention in the otherwise barren court (used for holiday displays when needed) but it hasn't been seen flowing in many years.

Rotunda court, with an equally-obvious name, has a red marble fountain which originally also included a flower bed between the water and the seating at its skirt. This flower bed, which also included two palm trees, was filled in and overlaid with marble sometime in the 2000s. Though the most iconic feature of rotunda court, which was in use a bit longer, were the projectors. On three pylons coming up from the fountain are three metal bowl-like structures. Inside were lights with gobo's depicting simplistic representations of stars and ringed planets. These little starfields were projected on the ceiling around the atrium glass at night. This little planetarium followed the idea that, at night, the mall could be seen from the highway essentially beaming from every glass roof that was in every court and every hallway, lined with blue neon and topped with a light.

The hallways followed the same design as the rotunda, with large sconces using the same dishes from the fountain pylons, just without the projectors. The sconces, which doubled as sign hangers for nearby stores, had small fluorescent lights below the dishes. It's unknown when these lights were taken out, but judging off photos, it was likely decades ago. The sockets themselves are still seen when looking up close.

All of Vista Ridge has been designed to work together, every metal support and decoration uses the same motifs, including the mall's original street signage, looking as if a pylon from rotunda court had it's dish replaced with a giant glowing 3-dimensional V.

Cinemark's original theater was closed in 2006 to be replaced by an entirely new theater being built in a vacant lot where a department store was originally planned to be built. Because of this, the theater sat empty and dark for about a year before being walled off. Today, the space, next to the old Garfield's sits exactly as it was in 2006, though with collapsing ceilings from water damage, torn screens, and missing chairs. Incredibly, what few neon lights that still work are turned on every day with the rest of the mall. The wall itself is incredibly awkward, and anyone who looks at a directory map must notice that the giant, vacant area must've been something once. The space has been used for constructing facades for the haunted houses that used to pop up in the mall during the early 2020s. However, since the mall was bought by its current owners, nobody is allowed inside other than staff, citing safety concerns with the space's stability.

For a few years now it's been planned by a city group to demolish the mall and turn it into an outdoor shopping center, preserving the atrium from center court. However, this plan has been around for quite some time, and given that the same thing was planned for Valley View Centre, whose plot still stands vacant and fenced off with chicken wire, this feels unlikely. Today, Vista Ridge mall is often used by mall walkers, chess tournaments, and anything else that needs a large space for relatively cheap leasing.