Tanger Outlets Glendale

As most Outlet Malls go, the new Tanger Outlet Mall in Glendale is a keeper. It celebrated its Grand Opening yesterday at 9 AM and at noon, we arrived to join in the festivities. The traffic and parking situation was about as expected as we got to the off ramp on the freeway. Traffic was lined up all along Glendale Ave from the mall entrance to the off ramps, both north and southbound. Rather than fight all the traffic, we drove around the perimeter of Westgate (adjacent to the Mall) and came into the parking area on the south side of the Mall which was pretty smooth. We actually found a parking space within 50 yards of the southwest corner of the complex. The entire area, as you can imagine, was mobbed.

The Mall contains almost all of the popular outlet brands and even some new ones. The layout is simple, and as can be seen from these photos, partially covered so that summer heat can be kept to a minimum:

We did really great fighting off some of the great deals for opening day and only spent about $10 on a couple gadgets from the Kitchen Collections store. This last shot is of the Christmas tree, already placed for the season:

This mall will be highly successful and is very convenient from the 101 freeway. The only thing missing that we could see was a food court of some type. There were only a couple places where you could buy any kind of food - like pretzels and pizza - and we gathered the lack of food availability was intentional. The restaurants in the adjacent Westgate area are starving for business and the hope is that people will shop at the outlets and go across the street to eat. The problem with that concept is that all of the restaurants in the Westgate area are high end, expensive places to eat.

The cloudy day made for a dreary afternoon at home so we just hung out around the rig. I pulled the trigger on the Costco.com computer deal that was just too good to ignore. I ordered an HP Envy Dv7 configured just the way I would have ordered it from HP - but for $400 less, including shipping and tax. The only concern I still have is making the Windows 8 commitment. It should be interesting as the computer is scheduled to arrive around Thanksgiving...