Valley View Mall — Local services in Roanoke

Very poorly designed traffic pattern in and out of mall has been slightly upgraded over the years. Traffic is still usually awful during the holiday season, but it's been worse.

Safety is a concern as well during the holidays. Be smart and pay attention to your surroundings! There is definitely an increased Roanoke City Police and mall cop presence at this mall. Certainly a reason the Roanoke City Police usually keep a mobile command center right near Walmart during the holidays. Hands down the sketchiest Walmart in the Valley year round. Interesting note - due to crime in the area, that particular Walmart does NOT stock or sell firearms. Just food for thought.

Back to the mall in general. Parking is fairly limited due to all the restaurants and fringe stores built in what used to be parking areas in previous years. There are some good places to eat at surrounding the mall though. It does offer some of the typical anchor stores and a few of the semi trendy shops. Don't expect the top tier stores found in bigger cities. It's still Roanoke after all. NO - Apple, Forever 21, Bloomingdales, Cheesecake Factory, Bass Pro, etc. You'll have to find another city for those. Inside the mall is probably like most other intermediary malls. Too crowded for what it is and what it has to offer. Lots of rude kids/teens and crying babies. It's no wonder internet sales are increasing exponentially, especially with free shipping being offered regularly.

Ladies; please spare your fellas and don't drag him here to hold your purse or the like. He'll go nuts and probably not think nice things about you for it. Even though if he's smart, he'll never actually tell you that. I'm not, so I'll clue you in on that little nugget of info.

If you're the mall type, this is about the only option for you in the Roanoke Valley. Tanglewood Mall is pretty much a dead mall mainly due to its inability to expand and plethora of empty storefronts. Although, Tanglewood is in a MUCH safer part of town and still kind of popular with the older/senior/elderly early morning mall...

Lost a few nice stores for various reasons (Gap, baby gap, New York and company, wet seal, the limited- I think a few others). What is there is boring. I'm a guy that enjoys shopping, but I don't like to visit valley view. Granted I live here so it's easy for me to get burnt out on it but this isn't the mall to visit if you enjoy shopping IMO- a ride out of town will give you better, much better, options. In full disclosure I also worked at the mall part time for a few years.

Parking is terrible. Actually driving into the mall area is awful. Roanoke city tried to improve it with the new intersection by the movie theater but I don't think it's helped much. Absolutely avoid this place around holidays!! Plus they're cramming so many new restaurants and odd shops around the mall, it's one big cluster#uck!!

Mall security is a joke. I've watched them follow people who were just randomly shopping. I've known people who were detained for suspected shoplifting only to have charges dismissed. I've witnessed people open carry and be asked to leave while others have open carried with no issues.

The mall is generally clean though. The cleaning staff do a great job of taking care of facilities. Now individual stores have issues, particularly with the bathrooms but the main mall is...

I am convinced that by the shining reviews, none of the previous reviewers have ever been to any other mall. This place needs a serious overhaul. Let's start with parking and accessibility- basically only two bottle-necked entrances that lead to absolutely no covered parking? I've never seen anything other than a strip mall without covered parking. Now onto the inside, there is one central elevator and two escalators but I have never seen both working at the same time. There is a sad excuse for a food court with a chick fil-a (but there's already one in the parking lot?) a sbarro and a scary looking asian option. The stores are 90% GARBAGE. Other than maybe a few basics like a GAP, Old Navy, Express, Gymboree, Macy's and Victoria's Secret, don't expect anything special. Very cheap, low quality merchandise everywhere. It was like pulling teeth trying to find real leather shoe s. They need to demo this place- everyone I talk to says they just shop online because Valley View's shopping is so pathetic. At least they keep it clean. Also the person who said Tanglewood was better was smoking something because there are about 5 stores (the same ones as Valley View except Macy's and Sears) in that "mall" surrounded by...