Greenhouse Mall Austin, Texas

Kristine Ellis -- Casual Living, 9/1/2012 2:00:00 AM

Large outdoor areas feature outdoor furniture plus swings and playsets for families with young children.Though slow-and-steady worked for the tortoise, sometimes you just have to be the hare. Such is the case with perennial Apollo nominee Greenhouse Mall, which is leaping ahead with a complete reinvention by next spring. Though its three locations wPaul Parker and Karen Galindo stand behind Tracy Wolfrom, Paul Galindo and the store mascots.ill remain, the company will have a new name and a fresh mix of outdoor furnishings.
     "We're going to be more relevant to our consumer," said Karen Galindo, president and owner of the company, which she manages with her husband, Paul.
     The clean sweep comes after what Galindo calls a "weird" year. "Business has been good, but it just felt weird," she said.
     In part, she believes that the upcoming election and other unknowns, as well as the drought, have made consumers uneasy.
     "When it's hot and dry every day and you don't know when you're going to see rain again, it makes people nervous. So I do think that the drought plays a huge role in the general agitation that consumers seem to have," Galindo said.
     The need to make the business more relevant has also played into her sense of a season that's just not right.Displays of open umbrellas and pergolas add color to the indoor fl oor space at Greenhouse Mall.
     "I think there has to be a paradigm shift in how we all do business," she said. "There is a shift in how consumers are buying, and as brick-and-mortar stores we need to adjust, and I think a lot of us haven't."
     As Greenhouse Mall liquidates its inventory, Galindo and the rest of the management team have plenty to consider.
     "We are going to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what we need to do to move into the next 10 years," she said.