El Paso’s Cielo Vista Mall to reopen on Friday

EL PASO, Texas -- Simon Property Group is reopening 49 of its malls across the country this weekend, including El Paso's Cielo Vista Mall.

That's according to an internal company memo obtained and reported on Tuesday evening by CNBC, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The memo indicated Cielo Vista would open May 1, as will the company's other malls in Texas.

As part of their reopening process, the mall operator said it would supply free CDC-approved masks and hand sanitizer to shoppers who would like it.

Simon officials indicated the malls would also make free temperature testing available to customers using infrared thermometers. 

Temperature-taking and the use of face masks will be mandatory for all mall workers, the memo indicated.

The company memo noted that mall hours will be shortened to allow adequate time for deep cleaning. Cielo Vista will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily except Sunday, when the hours will be noon to 6 p.m.

In addition, Simon said it plans to regularly sanitize high-touch areas like food court tables, escalators and doorknobs. It also said it would limit mall occupancy to one person per 50 square feet of space by using customer-traffic-measuring technology.

While the mall itself will reopen come Friday, there's no guarantee that all of Cielo Vista's tenant stores will actually resume operations. Officials with Macy's department stores, for example, have said they will remain closed.