Interstate 75 and Hamilton-Lebanon Road
Warren County (Turtlecreek Township), Ohio
Here's one to break the monotony at our Mid-Mod Mall Museum. Up until now, the emphasis has been on what was...let us now explore something that wasn't.
Back in 1973, I was a pimply-faced, bookworm type, in my second year of
high school in a "po-dump," rural, northeast Alabama town. There
wasn't much in the way of entertainment, save for watching the weekly
"Maude" episode, or venturing to EASTGATE MALL in Chattanooga to see a movie at its cinema.
I had just moved from The Cincinnati-Dayton area, and the change to living in the deep South had been quite a culture shock. I had no social life to speak of, so I occupied my free time doing architectural house plans, shopping mall plans and renderings.
I had just moved from The Cincinnati-Dayton area, and the change to living in the deep South had been quite a culture shock. I had no social life to speak of, so I occupied my free time doing architectural house plans, shopping mall plans and renderings.
I actually
worked one of these mall plans into a scale model made of poster board. It measured approximately 3 feet, end-to-end. I decided that this retail
center should be located in my former homeland, smack-dab between the
metropolitan centers of Cincinnati and Dayton. This mall would serve as a
merchandising marriage of stores from both cities.
The geographic center point, lying between Fountain Square {in Cincinnati} and Courthouse Square {in Dayton}, falls at a point just east of the small hamlet of Monroe, Ohio. The site, conveniently adjacent to the Interstate 75 and Ohio Route 63 interchange, became the location of my imaginary CIN-DAY CENTER mall. As proposed, it was a single-level shopping venue, featuring four anchor stores.
Perhaps a bit of background here. The first-ever fully-enclosed shopping mall I visited, Montgomery County, Ohio's DAYTON MALL, encompassed an astounding (for the time) three anchor stores. In the early 1970s, I thought that this was really awesome! Of course, I did not have access to anything like the internet. So, I was unaware of even larger shopping malls such as Denver's CINDERELLA CITY, with four anchors...or Phoenix's brand new METROCENTER, with five.
CIN-DAY CENTER was quite extraordinary for (what I thought was) its state-of-the art design. Moreover, the grand, 2-story, center Atrium was unique in that it was fronted by two anchor stores, each directly facing one another!
I have researched a lot of actual shopping malls and have never seen one exactly like this. Of course, this design may have been terribly flawed, as it may have been impossible to sign two anchors whose stores would have been configured in this manner. This didn't matter to me in 1973.
So, now we can fast-forward several years for a look at my circa-'73 brainstorm. The renderings presented here must surely look quite dated. This is intentional. In this mall, there would have been plenty of corduroy concrete surfaces, mansard roof lines, Brutalist buildings and Moorish Modern archways. These features were the thing in newly-built malls of the late '60s and early '70s, and I wanted CIN-DAY CENTER to have them all!
A CIN-DAY CENTER TRAJECTORY:
The geographic center point, lying between Fountain Square {in Cincinnati} and Courthouse Square {in Dayton}, falls at a point just east of the small hamlet of Monroe, Ohio. The site, conveniently adjacent to the Interstate 75 and Ohio Route 63 interchange, became the location of my imaginary CIN-DAY CENTER mall. As proposed, it was a single-level shopping venue, featuring four anchor stores.
Perhaps a bit of background here. The first-ever fully-enclosed shopping mall I visited, Montgomery County, Ohio's DAYTON MALL, encompassed an astounding (for the time) three anchor stores. In the early 1970s, I thought that this was really awesome! Of course, I did not have access to anything like the internet. So, I was unaware of even larger shopping malls such as Denver's CINDERELLA CITY, with four anchors...or Phoenix's brand new METROCENTER, with five.
CIN-DAY CENTER was quite extraordinary for (what I thought was) its state-of-the art design. Moreover, the grand, 2-story, center Atrium was unique in that it was fronted by two anchor stores, each directly facing one another!
I have researched a lot of actual shopping malls and have never seen one exactly like this. Of course, this design may have been terribly flawed, as it may have been impossible to sign two anchors whose stores would have been configured in this manner. This didn't matter to me in 1973.
So, now we can fast-forward several years for a look at my circa-'73 brainstorm. The renderings presented here must surely look quite dated. This is intentional. In this mall, there would have been plenty of corduroy concrete surfaces, mansard roof lines, Brutalist buildings and Moorish Modern archways. These features were the thing in newly-built malls of the late '60s and early '70s, and I wanted CIN-DAY CENTER to have them all!
A CIN-DAY CENTER TRAJECTORY:
As long as we are in an imaginary mode, let us look into the possible future that CIN-DAY CENTER would -or could- have had.
A potential retail rival, TOWNE MALL (1977), would probably not have been built. This smaller, tri-anchor complex would have been just one exit north on Interstate 75 (in Warren County's Franklin Township). This would have been way too close to the larger CIN-DAY CENTER. So, CIN-DAY could have prospered with no competitors in its immediate vicinity.
As far as anchor nameplate changes, there would have been the Federated conversion of Shillito's to Shillito Rikes and then Lazarus, in the 1980s. The trajectory would have continued with Lazarus-Macy's (in 2003) and a full fledged Macy's (in 2005).
The southern CIN-DAY anchor, McAlpin's, would have been "Dillard-ized" in 1999. Of course, J.C. Penney would have remained as is, although its outparcel Auto Center would have probably been rebranded by Firestone in 1983. Elder-Beerman would have had an updated nameplate installed a couple of years after the 2003 Bon Ton buyout.
As a result of the late 20th century demise of the Woolworth 5 & 10 chain, the CIN-DAY location would have been shuttered (possibly as early as the late 1980s). The single-screen cinema, at the other end of the mall, would surely have been twinned at some point. Let's say that it became the Cin-Day I & II, with the vacant Woolworth being rebuilt as the Cin-Day III-IV-V. These cinematic venues might have outlived their usefulness by the late '90s. I see their vacant spaces eventually being leased to big box retailers, such as Bed, Bath & Beyond or Staples.
With four anchors already in place, the addition of any more would have surely been overkill. However, as designed, the 2-story Atrium could have easily been incorporated into a new Upper Level shopping concourse; this built on top of the existing North and South Wings.
The two new Level 2 concourses could have been linked by an upper level catwalk suspended over (and through) the existing Atrium. With such an addition, CIN-DAY CENTER would have enveloped somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 million leasable square feet and housed -at least- 130 stores and services.
Would it now be a dead -or dying- mall, like the neighboring TOWNE MALL, or TRI-COUNTY and FOREST FAIR down around Cincinnati? Probably not. The area in which CIN-DAY CENTER would have been built has emerged as THE place for new big box stores, outlet malls and mixed-use complexes.
We now return you
to the regular -for real- mall website.
