Refugee and South Hamilton Roads
Franklin County (Columbus), Ohio
The first interior mall in Greater Columbus was built on a 60-acre site, located 8.3 miles southeast of the Ohio State House. The property was adjacent to the proposed route of the "Outerbelt" / Interstate 270 Expressway, with the section accessing the mall opening in late 1970.
EASTLAND CENTER was designed by Visnapuu & Gaede Architects of Cleveland and developed by the Visconsi-Mead-Jacobs Company, also of Cleveland. The first operational store, a 3-level (171,000 square foot) F & R Lazarus, opened for business in August 1967.
A 3-level (149,600 square foot) J.C. Penney was dedicated on January 2, 1968. The single-level mall, which encompassed a total of 950,000 leasable square feet, held its grand opening on February 14 of the same year. A 2-level (234,400 square foot) Sears commenced operation at this time.
Among sixty-nine inline stores were Gray Drug, French's Sidewalk Cafe, Julie Ann Fabrics, Singer Sewing Center, Florsheim Shoes, Rogers Jewelers, Sills Shoes, Record Land, Silverman's men's & boy's wear, Seven Seas Gift Shop, Foxmoor Casuals, Spencer Gifts, an F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 and outparcel A & P supermarket. The General Cinema Corporation Eastland Cinema opened along with the mall. It was twinned in the 1980s and shuttered in February 1993.
By 1976, the shopping venue was officially promoted as EASTLAND MALL. Its Lazarus store was expanded to 190,000 square feet. A mall-wide face lift was done in 1989. Marble flooring, new wall treatments and skylights were installed. 9 years later, a vacant Woolworth was gutted and replaced by an 8-bay Food Court. This new culinary complex opened for business in October 1998. The first anchor rebranding at EASTLAND MALL transpired on August 1, 2003, when Lazarus morphed into a Lazarus-Macy's. The store was "Macy-ated" on March 6, 2005.
Among sixty-nine inline stores were Gray Drug, French's Sidewalk Cafe, Julie Ann Fabrics, Singer Sewing Center, Florsheim Shoes, Rogers Jewelers, Sills Shoes, Record Land, Silverman's men's & boy's wear, Seven Seas Gift Shop, Foxmoor Casuals, Spencer Gifts, an F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 and outparcel A & P supermarket. The General Cinema Corporation Eastland Cinema opened along with the mall. It was twinned in the 1980s and shuttered in February 1993.
By 1976, the shopping venue was officially promoted as EASTLAND MALL. Its Lazarus store was expanded to 190,000 square feet. A mall-wide face lift was done in 1989. Marble flooring, new wall treatments and skylights were installed. 9 years later, a vacant Woolworth was gutted and replaced by an 8-bay Food Court. This new culinary complex opened for business in October 1998. The first anchor rebranding at EASTLAND MALL transpired on August 1, 2003, when Lazarus morphed into a Lazarus-Macy's. The store was "Macy-ated" on March 6, 2005.
Meanwhile, the Columbus-based Glimcher Realty Trust had acquired EASTLAND MALL in December 2003. A fourth remodeling had been planned by the previous owner, now known as the Richard E. Jacobs Group. Glimcher went ahead with the project. A thorough renovation was done, which removed landscaping from mall courts. Wall-to-wall carpet was laid in all concourses and a children's play area set up in Center Court.
In addition, the southeast-facing front of the complex underwent a dramatic transformation. 30,000 square feet of "Streetscape" retail was added, comprising ten new store spaces. Moreover, a 1-level (120,000 square foot), Pittsburgh-based Kaufmann's was constructed. The mall now encompassed 1,025,800 leasable square feet and contained eighty inline stores under its roof.
Kaufmann's held a grand opening on October 26, 2005. The store was rebranded in less than a year. As part of the May / Federated merger of 2005, the Pennsylvania-based chain ceased to exist. Stores were refitted with Macy's mastheads on September 9, 2006. The original EASTLAND Macy's, operating in the old Lazarus location since March 2005, was shuttered.
A fifth renovation of EASTLAND was in the planning stages for several years. This would have entailed demolition of the vacant Lazarus / Macy's and construction of a new J.C. Penney in its place. The project, originally scheduled to get underway in 2007, was abandoned when the economy turned sour.
The Great Recession left the Glimcher Realty Trust with an upside down EASTLAND MALL mortgage. They decided to unload the property in an online auction, which was held in June 2014. A single bid -of 18 million dollars- was rejected. In August 2014, Glimcher relinquished ownership of the shopping center to Miami Beach-based LNR Property. The complex was sold to an entity known as Eastland Mall Holdings, Limited Liability Company in March 2015.
Meanwhile, the mall's problems were exacerbated by closings of all of its remaining anchor stores. J.C. Penney shut down in May 2015, followed by Macy's, in March 2017. Sears pulled up stakes in September 2017. By 2019, EASTLAND MALL was rapidly deteriorating. The owner was cited for several health and safety violations, as well as for the condition of the mall and its parking area. The complex was declared a public nuisance. It closed for good on December 26, 2022.
Sources:
Sources:
The Columbus Dispatch
preservenet.cornell.edu/publications/Longstreth Branch Store.doc
http://www.rejacobsgroup.com / The Richard E. Jacobs Group (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
www.glimcher.com / Glimcher Realty Trust
https://www.eastlandmall614.com
Franklin County, Ohio tax assessor website
www.bizjournals.com
FAIR USE OF EASTLAND MALL IMAGES:
The photographs from The Columbus Metropolitan Library illustrate a key moment in the mall's history that is described in the article. The images are not replaceable with free-use or public-domain images. The use of the images does not limit the copyright owners' rights to distribute the images in any way. The images are being used for non-profit, informational purposes only and their use is not believed to detract from the original images in any way.
