The first DeBartolo-built mall was located 3.4 miles from the Lake Erie shoreline in Mentor, an outer ring suburb of Cleveland. Appropriately named GREAT LAKES MALL, the complex was inaugurated in September 1961. It was an open-air facility with an enclosed section in the middle. The entire shopping concourse had been roofed-in by the late 1960s.

Photo from https://www.cleveland.com / Simone Jasper, Northeast Ohio Media Group

The second Buckeye State DeBartolo mall project was developed in the northeastern hinterlands of Findlay and was entirely open-air in format. Charter stores in FORT FINDLAY VILLAGE CENTER were dedicated between August 1962 and April 1964.

Graphic from the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation 

Although the DeBartolo Corporation hailed from Ohio, several of its mall projects would be built in the Sunshine State. The first Florida foray was the open-air BREVARD MALL, whose original stores opened between March and August of 1963.

Photo from "System Change / Cities, 1945-1990" / Marion Brady

South Florida's PALM BEACH MALL was promoted as the largest in the Southeast when it was officially dedicated in October 1967. The fully-enclosed retail hub spanned 860,000 leasable square feet and housed eighty-six stores and services.

Photo from the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation

Ohio's SOUTHERN PARK was the DeBartolo Corporation's hometown shopping mall. Developed on the southern outskirts of Youngstown, its first stores opened between October 1969 and May 1970.

Graphic from the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation