Nicholas Eckhart
Euclid Square Mall is a major dead mall in Euclid, Ohio. Inside the mall there are churches instead of stores, an auction-house, meeting room, wedding chapel, and a salon can also be found inside. Those places would be enough to fill a very small mall, but Euclid Square is around 700,000 square feet! I call Euclid Square a dead mall since it has clearly died as a mall, today, not a single store can be found inside of it. Dillard's Clearance Center is the only store on the site and has even permanently blocked off the mall entrance to their store. It seems that numerous driving schools use the massive empty parking lot here for their advantage.
The Euclid Square Mall opened in 1977. Despite being 700,000 square feet and on a site sprawling 71 acres along a major highway, Euclid Square was built with only two anchor stores. Those anchor stores were originally Higbee's and May Company. Both Higbee's and May Company were well known at the time in the Cleveland area. The mall corridors seem to have featured too many smaller stores for a two anchor store mall. As part of Dillard's acquisition of Higbee's in 1992 the Euclid Square Higbee's became a Dillard's. May stores merged the May Company Cleveland division and Kaufmann's divisions in 1993; this meant that all May Company stores in Ohio including the one here were re-branded as Kaufmann's.
The nearby Richmond Mall (renamed Richmond Town Square in the late 1990s) is credited with causing the demise of Euclid Square. Richmond Mall opened in 1966. First of all Richmond had pulled in the then retail powerhouses known as Sears and JCPenney, this gave Richmond Mall a major advantage over Euclid Square. In the late 1990s Richmond Mall began a massive remodel and expansion into Richmond Town Square, drawing in the Kaufmann's store from Euclid Square Mall as another anchor. The closure of Kaufmann's would mark the start of Euclid Square's slow death.
After Kaufmann's closure many small interior stores began closing and less people went to the mall because it now only featured a Dillard's department store. Another major blow to the mall came in 2002 when Dillard's closed down the second story of the store and converted into a clearance center. In 2004 Outlets USA moved into the former Kaufmann's, but that store no longer featured a mall entrance and I believe Dillard's sealed their mall entrance when they became a clearance center. Outlets USA only lasted here until 2006. After Outlets USA closed it was proposed that the Euclid Square Mall would be demolished, but this never happened and the mall has stayed open.
As the last of the stores at this mall closed in the late 2000s many churches began moving into the mall. Now there are just over 20 places left inside the mall. Those places include almost 20 churches, an auction house, a meeting room, and a salon. The lease for Dillard's is set to expire later in 2013, which could mean the closure of the last store on the Euclid Square Mall site.
The following photos are of the May Co./ Kaufmann's/ Outlets USA store. This store has been vacant since 2006.
The Former Toys R Us store
I believe this was a Tire Kingdom store
The Red Lobster Restaurant
This is the Dillard's Outlet Store. As of 2013 Dillard's is the only store on the entire mall site and for miles around. This was originally a Higbee's store. Currently, only the first floor of this store is still open.
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| A vintage Dillard's truck! |
Here is an old Fazio's grocery store. It later became Rini-Rego and has been closed since.
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| I believe this was a drugstore for Fazio's. |
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| Former Twin-Valu / Super Kmart / Great Lakes Exposition Center |
Now on to the inside of this mall. I am not sure what many of these stores were. If anyone knows what one or more of the stores are please comment or email me (nicholas@deadanddyingretail.com).
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| A salon (still open) |
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| Center Court |
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| City Sweets Cafe |
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| No service center here... |
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| I think this was an FYE at one point |
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| Statue and Lounge area. |
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| Sealed Dillard's Mall entrance |
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| Ironically the hand dryer did not work |
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| Lounge Area. The store on the left was Fan Fair |
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| The Diamond Company |
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| Former Sprint Kiosk |
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| Spencer Gifts? |
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| Aeropostale? |
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| Empty Kiosk |
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| D' Next Phase Embroidery and Treats by JC |
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| Let's go get married at the dead mall! |
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| The Dog House |
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| This WAS a fountain |
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Store Directory |
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| I was surprised to find a cool mural like this |
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| Jewelry Store |
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| Some kind of Jewelry store |
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| City Sweets |
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| I believe this was a bank of some kind |
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| Southwest Entrance |
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| Arby's no more |
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| Arby's dining room |
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| Arby's dining room |
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| Arby's dining room |
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| That is all for now folks! |
Links of interest
Awesome! I wish there were some dead malls like that in New England.
ReplyDeleteDylan Palmer
There were several dead malls in Greater Boston Area that have long since been buried: Mystic Mall in Chelsea, Harborlight Mall in Weymouth, Dedham Mall, Methuen Mall etc. Then of course the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets was a grand bust as well.
DeleteMaybe they can become a "church mall"
ReplyDeleteIt looks like this is going the way of the former Southpark Mall in Shreveport LA. That mall closed in the early 2000's and was reborn as a church with a Burlington remaining. Burlington has held on for years there, but closed off the mall entrance also. Great post by the way.
ReplyDeleteThat Arby's would make a snazzy church.
ReplyDelete"And, on the seventh day, God ordered a #3, large, with a Fanta."
Choir: "Want a Fanta? Don't you wanna?"
Omg I just died. I hope they gave him a free turnover.
DeleteI loved that place! Hung out there all the time when my 3 boys were babies (1983 to maybe 1993?). It was a 5 min. drive. Everytime I drive by, I feel sad about it. Loved seeing the pics of the inside as it is today because I have often wondered!
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't the Fazios pharmacy; it was the Hometown Buffet. A friend of my daughters worked there way back in the 1980's.
ReplyDeleteThe saddest part of this is that this is a thumbnail sketch of the way the whole country is going. We can saddened by sight of dead malls as we pass them; our grandchildren & great grandchildren will be living in a dead Republic the once great, already defunct superpower the United States of America.
Tear it down and turn it into green space!
ReplyDeleteI was there in spring 1977 when it opened. The whole place was shiny and spotless. It seemed too good to be true. I walked past TV5 news anchor Ted Henry at the mall the first time I visited. He eating an ice cream cone and taking a look at the new mall. The mall peaked in the 80s. The atmosphere changed in the early 90s. Groups of young people would hang around together and goof off at the stores and annoy the customers. The shoplifting became rampant with people literally rolling clothes racks out of the store. It was too much for security or the police to stop. When the ethical fabric of the local society falls apart, there isn't much of anything that can be done to stop the demise.
ReplyDeleteThey recently closed the Dillards Outlet store in September due to the lease ended.
ReplyDeletemidway not far behind!
ReplyDeleteI remember going there as a kid in the early 90s. It was still a really nice place to go! K-B toys, the cookie shop, foot locker, sam goody, etc. I even worked there as a teenager when the mall was bad at peddler's exchange around 2004. I miss it though and wish I could go back in time to 1994 and look around and really take in the times and how Euclid used to be.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great mall. Loved it as a kid. I think the picture you thought was a bank was York Steakhouse. Not completely sure. There were great stores, late 80's early 90s. There was a pet store near Kauffmans, Spencer at one end, Claires at the other. Foot Locker, Merry Go Round, etc. I think it was built on an old factory site or something, and they are unable to take it down due to EPA restrictions.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memories!
Turn it into an indoor water park or amusement park to bring money into Euclid!!!
ReplyDeleteEuclid used to be such a nice place...I'm really surprised Walmart hasn't bought up the old K-Mart building or the other lot to build a super store. It would also be nice if they just tore down the whole mall and everything around it to make a nice park, pool or just something! This ghost area is just so depressing.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to have a Walmart in the area,
DeleteNo one will ever invest significant money in Euclid again. It's too far gone. I too was at the Mall on Opening Day and I also worked there briefly at Thom McAn's. I ate at the Arby's, and even before it was an Arby's when it was Cleveland's local roast beef chain Beef Corral, which Arby's bought out. It was beautiful and would have made it had the demographic of the city not totally changed. Euclid was idyllic place to live and grow up and it's decline is a total catastophe... it will look like East Cleveland and Collinwood and the rest of the inner City soon. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteShould become Burger King, Target, Jcpenney, Sara's Pet Store and Doctor, and a new Exxon gas center.
ReplyDeleteAnd Walgreen's.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed these photos. This really brought back memories. The irony about the Richmond Mall is that in the 80s, Euclid Square Mall blew away Richmond Mall. Richmond Mall in the 80s was tiny, dark, and dated. We lived closer to Richmond Mall but always went to Euclid Square Mall. Richmond Mall had Sears and JC Penney, but most of the other stores were pretty lame. But then Richmond Mall expanded and became Richmond Town Center and the rest is history.
ReplyDelete