Eastland Mall was an enclosed

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

. The mall opened February 14, 1968 and closed on December 27, 2022. There are 4 vacant anchor stores that were once Lazarus,

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gi ...

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

, and

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

. The mall is owned and managed by Eastland Mall Holdings, LLC. Despite having no anchor stores, the mall's interior was until recently thriving with many smaller businesses and its

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. ...

, unusual for a mall lacking anchors and thus having enough tenants to keep it from being a

dead mall A dead mall (also known as a ghost mall, zombie mall, or abandoned mall) is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in North America are considered "dead ...

. It would, however, later succumb to that fate.

History

The mall was built in 1968 by

Richard E. Jacobs Richard E. "Dick" Jacobs (June 16, 1925 – June 5, 2009) was an American businessman and real estate developer who co-founded the Jacobs Entertainment, Richard E. Jacobs Group, and owner of the Cleveland Indians from 1986-1999. Biography Jacob ...

group, who also developed Columbus's Northland and Westland Malls. It was the first enclosed shopping mall in Columbus. As with the other two "directional" Jacobs malls in Columbus, Eastland's original anchors included

J. C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Girl ...

, and Lazarus. Although Eastland itself is a single-story mall, all three of its original anchor stores were constructed with two stories of retail space. The Sears store closed off its upper level at some point during the 1980s. With the closure and subsequent demolition of Northland in 2002, Eastland became the oldest shopping mall in the Columbus metro area. The mall remained under Jacobs' ownership until

Glimcher Realty Trust Glimcher Realty Trust was a real estate investment trust based in Columbus, Ohio that invested in shopping malls. In 2015, the company was acquired by Washington Prime Group. Investments As of December 31, 2013, the company owned interests in ...

bought it in December 2003. The property became Glimcher's second mall in Columbus, following

Polaris Fashion Place Polaris Fashion Place is a two level shopping mall and surrounding retail plaza serving Columbus, Ohio, United States. The mall, owned locally by Washington Prime Group, is located off Interstate 71 on Polaris Parkway in Delaware County just to t ...

. Among Glimcher's first moves with the property was to add a fourth anchor,

Kaufmann's Kaufmann's was a department store that originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Summary The store was owned in the early 20th century by Edgar J. Kaufmann, patron of the famous Fallingwater house. In the post-war years, the store became a regio ...

. This Kaufmann's was the first in a "lifestyle" prototype featuring a smaller floor plan with wider aisles. The same year, the Lazarus store became Lazarus-

. Macy's moved from the former Lazarus to the former Kaufmann's in 2006 when the Macy's chain purchased Kaufmann's then-parent company. Three years later, Glimcher proposed to demolish the former Lazarus-Macy's building for a new J. C. Penney, while dividing Penney's existing store among new tenants. However, as of 2013 the former Lazarus-Macy's building remains both standing and vacant Glimcher defaulted on the mall's mortgage loan in 2012 and turned the property over via a

deed in lieu of foreclosure A deed in lieu of foreclosure is a deed instrument in which a mortgagor (i.e. the borrower) conveys all interest in a real property to the mortgagee (i.e. the lender) to satisfy a loan that is in default and avoid foreclosure proceedings. The de ...

to the lender, a

CMBS Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are a type of mortgage-backed security backed by commercial and multifamily mortgages rather than residential real estate. CMBS tend to be more complex and volatile than residential mortgage-backed ...

trust that was serviced by LNR Property, in August 2014. In March 2015, the mall was reportedly sold for $9.25 million. Earlier that year in January, J. C. Penney announced the closure of its existing store. It closed in May 2015. On January 4, 2017, Macy's announced that its Eastland Mall store would close. The store closed in March 2017, leaving Sears as Eastland's only remaining anchor. On June 6, 2017, Sears announced that its Eastland Mall store would close by early September, leaving the mall entirely without anchor stores. Conditions at the mall declined drastically in its final years of operation, resulting in several health and safety code violations. In 2019, City Code Enforcement had begun issuing violations to Eastland Mall Holdings LLC for poor maintenance of the parking lot, structural issues, and zoning noncompliance. As these issues persisted and the mall continued to deteriorate, city officials had filed a case against Eastland Mall Holdings LLC in April 2021. In the court case held in June 2022, Eastland Mall LLC property manager Nihal Weerasinghe had admitted to various maintenance issues, including up to 1,200 potholes in the parking lot. On Monday, June 13 2022, Judge Stephanie Mingo had officially declared Eastland Mall a

public nuisance In English criminal law, public nuisance was a common law offence in which the injury, loss, or damage is suffered by the public, in general, rather than an individual, in particular. In Australia In ''Kent v Johnson'' the Supreme Court of the ...

. She ordered the mall's owners to make repairs to bring Eastland Mall to compliance. The case will go back to court on September 22, 2022. If the progress made on the mall is still deemed to be unsatisfactory by then, the City of Columbus will make its own repairs at the owner's expense, and possibly even demolish the property.

References

External links

Official website
{{Shopping malls in Ohio Shopping malls in Columbus, Ohio Defunct shopping malls in the United States Buildings and structures in Columbus, Ohio Washington Prime Group Shopping malls in Ohio Shopping malls established in 1968 Shopping malls disestablished in 2022