Just found this and noticed Randall made the cut...    Don't know if it was ever posted but worth a look.

 

http://notifbutwhen.com/projects/copia/dark-stores/#i51

Very cool.  I've been in the Dixie Square Mall before.  It's still standing and I think the state found some money to demolish it.  But every time they try something goes wrong.  The mall has virtually been destroyed since the 1980's.  There was a plan to rehab the mall in the mid 2000's and apparently even had tenants lined up, only to get held up by environmental cleanup costs and then the developer getting into some trouble with the law.

 

I bet Sherman would love to do his holiday shopping here lol

 

I never understood why JCPenney doesn't add an atrium in their stores...but this one came naturally.  Actually, since this was taken long ago, apparently almost half of the whole store is double height by now.  The structural steel and outer brick and cmu walls are perfectly intact, so it's still a salvageable building, but it would take a substantial amount of work to make it all good again.

 

 

 

Ian you shouldn't sneak into buildings and strip them of their copper. That's not cool!

OK, here's a photo contribution. This is the GoogleEarth view of Randall Park Mall southeast of Cleveland, taken last summer. Count the cars in the parking lots at the mall, at the outlots, at the nearby businesses. You may be able to count them using just your 10 fingers.....

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS366&q=20801+Miles+Rd+%23+601%0ACleveland,+OH&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x8830e2bc20bfb929:0x17a0958c331d41d7,20801+Miles+Rd,+Cleveland,+OH+44128&gl=us&ei=foUfT4SODcnC2wWhmu2ZDw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCAQ8gEwAA

@KJP: I went by there with Ink one night, and there were all of 0 cars around... 8 PM? There were crudely placed barriers on various access roads, so we were having to hop curbs just to continue around the edge of the mall. It was creepy as fu*k and you know that I've been to a lot of abandonments!

^Somebody should tear it down and build a harnass racing track. :-D

I went to Randall Park Mall shortly after it opened in 1976. I know it was "shortly after" because one of the department stores (I think it was Horne's) wasn't yet finished. From inside the mall, on the second floor, you could peak through the construction barrier and see into the department store. I was shocked to see no second floor yet and a bulldozer working in there, under roof!

 

In 1978 I moved to Geauga County and Randall Park Mall was the closest mall to us so we went there A LOT. At the time, I thought the inside of Randall Park Mall was the coolest place, especially the long ramps and the little nooks and crannies below them. Most of the movies I saw in the late 70s and early 80s were there (Empire Strikes Back [twice], Return of the Jedi, Stripes, Arthur, Cannonball Run, Poltergeist [twice], ET and many more). Bought most of my clothes there. Did most of my Christmas shopping there. They had a decent video game parlor at RPM, but there was a better and closer one at the much smaller Tanglewood Mall where most of my friends played video games.

 

Not only that, we went to many of the outlot stores like Best Products, which was the Best Buy of the 1980s. Bought my Sony Walkman, Sony Discman and accessories, blank floppy discs and software for my Commodore 64 computer there. There was also a great record store across Northfield but I don't remember the name. I bought most of the 100 or so LPs in my collection there along with many 45s, including some hard-to-find stuff like extended play-remixes for the Pet Shop Boys, Devo collectors edition records, and imported Depeche Mode LPs that you couldn't find in many mainstream stores in America.

 

And now it's all gone. As you get older, you experience more of these changes as places you visited as a teenager or young adult are closed and demolished. After experiencing more and more of these, you accept that these changes will occur. But sometimes it's worse when it sits abandoned for years at a time. So I try to avoid that area because I don't like to be reminded off the loss. Seeing that aerial I posted above was a painful reminder.

Rustwire is getting a little bit critical of Cleveland lately. There's this and a post about racial segregation here too...

 

The Rise and Fall of Cleveland’s Randall Park Mall

30 JANUARY 2012 NO COMMENT

 

Check out this video tribute to Cleveland’s Randall Park Mall, recently listed on the Huffington Post’s America’s Most Abandoned Places.

 

I especially dig the Edward DeBartolo intro, where he claims prophetically that downtown will decline and the suburbs will rise. What is the next frontier for Cleveland? Will it continue to be farther out into farmlands? Will a return to the city really take hold in greater Cleveland like it has in more prosperous metros? Who is the Edward DeBartolo (Youngstown) of today? What would he say? Would he even bother with this region?

 

http://rustwire.com/2012/01/30/the-rise-and-fall-of-clevelands-randall-park-mall/

^^ There was Peaches Records & Tapes in Southgate USA down the street.

I was thinking of posting some Euclid Square Mall pics here, but then I realized it isn't dead at all. There's just very little retail left in it ( I think there is still one beauty salon still operating there, plus the Dillards outlet store).

^I think Dillards has closed. There is a church still in there, however.

The Outlet store is still open (as of January)

There are about 15 churches there and there will likely be an Internet Cafe there by spring

^Ah. When Sherman and I were up, I believe we were told by the maintenance person that Dillards was closing.

A mall full of a bunch of different churches can't turn out well. Hope they can get along.

Ironically, from the NY Times today:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/making-over-the-mall-in-rough-economic-times.html?pagewanted=all

But wait.... there's more:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,25875.msg581256.html#msg581256