The Salem Mall, opened in 1966, was Dayton’s first indoor mall.  It was a project of the Rouse Corporation, one of Americans premiere land developers.  This thread looks at how the area developed starting with 1970, and is a bit of an experiment in analyizing suburban commercial development.

 

This map locates the mall and the surrounding study area on a map of urbanization to 1970, which is when the study will start. 

 

 

And the study area showing the mall in relation to modern day urbanization, showing how it sits at the edge of the “empty quarter”, with minimal subdivision development occurring in the vicinity between 1970 and 2008, aside from multifamily. 

 

 

In the early 1960s it wasn’t known that this area would be underdeveloped.  The Rouse organization was pretty shrewd in picking mall locations, and based on transportation planning and population projections this area was going to be well-served by the proposed regional expressway system, as the frontier of growth NW of the immediate postwar suburbs.  By 1975 this area would have expressway access via the Wolf Creek Expressway.

 

 

And traffic planning for the “backbone system” shows the area as a region of projected growth feeding into the expressways.

 

 

Alignment and interchange designs were on the drawing boards as this close-in stretch was seriously under consideration.  Note the big box on the top of page, denoting the proposed mall.

 

 

But these projections did not come to pass.  The expressways were never built and growth in the area slowed and nearly stopped.

 

The mall area today.  This aerial photo still shows the mall, partially demolished, and the Trotwood Connector, which was built in the 1990s, the descendent of 1950s & 60s  freeway planning for western Montgomery County. 

 

 

The mall died in the late 1990s and was torn down in 2006

 

An orientation diagram with some road names…I will be using these to help orient the pix

 

 

Here is a diagram showing the decline of retail in the area.  The obvious decline is the closure and demolition of the mall, but there are other things going on, like older big boxes being used for other things, vacant buildings, and the growth of lower end retail and things like fringe banking (Check cashing and cash advance places).

 

Some of the places shown here are featured in that “Dayton Suburban Gothic” thread with the B&W pix (though that thread also features things closer to the city)

 

 

That thread does give a slanted impression that this area is totally moribund.  The following diagrams show there is still a presence of national and regional retailers in this area

 

 

For food there are no national sit-down” mall restaurant” chains like Ruby Tuesday or Black Lobster or Applebee’s and so forth.  The only non-fast food places are local indy operations, mostly Chinese.

 

 

Though I noted a bunch of fringe banking, there are real banks here, plus one credit union.  Gas brands are pretty limited, though.

 

 

And some institutional stuff.  The big institution is the Precious Blood convent and Maria –Joseph nursing home, sitting on its hill, but also the Precious Blood Paris and the United Theological Seminary, which relocated here from Dayton View.  This property used to belong to the Jewish Community Federation, so maybe this was the Jewish community center at one time.  There are also some storefront churches in old retail boxes, and daycare places. 

 

 

Salem Mall Area Through Time

 

I find this evolution of the retail landscape pretty interesting.  This is sort of an experiment at looking at suburbia

 

First off, aerial from 1970, showing the late 1960’s development in the area… 1966-1970.  This was pretty much a leapfrog development, beyond the northernmost retail on Salem Avenue.  Also, the Precious Blood convent lands acted as sort of a barrier or greenbelt.  But back then retail development often preceded residential, locating on the very edge

 

 

And a close-up, showing the first strip centers and big boxes and “mall fuzz” (smaller retail things), with land already set aside for future development just south of Salem, between Salem and the big box. 

 

 

During the 1960s Salem Mall would be competing with the outdoor Forest Park Mall on Main and maybe Northwest Center on Siebenthaler.  Forest Park was both the first and the largest mall in Dayton at the time.

 

 

An aerial from either 1982 or 1983, showing the growth from the 1970s and early 1980s

 

 

The big changes here is an extension of the mall to put in more shopping and a food court, the appearance of Elder Beerman as a furniture store (apparently E-B had no department store in this area) , and the opening up of the Precious Blood land north of Salem sometime in the 1970s for retail development.

 

Some features of 1970s/early 80s growth

 

 

 

And the expansion of development back south on Salem across the street from the convent

 

 

 

A topo, maybe from 1984, or maybe more recent, showing the big developments of the 1980s, which was the mammoth Consumer Square strip center.  This center is on the scale of Cross Pointe in Centerville.

 

 

One can also see expansions of big box retail on Denlinger and Shiloh Springs, and across from the convent, moving further out from the mall area.  One can also see access roads south of the Elder Beerman, west of Salem, showing site prep for more development.  The go-go 1980s was probably the peak era for retail in this area

 

The mall area in 2000.  One cans see some familiar big boxes appear, probably starting in the late 1980s or early 1990s

 

 

The mall area today

 

 

And a close-up of some mall fuzz

 

 

 

 

This one is interesting as it shows some property recycling going on (and that Pep Boys wedged right next to the dead Goodyear tire place).  The aerial isn’t up to date with what’s on the ground.

 

 

Plus two pix of the dead restaurants between Salem and Shiloh Springs.

 

 

 

And the area with some of the oldest stuff, from the 1960s and 70s. The holdout property must have been a hoot to see, but it’s a grassy field now.

 

 

Putting some pix with the places here’s a tour of the study area, not in B/W but in sunny color.

 

”Regina Heights”

 

 

First, the old Precious Blood property north of Salem, which is labeled “Regina Heights” on the maps.  Have no idea what is behind that place name.

 

The two dead big boxes, now in non-retail use

 

 

Dead retail closer to Salem (there is a dead Taco Bell here too)

 

 

(this is now a check cashing/payday loan place, but what’s noteworthy is the second story for a later postwar commercial strip structure)

 

 

Next door, the dollar store

 

 

This strip center has a Rex appliance store on the Salem end, but its mostly vacant.

 

 

Behind it, at the back of the property, a raquet club

 

 

Dead big boxes in a pastoral setting

 

 

…and the grassy field facing the twin towers of Precious Blood was never built on (but is being mowed)

 

 

Heading NW on Salem to the mall area, which sits in a shallow valley or bowl  (Precious Blood parish just to the right):  Rouse’s agents probably first saw this valley from Salem when scouting for their mall, and said “This is the Place”:  the promised land of retail on the suburban frontier of the 1960s.

 

 

Looking NW on Salem toward the intersection with Shiloh Springs

 

 

North/Northwest

 

 

Starting the tour of the mall area, we will look at big box land west of Salem and the Trotwood Connector, north of Shiloh Springs  First, Lowes, which beat Home Depot to the Dayton market.

 

 

The Big K (AKA K Mart) with dead big box next door

 

 

 

Looking south at the big Target across Shiloh Springs Road

 

 

And the “historic” Elder Beerman furniture store from the 1970s, the first big box in this part of the mall area

 

 

Brand new is this little strip center, across from Lowes, with a Subby and check cashing place among its tenants

 

 

…also new, GFS next to the Elder Beerman

 

 

East-Northeast

 

 

Crossing Salem to the Consumer Square and old mall areas.  A huge dead big box….

 

 

….which is, of course, Wal-Mart,

 

 

…which has decamped to a super store north of here in Englewood or Clayton or whatever they call that area, at an I-70 interchange in the middle of an industrial park (which is starting to get some little strip centers).  I guess they preferred that location than to around here.

 

Some shots of Consumer Square, which is seeing more vacancies than I expected as I recall this to be fairly well occupied years ago.

 

 

 

 

Cub Foods is the anchor here.  I think they came to the Dayton market in 1986 or87?

 

 

..dead Pier 1.  There is a little strip center next to this that looks fairly healthy, though

 

 

Behind Consumers Square is “Salem Bend road”, the original alignment of Salem, which has this strange old building.  I wonder what this was…I’d like to think maybe something to do with the interurban that ran up through here?

 

Also on Salem Bend is this dead Goodyear Tire place, one of the first retail things here, dating to the 1960s

 

 

Behind it is the Pep Boys, and next door is this new Walgreens.  No Rite-Aid or Drug Mart in the mall area, just Walgreens, built on the site of an older commercial building from the 1970s.

 

 

The mall site…Home Depot built on the site of a department store, before they tore down the entire mall

 

 

(just for grins I should do a pavement map of this place)

 

 

And the Sears from 1966, when they were doing retail architecture that wasn’t just Kleenex.  The early malls were actually fairly nice architecturally, especially Rouse malls, which had a lot of greenery, color, and natural light (from a Rouse mall in Louisville that I remember)

 

 

Next door to the Sears, also from the 1960s, is this early big box, but converted into (I think) a day care center and an RTA bus hub (with trolley buses, this far out from town…)

 

 

Crossing Shiloh Springs road, looking west.  There really isn’t too much west Olive Road, west of the mall area…a couple of apartment complexes then its open country

 

 

South/Southeast

 

 

There are some small mall fuzz retail things in this area, but mostly vacant or converted to non-retail use, like this storefront church

 

 

Behind it, east of Denlinger Road, is this big dead big box

 

 

and adjacent dead garden center.

 

 

 

…you can tell retail expanded out on the roads radiating from the mall, but then contracted.

 

Closer to the mall, this is a strip center and other things that were developed in the 1960s, but now house a Best Buys, Big Lots, and Jo-Anne Fabric and that’s it...the rest is vacant

 

 

I thought this tiny strip building from the 1960s was ironic.  One side has a bank…

 

 

..the other a check cashing place (as well as vacant space)

 

 

The grassy lawn in the foreground of the bank pix was the site of the holdout.  Until recently a house with fence and landscape yards.

 

South-Southwest

 

 

Crossing Salem, this was another 1960s big box but its being turned into a Burlington Coat Factory

 

 

…and we’ve seen this one before, the Dollar Store and dead big box

 

 

Most of the mall fuzz on the south side of Salem was built in the 1970s, after the two big boxes.  This one is dead, and two others are check cashing places.  Yet another is a credit union

 

 

And a dead Wendy’s wedged between a dead auto dealer.  This was open just last year, but relocated up to the new Wal-Mart at the interstate.

 

 

And the dead auto dealership…

 

 

 

There was stuff all along the south side of Shiloh Springs west of Salem to the Trotwood Connector (per the aerials) but it has been mostly torn down

 

 

 

Growth and Decline, or is it really Transformation?

 

And a diagrammatic chronology on how the area grew and then contracted or retrenched…sprawl to stall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know what this tells you…maybe that retail has evolved through time from the 1960s to today, and that this area expanded and now contracted into a de-facto power center with a scatter of fast food/convenience retail feeding off big box trade, sort of like sharks and remoras. 

 

Or that the Dayton economy can’t support more than two malls (this mall died after Fairfield Commons opened in Beavercreek).

 

A bleaker assessment is that economic restructuring in the Dayton region finds it’s expression in this particular place.  As jobs go away, wages decline and disposable income drops there is less money to support a broad-based 1960s/70s consumer society.

 

So retail retrenches & restructures in response to the end of affluence.

 

 

    I see a lot of empty pavement in these photos.

 

    Everytime I see a proposal for a new development, whether it be retail, industrial, or whatever, and they say something like, "This development will create 300 new jobs," I have to wonder if those are really NEW jobs or if they are just diverted from somewhere else.

 

    Thanks for all the hard work. I enjoy these.   

dead big box i have seen; but a dead wal-mart, that might be a first for me.  i've always thought that it was the wal-marts that put other big box stores out of business.  although it seems like thats what happened in this case as well. apparently the first wal-mart just wasn't quite big enough.

 

do you have any data about wal-mart closings around the country? i'd have to think that it's a pretty rare occurence...

 

reminds me of how my friend from cleveland heights and brags about her suburb's starbucks being one of the only ones in america to close down because of bad business.  i've always learned those types of places are supposed to put the other guys out of business.

 

in any case, good work and really interesting.  perhaps i'll make a daytrip down from cleveland to see this stuff up close.  it's very sad but also fascinating.

America in fast forward.

 

Sorta reminds me of the shuttered Northtowne (sp?) mall area in Toledo, abutting empty Michigan.  The mall fuzz (cool terminology, btw) there, however, is in less of a state of disinvestment. 

 

Great posts.

 

    Off the top of my head I can think of two Wal-marts that have closed, and both were about 10 years old.

 

    One was in Oxford, Ohio, actually within walking distance of the traditional town center. It was superceded by a new super Wal-mart a few miles out on the highway outside of town.

 

    The other was at Colerain Town Center, located at I-275 and U.S. 27. When that shopping center opened, some planners lamented that the Colerain Avenue shopping district was allowed to cross north of I-275. That center had three anchors: Wal-mart, Thriftway, and Dick's sporting goods. Two of three closed, as Wal-mart opened a new store and the entire Thriftway chain of 50 or so stores went out of business. Wal-mart opened a new store several miles south - closer to Cincinnati - on U.S. 27, recycling a dumpy K-mart property that was one of the first big boxes on the strip. An auto service garage was also demolished as part of that project, and a Staples store was replaced with a TWO STORY building at the K-mart site to make room for the expanded Wal-mart. Then, Wal-mart began redeveloping their own closed building at Colerain Town Center as a new Super Wal-mart.

The Wal-Mart didn't close but relocated to a new location as a Super Wal Mart, well beyond this mall shopping disctrict.  Which is in iteself questionable since there is plenty of open space to build a new Wal-Mart around here.

 

This is different than whats happening south of Dayton at the "Dayton Mall" area. There Wal-Mart is in a c.1987-88 store as part of a strip center.  This store will also close as Wal-Mart relocates to a Super Wal Mart, currently under construction.  Whats different is that this south-of-town Super Wal Mart is remaining in the mall shopping district, actually slightly closer to the mall.

 

Mall Fuzz here is sort of fading in parts, but regenerating/recycling in others.  I think whats interesting is the contraction aspect of this as the southern part of this shopping district is fading, but the areas closer to the active big boxes are doing better.

 

 

Great research and presentation! Very professional.

Thanks Jeffrey. I always enjoy your contributions to this site.

Excellent post!

 

Retail sprawl in many areas seems to be experiencing declining life spans and accelerated mortality over the past few years, and the result is a lot of abandoned blight and thousands acres of cracked, weed-strewn pavement and ruined land that generate little or no tax revenue.

 

As noted in comments, Wal-Mart contributes to the problem by abandoning existing properties to build new superstores in the same markets. Not only do they leave vacant, hard-to-market properties behind, but the new superstores foster the growth of their own new fuzz and contribute to the decline and abandonment of the fuzz that grew up around their old stores.

 

It's too late to fix what already has happened, but developers of new retail sprawl should be required to put money in escrow to cover eventual demolition and remediation costs.

dead big box i have seen; but a dead wal-mart, that might be a first for me. i've always thought that it was the wal-marts that put other big box stores out of business. although it seems like thats what happened in this case as well. apparently the first wal-mart just wasn't quite big enough.

 

do you have any data about wal-mart closings around the country? i'd have to think that it's a pretty rare occurence...

 

It seems pretty common to me..  I can think of four dead Walmarts in my area, BUT all went under after they built Walmart Supercenters nearby.  It's really pathetic. 

Not only does a Walmart Supercenter leave a giant empty walmart behind but it also sucks the life out of all the nearby big box grocers.

In this case the big box grocer was Cub, so I think they may still be somewhat safe as the new superWM is somewhat distant from this area.

 

But here's another unusual angle to this area.

 

Notice there is that rebranded K-Mart and also a Sears (left over from the mall).  Now, as you all know Sears and K-Mart are one company now, and have been consolidating...if there is a K-Mart & Sears close to each other they will close one of the stores so as not to duplicate.  This happened in the Dayton Mall area south of town, where the K-Mart was closed and the mall Sears kept open.

 

So I wonder why they didn't do that here.

 

 

Regina Heights connects to the Catholicity of the area. It an alternate name for Mary.

^

gosh yes!  I'm Catholic and should have known this or made that connection.  The Salve Regina, Mary Queen of Angels, etc. 

 

Which makes the connection with the Precious Blood convent even more intriguing.  Was the order directly involved with the land deals on that part of their property?  Or did the developer adopt "Regina" as a reference to the religous connection of the property? 

 

Interesting stuff, & so much of that property is still empty, too. 

 

 

Lord, you brought back some memories.  Gold Circle, MCL Cafeteria, Bill Knapp's, Hills, Woodman's, Best Products, Children's Palace...oy vey.

Wow, according to all y'all's comments, appartently Wal Marts close down all the time.  Although if it's just to make room in the market for a Super Wal Mart I feel like it kind of doesn't count. 

 

I guess I was using a pretty narrow frame of reference when I made my initial comments.  I'm pretty sure that we have no shut down Wal Marts in NEO, but SW Ohio is obviously a whole different ballgame.

If you wander around urbanist boards and blogs and articles, Walmart is one of the great bad boys because they do this a lot. Some places in the south are onto their third or fouth Walmart, each bigger and further from the core of the city. They don't spend a lot of energy filling their old stores up (though they have pretty good track record with locating their stores, so demand is pretty high).

luckily when the walmart in eastlake decided to expand (but not to superwalmart status (?)) it demo'd the previous bldg, and "rotated" the new bldg 90 degrees to become one of the (disconnected) arms of the U-shaped strip mall.  too bad it now faces a vacant tops location. 

Lord, you brought back some memories.  Gold Circle, MCL Cafeteria, Bill Knapp's, Hills, Woodman's, Best Products, Children's Palace...oy vey.

 

Hit up a MediCare Lounge (MCL) at Kingsdale or on E. Main Street just west of 270 and get your nostalgia fix!

Ha!

Check out this old Salem Mall commercial...

 

 

1985 - Commercial - The Salem Mall - Insidewalk Sale! - Dayton, OH

Decline has continued:

 

 

Cub Foods closed in September 2012

Kmart closed in January 2013

Sears closed in January 2014

Target will close in May 2014

Talk about a food/retail desert...

As I recall, wasn't the current bus station/daycare where Children's palace once was? Or, was that across the street where best buy is now?

You are correct.  The Northwest RTA was a Children's Palace.

 

I was sure that it was, thank you, was hoping someone would remember for sure!

I miss Jeffery's posts. He was such a unique forumer. 

On 1/26/2019 at 1:04 AM, ColDayMan said:

You are correct.  The Northwest RTA was a Children's Palace.

 

 

 

Children's Palace was way radder than TRU.