Rolling Acres Mall was a super-regional shopping mall located in the Rolling Acres area of Akron, Ohio, United States. Built in 1975, it originally included approximately 21 stores, with Sears as the main anchor store. Later expansions added several more stores including anchor stores JCPenney (later JC's 5 Star Outlet), Montgomery Ward, and O'Neil's, along with a movie theater and food court known as Picnic Place (formerly Prom-n-Eat).
Montgomery Ward was converted to Higbee's in 1986, and then to Dillard's in 1992, while O'Neil's became May Company Ohio, Kaufmann's, and then finally Macy's. The fifth anchor store was Target, added in 1995. At its peak, the mall had over 150stores. It underwent a sharp decline in tenancy throughout the 1990s and into the first decade of the 21st century, resulting in the relocation of Target and closure of Dillard's. Macy's and the mall itself both shuttered in 2008, although Sears remained operational until April 2011, and JCPenney as an outlet store until December 2013. Rolling Acres Mall was publicized after its closure as an example of a dead mall, and non-retail ventures operated out of the former locations of Target, Sears, and Dillard's. The mall fell into severe disrepair and was heavily damaged by scrappers and vandalism after its closure, leading to dead mall enthusiasts to describe the building as abandoned. Rolling Acres Mall was finally demolished in stages between 2016and 2019, with Amazon building a distribution facility on the former site soon after, known as Amazon Fulfillment Center AKC1.
History 19641975: Planning and construction Rolling Acres Mall was developed by Forest City Enterprises and local developer Richard B. Buchholzer (February 19, 1916 – February 6, 2006), who already collaborated to develop and open the older and smaller Chapel Hill Mall 10miles away on October 12, 1967. The developers chose the site, along Romig Road on Akron's southwestern side, between 1964and 1966after conducting studies which revealed that several major department stores had expressed interest in that area. In 1971, Buchholzer received a $500,000permit to begin clearing and grading land along Romig Road for the mall's site. Developers also had to acquire two other permits from the city: one to excavate earth required to build the mall, and another for construction. In addition, the City of Akron budgeted $1.1million toward highway and sewer improvements along Romig Road, to accommodate for the projected traffic increases brought on by the mall's opening. By mid-1973, Sears had been confirmed as the mall's first anchor store. Construction of the mall required the relocation of two natural gas lines. Serving as architect was the Keeva Kekst Association of Cleveland, Ohio.
Due to the slow speed at which Forest City Enterprises had begun land clearing and construction, then-city councilman Ray Kapper sent a letter to the developers in July 1973, threatening to repeal the zoning permit for the mall. Kapper later withdrew the repeal after representatives of Forest City Enterprises agreed to sign an assessment that included written plans for the mall's timeline. At this point, company representative Mel Roebuck had announced that in addition to Sears and 60other stores, the mall would contain a JCPenney, and that development beyond land clearing would begin within a month. JCPenney would relocate from Wooster-Hawkins Plaza, a plaza located about to the north. This announcement caused concern among retailers at that plaza, particularly since its other anchor store, a Clarkins discount store, had just closed. Construction of the mall cost over $100million and employed over 1,200 workers.
1975–1981: Grand opening and early operations The first phase of the mall, consisting of Sears and 21other stores, opened to the public on August 6, 1975. Among the tenants open for business on that day were Sears, Rite Aid, Kinney Shoes, Chess King, Thom McAn, Waldenbooks, Claire's, B. Dalton, GNC, The Limited, and Jo-Ann Fabrics. The design of the mall featured a central court known as the Court of Twelve Trees, decorated with twelve Ficus microcarpa trees, along with planters, skylights, and a fountain. Altogether, the mall was to include over 120tenants.
JCPenney opened its department store in January 1976, at which point the inner mall had over 50tenants. In August 1976, General Cinema Corporation opened a three-screen movie theater at the mall, known as the Rolling Acres Cinemas. Construction on O'Neil's department store, located on the south end, began in July 1977, and a Montgomery Ward opened in October 1977. The mall also included a space along the south wing for a fifth anchor, along with an elevated section along the southern wing known as the Promenade, which included more retail space for a total of 144 stores. Upon opening in 1978, the Promenade section of the mall featured predominantly local and regional shops, along with Motherhood Maternity and Spencer Gifts. Also included in the Promenade was a food court originally known as the Prom-n-Eat, but renamed in April 1981to Picnic Place.
1980searly 1990s The opening of Montgomery Ward at the mall had resulted in that chain converting its existing Akron-area store at Akron Square Plaza into an outlet store which sold damaged, returned, or overstocked items from other stores. By 1980, the chain had decided to convert all of its eastern Ohio stores, including both Akron locations, to its discount division Jefferson Ward. Under this format, the stores were to include a greater emphasis on self-service shopping, with cash registers located solely at the exits instead of in each department. Montgomery Ward reversed this decision a year later as part of a plan to reassess the chain's profitability. Both stores were closed in early 1986and the Rolling Acres Mall store was sold to Higbee's, which opened later the same year. The store was the twelfth in the Higbee's chain, and the first new store in over four years. After the store opened, mall management began attracting more fashion-oriented tenants to the mall, including Lane Bryant, Lerner New York, and Limited Express (all then under the same ownership as existing mall tenant The Limited), along with Caren Charles and Petite Sophisticate, two clothing chains then owned by the United States Shoe Corporation. In addition to these, the mall underwent a thorough renovation that replaced its existing earth-toned decor with blue and purple tones, while also undergoing a relandscaping of the exterior. This was followed in 1989by the acquisition and renaming of the O'Neil's stores to May Company Ohio.
In a cost-cutting measure, Rolling Acres Mall stopped using off-duty police officers and instead relied on cheaper security guards, starting in 1991. During a showing of the film New Jack City, two movie patrons got into a fight outside of the cinema. A panicked crowd ran through the mall after patrons mistook the sound of a metal sign falling over for the sound of a gunshot.
Two anchor stores changed names between 1992and 1993: Dillard's purchased and renamed the entire Higbee's chain, while the May Department Stores Company consolidated the May Company Ohio stores into Kaufmann's, which they also owned at the time. Forest City Enterprises refinanced the mall in 1994, putting the money towards the development of several new restaurants inside the mall's food court. General Cinema closed the mall's movie theater in mid-1993, saying that it had been unprofitable for years due to its smaller size relative to other multiplex theaters in the area. Prior to the closure, the company had attempted to run it as a discount theater showing second-run movies for 99cents, but doing so attracted homeless people and urban youth, both of whom would often loiter in the theater for extended periods. Combined with the theater riot two years prior, this caused a preconception among patrons and merchants that the mall had begun catering more heavily to teenagers and to lower-income clientele.
Mid-1990smid-2000s: Addition of Target and decline
The fifth and final anchor store to open at the mall was Target, which began construction in 1994and opened in 1995. It was connected to the rest of the mall by a passageway that included new storefronts. This store was part of an expansion by that chain into northeastern Ohio, which was to comprise about 20stores in total. Target representatives noted that the stores would contain merchandise mixes fitting the stores' demographics, which would be reflected in the Rolling Acres Mall location carrying cosmetics, clothing, and music that would cater to the area's predominantly African-American demographics. Despite the addition of this new store, the mall began losing tenants, and both Dillard's and JCPenney downgraded their respective stores to outlet stores between 1997and 1999. Although JCPenney had operated several outlet stores at the time, the Rolling Acres Mall store was only the third such one to be converted from a conventional store, and employees of the store at the time told the Akron Beacon Journal that the store had experienced declining sales for many years prior to its conversion.
The mall was sold to Bankers Trust Corp. in 2000for $33.5million, who gave the mall a new logo as well as a website. Also, an independent group called Blind Squirrel Cinema reopened the mall's movie theaters. By November 2001, a buyer was sought by Bankers Trust. In September 2002, North Carolina businessman Heywood Whichard and his family purchased Rolling Acres for $2.75million. A 2002news article in The Akron Beacon Journal described the mall and the area around it as having "faltered since the early 1990s" due to perceptions of high crime and lack of renovations to the mall, compared to the renovations that Chapel Hill Mall and Summit Mall had both received in the 1990s. At the time of purchase by Heywood Whichard, Rolling Acres was about 65% occupied. The same article also noted that Heywood Whichard had a track record of buying faltering malls at low prices and making no attempt to revitalize them, to the point that many of their properties were ultimately demolished or converted to non-retail use.
20062010: Further problems and mall closure
The first anchor to leave the mall was Target, which relocated to nearby Wadsworth in May 2006. Dillard's closed in August 2006, one month before Kaufmann's was rebranded as Macy's as May Department Stores was acquired by Federated Department Stores. However, it was announced on December 28, 2007that Macy's would close three stores in Ohio, with the Rolling Acres Mall location being one of the three. The store's final day of business was February 16, 2008. Invest Commercial LLC, a company owned by California-based real estate developer Michael Mirharooni, bought the facility in July 2006for $1.6million. Invest Commercial bought the mall using a loan from Ezri Namvar's fraudulent Namco Capital Group. At the time of purchase, the mall had about 40remaining tenants, including Dollar General, MasterCuts, Deb Shops, Bath & Body Works, Zales Jewelers, Subway, Hershey's Ice Cream, GNC, and FootAction USA, along with a number of local independent stores. Under Mirharooni's ownership, proposals were made to convert the mall to offices, light industrial, or call centers. As part of the sale, Invest Commercial also paid over $600,000in property taxes that had gone unpaid by Heywood Whichard. In April 2007, a homeless man was found living in an abandoned store, with over $30,000in merchandise that he had stolen from other mall merchants. He had lived there for a month, subsisting on energy bars and drinks stolen from GNC.