-Rolling Acres Mall was a two-level shopping center located 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northeast of downtown Akron, Ohio in the Rolling Acres neighborhood. It was situated between Romig Road and Harlem Road in the city of Akron. The mall featured five anchors, including JCPenney, Macy's, Sears, Dillard's, and Target, offering a variety of shopping options for customers. Additionally, the mall had a three-screen cinema, providing entertainment for visitors.
Mall History[]
Planning for Rolling Acres Mall began in 1964, with proposals for a mall on Akron's southwestern side. Throughout 1964-1966, studies were conducted on the Romig Road land, with major department stores expressing interest in joining the future mall. Construction on the mall began in mid-1973, with Sears being the first anchor store to sign a lease. The mall opened on August 6, 1975, with Sears as its sole anchor. The mall had over 120 tenants, including Rite Aid, Kinney Shoes, Chess King, Thom McAn, Waldenbooks, Claire's, B. Dalton, GNC, The Limited, Joann Fabrics, and many more stores. The mall's anchors expanded to two in January 1976, when JCPenney opened its department store in the mall. In August 1976, General Cinema opened a three-screen movie theater in the mall, called Rolling Acres Cinemas.
In 1977, the mall expanded to four anchors with the opening of O'Neil's and Montgomery Ward. The mall further expanded in 1978, adding a south wing for a fifth anchor and an elevated section along the southern wing known as the Promenade. The Promenade included more retail space for a total of 144 stores, and a food court called Prom-n-Eat, later renamed Picnic Place in 1981. By 1986, Montgomery Ward had closed, but was quickly sold to Higbee's, which opened a year later in 1987. In 1989, O'Neil's was converted to May Company.
In 1991, crime began to be an issue at the mall, when during a showing of New Jack City at the Rolling Acres Cinemas, a fight broke out outside the cinema. Patrons mistook the sound of a metal sign falling over for a gunshot, causing a panicked crowd to run through the mall. Between 1992 and 1993, two anchor stores changed names, with Higbee's becoming Dillard's in 1992 and May Company becoming Kaufmann's in 1993. Also in 1993, General Cinema closed the mall's movie theater, citing its unprofitability due to its smaller size relative to other multiplex theaters in the area. The company attempted to run it as a discount theater showing second-run movies for 99 cents, but this attracted homeless people and urban youth, who often loitered in the theater for extended periods. This, combined with the theater riot two years prior, caused patrons and merchants to perceive that the mall was catering more heavily to teenagers and African Americans.
The fifth anchor store, Target, began construction in 1994 and opened a year later in 1995.
Decline[]
Despite the addition of Target in 1995, Rolling Acres Mall began to lose tenants, and both Dillard's and JCPenney downgraded their stores to outlet locations between 1997 and 1999. In 2000, the mall was sold to Banker Trust of New York for $33.5 million, and given a new logo and website. Additionally, an independent group named Blind Squirrel Cinema reopened the Rolling Acres Cinema.
However, the mall and its surrounding area had already been in decline since the early 1990s due to high crime rates and a lack of renovations compared to other malls like Chapel Hill and Summit. When North Carolina businessman Heywood Whichard and his family purchased Rolling Acres for $2.75 million in 2002, it was only 65 percent occupied. The Rolling Acres Cinema was opened and closed several times under different ownerships until its final closure in mid-2007.
The mall's first anchor tenant to leave was Target in February 2006, relocating to Wadsworth, Ohio. Dillard's closed in August 2006, and Kaufmann's was converted to Macy's in September of the same year. However, Macy's ultimately closed down in March 2008 due to poor sales. In July 2006, Michael Mirharooni's Invest Commercial LLC purchased the mall for $1.6 million, with only 40 remaining tenants, including Dollar General, MasterCuts, Deb Shops, Bath & Body Works, Zales Jewelers, Subway, Hershey's Ice Cream, GNC, and FootAction USA.
In 2007, a homeless man was discovered living in an abandoned store, where he had stolen over $30,000 worth of merchandise from other mall merchants. By October 2008, only eight tenants remained. At that point, all of them were informed that the mall could no longer afford its electricity bill and that it would be closing as soon as possible.
Mall Closure[]
On October 31, 2008, the fate of Rolling Acres Mall was sealed as it finally closed its doors to the public, leaving only Sears and JCPenney Outlet still operating. The mall had been struggling for years, and the owners had failed to pay back taxes owed to the city of Akron since 2006. The mall's decline continued, and in April 2011, Sears also closed down, leaving JCPenney Outlet as the only anchor store still open.
However, the fortunes of JCPenney Outlet were also about to take a turn for the worse. In January 2011, JCPenney announced that it would be phasing out all of its outlet stores, including the one at Rolling Acres. Nine months later, SB Capital Group bought all of the JCPenney Outlet Stores and rebranded them as JC's 5 Star Outlet, with the intention of continuing operations at the Rolling Acres location under the new name. Unfortunately, this venture also failed, and all of the JC's 5 Star Outlet stores, including the one at Rolling Acres, closed in December 2013.
With the departure of JCPenney Outlet, Rolling Acres Mall was completely vacant and abandoned. However, some of the former anchor stores found new tenants. The former Target store was repurposed as a Storage of America facility from 2009 to 2017, and the former Sears store became the home of Pinnacle Paper Recycling Company in 2014.
Current[]
In 2019, the remaining structures of the abandoned Rolling Acres Mall were demolished, leaving only the former Sears building standing. Following the demolition, plans were put in place to transform the site into an Amazon distribution facility. Construction began soon after, and in November 2020, Amazon officially opened its doors on the former Rolling Acres Mall lot, providing jobs and economic opportunities for the Akron community.