In what appears to be a struggling town, comes struggling housing, and thus, the struggling mall becomes doomed. The city of Toldeo, Ohio is an industrial town, industry is an up an down market, depending on what is being produced, wood or steel and automotive production, being the closest city to Detroit, Toledo as suffered to some degree from the economic recession of 2008.
Malls and shopping centers have bounced back....most, not all, and the Woodville Mall in Northwoods, OH, neighboring suburb to the Toledo city limits, has seen the end in 2014.
Woodville Mall was an enclosed mall along Route- 51 (Woodville Road) in the suburbs of Toledo and was built in 1969, most of the mall opened in April, and the rest opened by the end of the year. The original anchor stores were Sears, JCPenney, and Toledo-based Lasalle's Department Store. In 1971, was when competition began to come with the opening of Franklin Park Mall closer into town.
R.H. Macy's & Co. owned Lasalle's Department Stores since 1923, and converted the local stores to the Macy's name in 1982, and then sold the locations to Elder-Beerman in 1984.
Woodville Mall went under renovations in 1986, removing the fountain, and adding a new center court with skylights, and a food court.
JCPenney closed in 1987 because of declining sales and was replaced by general-merchandise store, The Andersons, which opened in September 1988.
Woolworth and the restaurant, Harvest House, closed in February 1994 along with three other stores in the Toledo area. JCPenney contemplated to reopen a store in the former Woolworth at the mall.
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| Sears has since closed |
Many of the inline stores began to close, and by 2006, less than 30 stores were in the mall and Elder-Beerman and the movie theater both closed in 2009. Some new stores opened for a short time in 2011, the structural issues caused the mall to be very hard to find a buyer to fix it, because of the cost to refurbish the mall.
In December 2011, a court order issued the mall to close due to structural issues. Any remaining tenants were told to leave by January 6, 2012. The mall was scheduled to be torn down by the end of 2012 but never was, the city was not able to obtain the property from the owner.
In November 2012, The Andersons announced the closure of the store by February 2013, leaving Sears as the only anchor.
Finally, the city came to an agreement and the mall was demolished in March 2014, except for the Sears store, which was in liquidation at the time, and now sits empty.
Here are pictures of the mall as the demolition process began, not so much is gone, but the roof was torn off, and you can see the arches from the food court sitting in front of the old theater.
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| Former Woolworth's |
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| Former JCPenney/ The Andersons |
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| The Andersons |
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| Former Lasalle's/ Macy's/ Elder-Beerman |
A Woolco opened across from Woodville in 1971, and closed in 1982 when Woolworth's eliminated the name in the United States, and became a Hill's Discount Store, later Ames Discount Store, then Finally Steve & Barry's Sportswear Store before going out of business in 2008, and has since sat vacant.
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| Former Woolco/ Hills/ Ames/ Steve & Barry's |
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| Former Toledo-based supermarket Food Town |
This certainly is a mall to never forget, it gave plenty of people jobs, and a place to hang out and shop, and will never be forgotten.
If anyone has any questions, comments, stories, or pictures, feel free to post below.
Thank you for reading.
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