Cleveland County Mall

AKRON, Ohio - After years of store closures led to a foreclosure last summer, retailers at Chapel Hill Mall say foot traffic is up and are optimistic that new ownership could breathe life into what used to be Summit County's most trafficked shopping center.

Mainstream stores like The Gap, Borders and Game Stop have vacated the mall, but new management has had success finding local tenants to stop the bleeding.

There's a new store called Game Extension and a new locally-owned cookie shop, along with a few remaining staples, including Express, Old Navy and Victoria's Secret.

After Summit County's second mall went into foreclosure last summer, customers and employees alike have been wondering if Chapel Hill is on its way to becoming Ohio'sto the west. But merchants at the mall think otherwise.

"If anything I think things have actually gotten better, " said a store clerk who works at three stores in the mall. "They have a lot of things planned."

Although headlines have been unkind to the American shopping mall, vacancies at indoor retail centers across the nation have actually been falling since 2010, in part due to the closure of malls like Rolling Acres and Randall Park, which have reduced the total amount of mall space on the market.

Rumors have been swirling about new tenants taking interest in the property. Construction workers were recently dabbling on the interior of a former department store, a paper sign on the outside read Party City.

Matt Mason manages distressed properties for McKinley, Inc., the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company that took over Chapel Hill after the 2014 foreclosure. He says that his company has been able to make much-needed investment in the mall and sees tenants coming back.

"We feel there is still a big play for indoor malls, especially in cold weather climates, " Mason said Monday. "Did Akron need three malls, probably not. Is Akron a two mall town? We think so."

Corey Poole, who has been working at the mall for seven years, says he thinks the mall is doing better.

"A lot of people compare us to Rolling Acres and say we are going next, " Poole said. "It's not as bad as people think."

Poole had worked at Game Stop for six years before the company pulled out this year after McKinley raised rents. A small business owner stepped in and converted the space into Game Extension.

Foot traffic at the new store has been comparable to the crowds at Game Stop, Poole said.

McKinley has brought back many of the events that the former owners cut over the years as national retailers closed up shop and occupancy ranks sank. In November the company reintroduced Archie the Snowman, the talking persona that had graced the mall since its opening until 2006.

"What we have been able to do is focus on getting people back to the mall who maybe haven't been in awhile, " Mason said.

But for newcomers, the abundance of metal bars in windows is somewhat of a shock.

"There are a lot of empty stores, it's kind of surprising, " said Brenda Caskill of New Franklin, who said she was visiting the mall for the first time in many years. "It's kind of sad."

Northeast Ohio Media Group is examining malls across the region in our Mall Monday series, remembering their heyday and analyzing their future.

A world of treasure: a shopping revolution in the 1960s

It was a great time to go shopping.

In a full page ad in the Akron Beacon Journal, development pioneer J.J. Buchholtzer invited Akronites to "discover the new world of Chapel Hill, where there are treasures galore in all the stores."

Built on the border of Akron and burgeoning Cuyahoga Falls, Chapel Hill beckoned shoppers with a grand opening on Columbus Day that featured a treasure hunt and an exhibit of riches recovered from a fleet of sunken Spanish ships.

The mall, larger and more ornate than Summit Mall of two years earlier, was anchored by an O'Neil's department store and included retailers Paul Harris, Woolworth's and Zales.

Chapel Hill offered a weather-controlled shopping experience that catered to a new breed of Americans in love with their cars and the mobile lifestyle.

The booming '90s

By 1990, Chapel Hill was the most trafficked mall in Summit County, the Plain Dealer reported, but trouble was around the corner.

On July 1, 1991, a 16-year-old boy was shot outside the mall after seeing a gang documentary in the movie theater there. Owner Forest City Enterprises soon pushed out plans for an expansion, including a 500-seat food court with 13 restaurants, but by the next summer financing problems put the addition on hold for four years.

Development along Howe Avenue began to roar, and refinancing gave Forest City the cash needed to complete the renovation by 1996. A carousel was added that depicted scenes of Akron landmarks.

Meanwhile the demographics of the surrounding area were changing. Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic championed the creation of affordable and subsidized housing projects to the south of the mall.

At the same time Summit Mall, which the Plain Dealer had called a "a faded dowager of postwar surburban America, " was preparing a new look of its own. That mall is now flourishing, snagging high-end brands like J. Crew and the Apple Store.

In 2004, Forest City put Chapel Hill up for sale. CBL Properties, one of the largest mall-owners in the nation, gobbled it up for $77 million, nearly twice what the company sold Rolling Acres for.

CBL upgraded the mall, added a new fountain and recessed atmospheric ceilings.

Trouble starts as retail hits road bumps

Don Robart, the mayor of Cuyahoga Falls from 1986 until 2012, said complaints of unfriendly crowds at the mall started finding their way to his office in the mid 2000s.

"What we saw is that there were large masses of young people and that was very intimidating to adults, " Robart said in an interview. "The managers at the mall called and asked if we could do anything to help."

Following the lead of Tower City Center in downtown Cleveland, Chapel Hill required parents to accompany teenagers in the mall starting in 2008. CBL had already imposed the same restriction at 11 of its other malls.

"When families begin to realize they can come to the mall as a family and shop and not feel uncomfortable, I think overall that's going to increase our sales, " General Manager Glenn Miller told The Plain Dealer in June 2008.

But the bad news kept rolling in. In 2009 a man attempted to abduct two 3-year-old girls at the mall. Two years later a man named Richard Beasley met a man at Chapel Hill who had inquired about a job on Craigslist.com.

The property was thereby dragged into the trial of the Craigslist killer when Beasley was sentenced to death for abducting and murdering four people.