HARRISVILLE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Allan Marshall knew he was taking a risk by moving into a dying mall.
But the location was too good to pass up – right off Interstate 71 near Lodi, just a 15-minute drive from his house. So, barely a year ago, Marshall and a partner opened a shop to sell sports cards and memorabilia at Ohio Station Outlets.
Now, the Card Spot is one of just a handful of retailers left. And Marshall is suddenly watching the landscape around him change – and wondering, with apprehension and hope, what the future holds.
“I think you always look on the bright side of life,” he said. “You have to be optimistic if you want to start a business. You have to believe that you’re gonna be successful.”
In September, a Northeast Ohio developer bought the mall – paying just $2.9 million for six buildings and 50 acres. That company, Industrial Commercial Properties, is already starting to transform the buildings – tearing off awnings, pulling down barnyard-style decor and putting on fresh coats of paint in neutral tones.
“White fence down. Canopy off. Coloration change. That’s all it is,” developer Chris Semarjian, who owns ICP, said while walking the property on an early November afternoon.
Over the coming months, the mall will morph into a business park. That’s a model Semarjian, and his team have used to repurpose other floundering shopping centers, from Akron’s Chapel Hill Mall to City View Center in Garfield Heights.
“We’ve been tracking this for a while,” he said of Ohio Station Outlets, which opened in 1996 as Buckeye Factory Shops and rebranded in 2008 with a railroad theme.
The complex is largely built of pre-cast concrete and steel, with lots of glass, making it relatively easy to convert into industrial space. Semarjian wouldn’t disclose the total cost of the project, which could eventually include new construction on the parking lots.
“We saw, basically, another retail facility underperforming and almost dead. And we think the underlying attributes could work very, very well for light industrial businesses and even commercial wholesale businesses,” he said.
'It depends on what you call retail'
Semarjian said ICP will honor existing retail leases. He’s not planning to kick anyone out.
But it’s unclear whether there’s a retail space at the future Interstate Business Park, which could hold tenants ranging in size from 5,000 to 55,000 square feet.
“It depends on what you call retail today,” Semarjian said.
He can see leasing space to a feed store or a building-supply business, for example.
“Anybody who caters to the construction industry or the agricultural industry,” Semarjian said. “Anything to do with servicing a farm or livestock. We’re happy to have those businesses here. But traditionally, we try to put in light industrial businesses, which would be light manufacturing, light assembly.”
Some of the few remaining shops are getting ready to close their doors. A ceramic-painting studio is moving out at the end of the year. The SAS shoe store is shutting in late January. The Lee-Wrangler Clearance Center is scheduled to leave in the spring.
Others, like the Eddie Bauer Outlet, Rack Room Shoes and the Bath & Body Works Outlet, are telling shoppers they have no plans to go yet.
As news about the property sale spread in late October, customers started calling – and fretting about the future.
“It’s just a natural trait that everybody likes to believe the worst of everything, you know?” Marshall said. “We’re constantly getting emails and people coming in and saying, ‘Oh, I’m surprised you’re still here. We heard they’re tearing this place down.’ … We’ve kind of got used to the fact that everybody seems to think it’s a big disaster and everything’s gone awfully wrong. And we have to keep correcting them.”
The Card Spot has a little less than a year left on its lease, he said. The business has built a following by hosting card-swap events, expanding from collectibles into games and holding Magic: The Gathering tournaments.
“We don’t want to go anywhere,” he said. “If we have to, we will. We can always find somewhere else. But the location is great.”
'A distressed situation'
Across the mall, Wayne Gerber hopes to keep his hobby shop and remote-control car racetrack open until the end of January, at least.
“I’m kind of up in the air,” he said.
Gerber moved his businesses to Ohio Station Outlets from Brunswick in late 2022, at a time when the mall’s previous owner was leasing space to nontraditional, local tenants – crafting shops, tumbling classes and even a church.
“I think most of them were here, candidly, in a distressed situation,” Semarjian said, adding that some retailers were on short-term leases and paying next to nothing in rent.
Many national brands had already left the center, which was a casualty of changing shopping trends, retail competition, a global pandemic and a previous landlord known for snapping up distressed malls and letting them languish.
Industrial Commercial Properties bought the mall from an affiliate of Namdar Realty Group, a New York-based company that acquired the property in 2017.
Namdar owns Severance Town Center, a long-troubled Cleveland Heights shopping center where another developer recently stepped in to lead a revitalization effort.
Until last year, Namdar also owned the decaying Midway Mall in Elyria. The Lorain County Port Authority purchased Midway Mall and solicited proposals to remake the property.
In May, the port authority announced that ICP will buy and redevelop the mall – as yet another business park. That deal could close before the end of this year.
“In general, I think we’re over-retailed,” Semarjian said. “The Amazons of the world put pressure on everybody. … There are a lot of malls, actually, that we’ve been looking at all throughout the country that are maybe 40% (occupied) – literally limping along at 40%, but aren’t dying yet. It’s a strain. It’s a strain on the communities. It’s a strain on the owners of the properties.”
'Just kind of lamenting'
In September, Harrisville Township’s trustees updated the zoning language for the mall property to make way for an industrial park. Those changes took effect in October. The revisions allow everything from food packaging to offices to equipment sales and rentals.
Retail isn’t on that list, but the existing stores are protected until the end of their lease.
Miriam Pendleton stopped by the outlets in early November and wasn’t sure what to make of all the construction equipment and fencing.
“I was really worried that they were just gonna mow the whole thing down,” she said.
She and other shoppers reminisced about birthday parties, holiday decorations and concerts at the outdoor pavilion. They used to bring children and grandchildren to ride the vintage trains that made loops across the property, stopping at stations between stores.
Those trains are long gone, along with most of the tracks.
“Sometimes I would come here and just walk up and down the aisles,” Pendleton said, “just kind of lamenting the fact that shops were just – one by one – leaving.”
She’s sad to see the era of outlet shopping end. But at least the buildings, places where families made so many memories, will find a new purpose.
“I’m really glad to see that it is going to be worthwhile,” she said. “I’ve loved this place.”
