NEW MARKET MALL: COLUMBUS, OH
Blake Hutchison's Commentary
Posted September 3, 2006 (user submitted)
Not to be confused with the "New Market Mall" Al Bundy worked at in the TV show
Married with Children (because that show took place in Chicago and this New
Market Mall is about 400 miles southeast, in Columbus, Ohio.)
New Market Mall is a tiny attempt at an enclosed mall on the northwest side of
Columbus, Ohio, built during the wave of small (usually anchorless) community
malls in the wealthy northern suburban areas of Columbus. It was built in 1985
WITHOUT ANCHORS. Now, don't get me wrong, there are several community malls in
the Columbus area which were built without anchors and still do decent
business. Worthington Mall, another anchorless mall in suburban Columbus, is a
good example that a mall doesn't necessarily need anchors to survive.
Media Play and CompUSA eventually attached storefronts to the New Market mall
in the 1990s. Media Play may have had an entrance to the mall at one time, but
if they did, it was sealed off by 2000 (if not earlier). CompUSA never had an
inside entrance to the mall.
Media Play closed in 2005, but the CompUSA is still there, though it really
does nothing for the mall, as it has no entrances.
Stores left in the mall at any given time, if any, are usually small operations
that sell vitamins (but a sure sign of a dead mall - GNC pulled out years ago!
Usually they are the "last man standing" in a dead mall).
Currently the interior of the mall, or failed attempt at a mall, is almost
entirely occupied by the California Fitness Center, which moved into the entire
southern portion of the mall around 2000, and in many cases put machines in
abandoned storefronts rather than bother to renovate. Maybe that's how they
keep their memberships affordable by Columbus standards for fitness center
memberships. I doubt this mall will ever be a mall again - but it never really
was to begin with...