SOUTHWYCK MALL: TOLEDO, OH
Blake Hutchison's Commentary
Posted September 13, 2005 (user submitted)
Not exactly a completely dead mall, but not exactly a completely living mall,
either.
The Southwyck Mall in Toledo, Ohio is an excellent sample for "dead mall
museum." Opened in 1972 on the south side of Toledo, this mall is now an ideal
"dead mall museum," at least for now.
Dillards is the only anchor left here. In November 2005, that will no longer
be the case. Dillards will pull out and move to the Fallen Timbers shopping
center in Maumee, leaving Southwyck anchorless.
The closed anchor spaces (2 of 3) were occupied by Montgomery Ward and
LaSalle's, which later became Dillards Home Store, according to a mall janitor
I asked when I was near the LaSalle's space.
The abandoned Montgomery Ward even has its signs still up. If I hadn't known
Montgomery Ward was completely out of business, I would have thought it was
still open, had there been cars near the dead anchor space.
The fountains are STILL RUNNING as of September 2005, which actually makes the
mall a nice, peaceful and quiet place to study for my classes at the University
of Toledo.
Daniel Peck's Commentary
(User submitted April 2006)
Southwyck was the second major mall in Toledo, opening in 1972. I'm making
assumptions (because it wasn't my part of town) that Lion Store, and Montgomery
Ward were two of the three original anchors.
When I first came to the mall in 1997, Montgomery Ward, Lion Store, and Lion
For the Home were it's anchors. The mall was roughly 80 percent leased. It also
featured a nine screen theater, with six screens in one area and three in
another, a CVS Drug Store, a Red Baron arcade, and a bevy of national mall
chains, including a Disney Store, Babbage's, a full complement of Foot Locker's,
and Victoria's Secret
Like every other Montgomery Ward, the Southwyck location closed when Ward's
filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The Montgomery Ward wing, the mall's largest,
experienced a slow decline in tennants, but has more or less held it's own.
In early 2003, Dillard's (which had purchased the Lion Store) announced that
it was closing it's home stores in the Toledo area, reducing Southwyck to just
one anchor, Dillards, which will close in 2005.
The main problem with Southwyck is it's owner, Sherman Dreiseszun. He's
either cheap, using Southwyck for a tax write-off, or both. Southwyck, despite
it's dated look, is in a terrific location. The outlots for the mall continue to
thrive, and second level businesses inhabit the office buildings that surround
the park, Southwyck is in a moderate to high income area, and it's a shame that
the mall is being left to rot.
There are other parts to the Southwyck story, better summarized by the Toledo
Blade than I could. Here are some links:
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7317805886657&Avis=TO&Dato=20040620&Kategori=BUSINESS03&Lopenr=406200327&Ref=AR
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7317806591751&Avis=TO&Dato=20040531&Kategori=OPINION02&Lopenr=405310311&Ref=AR
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7317806569648&Avis=TO&Dato=20040525&Kategori=BUSINESS10&Lopenr=405250342&Ref=AR
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7317806636507&Avis=TO&Dato=20021229&Kategori=COLUMNIST34&Lopenr=112290101&Ref=AR
Pictures
An external shot of the former Montgomery Ward anchor, with the sign still
up.
Looking down the Montgomery Ward wing from Wards toward center court. There
are some business open along this stretch (Notably, Victoria's Secret).
The kites are a recent addition to an otherwise dated looking space.
The food court. A closed Sabarro's is near left. Dooming the food court was
it's location. Rather than a centralized food court, this food court was located
near one of the front entrances by Montgomery Ward. Not a particularly
intelligent design, as the foot traffic in this area was very low.
Like most Montgomery Ward stores, you could have your car serviced while you
shopped. Unlike the Northtowne Square Mall Ward's, the garage was detached from
the main store.
Southwyck Shopping Center is designed as a Y-shaped mall, with a very short
"base". At the base of the mall was, most recently a Lion For the Home
store, shown above. This anchor is closed....
as is every store leading to it in this wing.
The centerpiece of Southwyck has always been it's carousel, shown here. It
still runs, is still staffed, and kids still ride it. A carousel horse
appears on all the mall signage.
A dome covers over center court. Note the difference in tint in the
replacement glass, a sign that this place is being maintained on the cheap.
A shot from one of the mall's side entrances, of which there are many.
Unfortunately, only one side entrance, facing the main road, by Dillard's, has
any tenants. All of the rest have nothing but vacancies.
Southwyck's theaters had an unusual arrangement where six screens were
accessible from within the mall, and three were accessible externally. When AMC
closed the six screens in 1998, it kept open the external theater as an art
theater until 2001. This is a shot of the box office, located near the
main entrance.
Diamond's Men's Shop is special because it's the only original tenant left in
the mall from it's opening in 1972. It's also worth noting because it has never
remodeled, either. Note the lamps on the ceiling at near left. To the left of
Diamond's is an open Christmas store. This is notable because this photo was
taken on July 16th. (Christmas stores in July?)
Dillard's, open, for now, at the mall's north end. Dillard's will depart next
year for a new mall in suburban Toledo. Note the gold on the ceiling as an
example of early 70s architecture.
Dillard's, for now, as seen from the West side of the mall.
Thank you for shopping Southwyck Shopping Center (for now).
Dave Frania's Commentary
Posted March 24, 2009 (user submitted)
At long last, Southwyck Mall is coming down! After sitting idle
for months and months following it's official closure, demolition began
on Monday, March 23, 2009. First on the agenda is asbestos removal,
which will take several months to complete. Following that, the structure
itsef will be demolished. The city has announced that it
will take approximately seven months to complete the entire process.
Developer Larry Dillin has said this long-awaited progress will finally
make it much easier for him to market this site in order to
bring new life to this high-traffic South Toledo location. Current plans
call for a mix of retail, office & residential development in a mixed-use
lifestyle center.
Links
www.wtol.com/Global/stor y.asp?S=3639753 - An Excellent Link To The Efforts To Redevelop The Mall.
Southwyck Mall: Toledo, Ohio [offsite write up]
Have information on 
Check out Deadmalls.com's Dead Malls Media archive!
Mike Nuhfer’s Commentary:
User submitted Aug 2008Southwyck Mall in Toledo Ohio closed June 29,08. Redevelopment by Dillin Corp (www.dillin.com) is slowly thought about. Hokey mayor is hopefull it will get done. Toledo tried to close the mall early by "detecting" black mold in the mall, which scared off any customers left. It is now up for demolition. (http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=8880392)
Aaron Brown’s Commentary:
User submitted Aug 2008Just to let you all know, Southwyck Mall in Toledo, OH closed down July 1st, 2008. Apparently the area will be redeveloped into an outdoor shopping and entertainment complex similar to Levis Commons in near by Perrysburg (same developer).
Also, I have some pictures of Southwyck a while ago at it's peak of deadness.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97476480@N00/sets/1009327/
Steve Wirzylo’s Commentary:
User submitted Aug 2007Love your site!
The city of Toledo received word yesterday that Dillard's, the lone remaining anchor store in Southwyck mall, will shutter its doors within the next 60 days. They will re-open at the brand new Fallen Timbers Shops, which lies further out from the city.
There are still a few places left in Southwyck: a Deb's, a Foot Locker, a couple jewelers, a hair salon, and a food stand (the Daily Twist). Difficult to say how long they will last after Dillard's closes. All may not be lost, however. Larry Dillon, who has had plans for re-developing Southwyck, claims that since Dillard's has made their closing official, can proceed forward. He is planning to re-develop Southwyck more into an "urban village," with housing and small shops intermingled. (We'll just have to wait and see if that works out or not!)
All for now.
Nancy Koebel’s Commentary:
User submitted May 2007Woodville Mall in Toledo, OH, is the first enclosed mall built in the area. It opened in 1969 and was developled by the Simon Properties). They owned the mall until 2005 when they sold it to two Californians who specialize in buying dead malls as tax write-offs (who also own the dead Northowne Mall, also in Toledo). The new owners supposedly hired a firm to analyze redevelopment options, but if the Northowne project is any indication, it will not bear any fruit.
When it opened, the 800,000 square foot mall on the far east side of Toledo featured 3 anchors (Sears, JC Penney, and the locally owned LaSalle's. It also featured a full complement of smaller specialty stores and eateries, as well as a movie theater. As I recall, there were a ton of shoe stores (Bakers, Kinney, etc), a bridal store, some gift shops, etc. At the time it was built, the east side of Toledo was a booming area. Also, there were no other malls to compete, only the dying strip centers that were quickly going out of style in the late sixties.
Soon after,in 1971 competition from another mall started the decline in Woodville. Franklin Park, on the west (and more affluent) side of Toledo opened, drawing some business away from the older mall. There wasn't a sharp decline in business until the JC Penney store left in the early 1980s for another mall about 25 miles away. Many of the smaller specialty stores started closing, as the mall owners did little to make it current and attractive. The area it was built in also began a downturn as the Toledo economy, which was basically built on the auto industry, began to decline. The opening of the Southwyck Mall in Toledo further eroded some of the business. The owners, the Simon Group, did attempt to remodel the interior spaces in 1987, and while it didn't gain any new stores, it slowed the decline. The JC Penney space was soon filled by a local retailer, the Andersons, which is more
like a home remodeling/grocery/hardware type business. The original LaSalles was sold to Macy's and eventually closed. The space was soon taken over by regional department store Elder-Beerman. Unlike the Northtowne mall, which opened in the 1980s and was shutterrd by the mid-1990s, Simon kept the Woodville Mall operating, despite more erosion of the specialty stores in the 1990s.
The three anchors seem to keep the mall open. There seems to be a few chain stores, such as Famous Footwear, Bath and Body Works, some clothing stores, and a few locally owned places. Simon sold the mall to the current owners in 2005, and there was a report about a year later that all or part of it might be razed.
The retail area it's located in is also in decline, because most of the newer retail development is located farther north.
http://www.labelscar.com/ohio/woodville-mall
Nancy Koebel’s Commentary:
User submitted May 2007There has been much discussion by the city of Toledo on what would happen to the Southwyck Mall area since the posting. A developer, Larry Dillon, was awarded the job of renewing interest in the site. Dillon is currently the developer of another shopping area in the Toledo area called Levis Commons, one of the new outdoor "lifestyle centers" that is currently in vogue, with shopping, entertainment, and residences. Dillon's plan is to raze the current mall and rebuild it as a lifestyle center, but with less emphasis on retail shopping as a regional draw and more of a neighborhood concept. Recent plans were to center the new development on the Dillards store, the lone retail anchor left, and a local business college. Plans were going smoothly until the winter/spring of 2007, when the business college announced it was moving to the Levis C
ommons area. Another "lifestyle center," Fallen Timbers (which was orignally to be an enclosed mall) is also under construction not far from Southwyck, and there has been suspicion (mostly because they won't give a firm answer) that the Dillards store was moving there. Currently, the plans to redevelope Southwyck are on hold, since Dillon the developer is also involved in another non-retail deveopment in the Toledo area.
I really miss Southwyck as it used to be. I remember when it opened and shopped there a lot when my kids were younger. It was convenient, had stores I liked, and wasn't too upscale, which was probably the reason for it's demise. The upscale retail in Toledo moved to Franklin Park after several of its renovations, and other shopping, notably the Airport Highway Spring Meadows area started draining away the other less upscale retailers.
By the way, the original anchors when it opened were Montgomery Ward, Lion Store (a local department store) and Lamsons (another local department store). Lamsons closed all of their stores in the late 70s, early 80s, and the space was used then by the Lion Store for all of their home items (the other store was all clothing). Dillards took over the Lion chain, and kept the home store open until about 3 or 4 years ago.
Marie’s Commentary:
User submitted Apr 2007I'd like to start by saying your site is awesome and very well done. I have already spent a couple hours on it today.
I found some updated information regarding the future of Southwyck Mall in Toledo, OH:
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=4875025
EMAIL: [email protected]’s Commentary:
User submitted Dec 2006There was a small fire at Coney Island Restaurant in Southwyck Mall in Toledo, Ohio in September. There was some minor smoke damage, but the mall remains open. By the way, Dillard's never moved, and is still open at Southwyck.
Here is a link to a story about the fire:
Blake Hutchison’s Commentary:
User submitted Sep 2005Not exactly a completely dead mall, but not exactly a completely living mall, either.
The Southwyck Mall in Toledo, Ohio is an excellent sample for "dead mall museum." Opened in 1972 on the south side of Toledo, this mall is now an ideal "dead mall museum," at least for now.
Dillard's is the only anchor left here. In November 2005, that will no longer be the case. Dillard's will pull out and move to the Fallen Timbers shopping center in Maumee, leaving Southwyck anchorless.
The closed anchor spaces (2 of 3) were occupied by Montgomery Ward and LaSalle's, which later became Dillard's Home Store, according to a mall janitor I asked when I was near the LaSalle's space.
The abandoned Montgomery Ward even has its signs still up. If I hadn't known Montgomery Ward was completely out of business, I would have thought it was still open, had there been cars near the dead anchor space.
The fountains are STILL RUNNING as of September 2005, which actually makes the mall a nice, peaceful and quiet place to study for my classes at the University of Toledo.
Despite the fact that Southwyck will soon be anchorless, there is an excellent link to the efforts to redevelop the mall at http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=3639753.