SURREY SQUARE: NORWOOD, OH
Mike Koller's Commentary
Posted January 28, 2006 (user submitted)
I do not know the complete history of Surrey Square on the corner of Smith and
Montgomery Rd. in Norwood, Ohio, but remember the mall from childhood visits to
relatives in the 1980's who lived down the street. Norwood is a small
incorporated city surrounded completely by Cincinnati.
I was in Cincinnati last summer and visited the mall. The enclosed portion of
the mall connects the Media Play to a Kroger grocery store (which used to be a
Thriftway). The inside of the mall was designed to resemble a street in "old
London towne" with faux brick floors, a "big ben" style clock and antique
street lamps. The mall is very quiet now with a Dollar General and a local
candy store that as been there for more than twenty years. There never was a
lot of space for speciality shops, but most are now gone.
At one time there was a Radio Shack and pet store. I heard recently that the
Media Play went out of business, so now there is only the Krogers for an
anchor. Interestingly, there is/was a McDonald's attached to the Media Play,
so at one time you could walk from Krogers through the mall and Media Play to
access the McDonald's.
The mall property was still fairly busy with fast food restaurants on the pad
and also a Blockbuster Video. There are also some shops attached to the
outside of the building but they have no mall access. I think it will survive
in some form, but Rockwood Commons built in the 1990's is a beautiful strip
mall one mile away with many high end retailers and restaurants that probably
stopped any expansion or update plans for Surrey Square dead in it's tracks.
25 years after my first visit the mall still has the same color exterior with
no remodeling having ever been done to my knowledge.