Eastland Mall to close later this week after 54 years in Columbus – The Columbus Dispatch

Eastland Mall, an East Side landmark for more than five decades and once a shopping mecca for Greater Columbus residents, is shutting down at the end of this week, according to the Columbus city attorney’s office.
“The mall is closing,” said Pete Shipley, a spokesman for City Attorney Zach Klein. Saturday is to be the last day, he said.
Local lawyer Adam Beane, who represents the mall’s owner, Eastland Mall Holdings LLC of New Orleans, confirmed that. “That is ownership’s intent,” Beane said, provided everyone’s out of the mall.
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Beane said Eastland’s owners plan to demolish the mall and are talking with city officials about how the site could be redeveloped.
The mall was to close Saturday, but a water line break Monday forced the closure on Tuesday, said a security guard stationed at the mall Wednesday afternoon.
The guard turned away shoppers trying to enter the mall. The guard, who would only give his first name, said no one was allowed in except for store owners emptying their shops.
Rika Gaston and Kquaon Hansard were helping to empty one of the fashion stores for their friends Wednesday afternoon, although when asked, they couldn’t name the store.
They both lamented the mall’s closure, though.
“Seeing Eastland growing up, it’s going to be a change of scenery,” said Hansard, 20, of the South Side.
Gaston, also 20, said Eastland’s closing means people will have to travel farther to shop.
“I live right down the street. I’m going to have to drive 20 minutes to Easton now,” Gaston said.
Battalion Chief Jeffrey Geitter, Columbus Division of Fire spokesman, said fire crews responded to the mall Monday after water lines broke, and water has been shut down to part of the mall. He said the mall has posted a fire watch through Friday.
Tina Fleisher, an owner of the Jones Fire Foods restaurant, was moving things out of that space Wednesday afternoon. She and the other owners opened that space in January after being in another part of the mall beginning in 2020.
Another owner, Darnell Jones, said there were sewage backups at the previous location in the mall. She said the owners claimed they were going to make $1 million in improvement to the mall. “Broken promises,” she said.
In July, Franklin County Environmental Judge Stephanie Mingo declared the mall a nuisance after the city’s attorney’s office filed health and safety violations against its owners in March.
Mingo ordered that the mall’s owner make repairs, including fixing parking lot potholes, removing litter and waste, cutting grass and weeds, cleaning graffiti and repairing broken lights and concrete. 
The mall’s anchor stores, including Macy’s, Sears and JCPenney, closed years ago. Home-grown businesses and some national retailers have remained.
Quay Barnes, who leads the Mid-East Area Commission, said the mall hasn’t been viable for years.
“Basically, for all of us, use the parts you can, tear down the rest,” she said. “Maybe do something like Northland has done.”
The Northland Mall site has been redeveloped into offices, restaurants and retail, including the Ohio Department of Taxation, Franklin County Dog Shelter, Northland Performing Arts Center and such restaurants as Chipotle, Jimmy John’s and McDonald’s, as well as a Kroger store moved from the other side of Morse Road in 2016.
Barnes said she’d like to see housing and a sports facility on the site, something to draw young professionals to the area.
Separate companies own the former Macy’s and Sears stores, as well as the adjacent parking lots. Eastland Mall Holdings bought the mall property in 2015 for $9.7 million.
The mall at Refugee and South Hamilton roads south in Interstate 70 was opened Feb. 14, 1968 and was the area’s first fully enclosed mall. Northland Mall was opened in 1964 as an open-air mall.
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