Forest Fair Mall/Cincinnati Mills questions

[Oldiesmann]

I vaguely remember it from when the Time Out on the Court area was there when I was a kid. Always thought that was cool but we rarely had any reason to go to that mall otherwise (Northgate was our go-to mall and we sometimes went to Tri-County as well).

I do remember the big deal they made of it when they did their big renovation in the late 90s to Cincinnati Mills. It was great to see some life back in the mall, and the opening of Bass Pro, but that all faded pretty quickly like usual. I'm really surprised the mall is still standing at all - Bass Pro, Kohl's and Arcade Legacy are pretty much the only things open there anymore as I recall.

[BiloxiBelle]

Just off the top of my head why don't they convert something like this into a school/college? Medical Facility? If not that develop and sell the stores off as condo? Indoor condo living, put some greenspace at the loading docks, backdoor areas. Let one of the anchor stores turn itself into a Grocery Store/high end Target type store for the residents. Add pubs, restaurants. I would consider living somewhere like that.

[SonnyDaze]

Some cool photos in this article

https://www.journal-news.com/news/lo...b937l6QNxnrO-w

[mike1003]

https://www.citybeat.com/arts-cultur...is-creeped-out

It's a Christmas oasis in consumer hell



A photo posted on the Cincinnati Subreddit Dec. 20 sets the eerie scene. A decked out reindeer with glowy red eyes sits upright on a festive bench outside of the mall's iconic flying-pig gazebo; inside is what appears to be Santa's chair surrounded by cutely-wrapped gift boxes and fake snow. Coupled with the fact that there are no humans around, the image is downright ghostly.

I am speechless

[jbird57]

You can find a lot of info regarding the history of Forest Fair Mall from the marketing memorandum completed when the property was marketed for sale by Newmark Knight Frank in 2017. The property was marketed for an asking price of $55 million and the offering memorandum can be found on the internet at:

http://web.ngkf.com/forestfairvillag...df-website.pdf

The mall was originally developed by LJ Hooker, an Australian firm which tried to execute an ill-fated US mall development strategy whereby it acquired a controlling interest in several department store chains including Parisians, Bonwit Teller, B. Altman, and Sackowitz and use those department stores to anchor a "mega-mall" concept. Besides Forest Fair, the company had one other such project in Columbia SC, which also crashed and burned. The problem with Forest Fair from the start was the market could not support the amount of retail space that it contained. The department stores were also generally a mismatch for the trade area, plus the Hypermarket did little to draw shoppers into the mall itself since they are "destination stores" whereby it customers come shop the store, then get in their cars and go home without having an inclination to shop in the rest of the mall. The end result was that several of the anchors performed poorly and the enormous amount of inline space couldn't be leased. It wasn't long until the LJ Hooker empire "crashed and burned" along with Forest Fair Mall. While that was happening, Tri-county Mall announced a major expansion whereby it "double-decked" the mall. That was just one more nail in the coffin that already had been nailed shut.

Forest Fair was an ill-conceived mall from the start and I suspect the mall, which originally cost over $200M to develop, is worth little more that its land value, less the cost to demolish the improvements. The mall has always been a ghost because it was dead on arrival, it just never knew it. The best advice anyone can give the mall operation is this:

"You're dead. You are not of this world. Go to the light. You're dead. Go to the light."

And so it goes.

[mike1003]

Kohls lease is up in Jan.

[blickcd]

Any insight or rumors as to whether or not Kohls plans to stay?

[thunderstruck666]

Kohl's is still open. I did read that Tri County was trying to woo them, but given the sales tax increase on the ballot in March that would put them in a less competitive position. 8.5 miles up the Ohio 4 bypass from my house and I'm in Hamilton, with Kohl's, Wal Mart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Pet Smart and Menards.
I go to the mall when the weather is not conducive to walking outdoors as it has been lately. They have buckets out everywhere when it rains, they have some serious roof issues there. It's good for mall walking, you might see 1 person, so you can walk at a robust pace without scaring people. It's approximately .8 miles round trip if you start at Kohl's and walk to the ends of the Y shape and back again.