The restroom was locked, a 55-gallon barrel collected rain water from a roof leak and the owners of the OK Wok were dressed in coats and scarves. My daughter and I were eating our lunch, lamenting the impending death of the Woodville Mall and reminiscing about better times.

Twenty years ago, when she was growing up, I would walk her past the fashion stores I thought she’d eventually shop at—Lerners, The Limited, Merry-Go-Round and Elder-Beerman. Once, when I stopped to look in the window at Keidan’s, she slipped from my hand and disappeared. I nearly panicked looking for her through the legs of hundreds of shoppers. I found her across the aisle at Kay-Bee Toys. She was four.

Back then, in the late 1980s, the mall was the town hall for the small communities east of the Maumee River—the place to see and the place to be seen. The Edward J. DeBartolo Company had just invested $5 million in renovations. The new look, new stores and creative promotions attracted crowds. The Press played a big part in promoting the mall. We published four-color catalogs and co-sponsored special events. Our new-car show ran for eight years. Other events included the annual Earth Day Celebration featuring entertainment and booths from outdoor organizations such as Natures Nursery and Ducks Unlimited; and The PrimeTime Affair, a senior fair featuring the Johnny Knorr Orchestra and big-name speakers like Ohio State Representative Barney Quilter.

The biggest non-holiday crowd I saw at the mall was on the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving in 1983. The Press, along with the mall and Macy’s Travel, gave away a Caribbean Cruise. We published clues in the paper for four weeks directing readers to search for a letter hidden in the mall. I revealed the last clue at center court to a crowd of 400 contestants who scattered throughout the mall prying up wooden shingles, pawing store-front windows and opening maintenance doors. A Walbridge man won the cruise and he and his wife went sailing the Caribbean.

Everybody had fun and everybody left happy, right? Well, not exactly. One woman threatened to sue. She claimed the clues were all tied to Nancy Drew mysteries and the only logical conclusion for the location of the letter led to a bookstore. She did not find the letter, but she did believe she won the cruise and a court of law would prove her right. Three other women filed complaints with the mall claiming they would have won the contest if a security guard hadn’t stopped them from tearing down a store-front façade. One stated she worked 50 hours on the contest.

Such fun.

So, what happened? How could such a retail magnet deteriorate to the point of being condemned?

Let’s go back to Penney’s closing in 1987. Store officials claimed they overestimated the growth potential of the east side market when they agreed to be an original anchor store in 1969. While that’s true, local shoppers knew the selection of goods was much better at the Franklin Park Penney’s, so across the bridge and through the city they went.

The closing of Penney’s started the decline that was temporarily abated by the renovation later that year and the addition of higher-end specialty stores. But, then along came Meijer and Wal-Mart in Oregon and the shops at the Crossroads in Rossford, a straight shot down S.R. 795.

Finally, the Veterans Glass City Skyway opened in 2007 and eliminated the frustration of waiting for the I-280 draw bridge to open or close. The skyway was to open up Oregon to Toledo’s more affluent west side, but in reality the bridge made it easier for us to get to the malls and lifestyle centers to the west and south.

It’s a sad day for many of you as well as for us at The Press. When the mall opened in 1969, The Press aligned its circulation area to coincide with the mall’s primary market area. In those early years we published and distributed flyers for the mall and for Lasalle’s, one of its three anchors. We have written hundreds of stories, mostly positive, but at least one that proved difficult because of the subject and because the mall was one of our biggest advertisers.

That incident occurred in 1984. A shopper abandoned four kittens in the mall near the front entrance. A maintenance man and a security guard disposed of the kittens in the trash compactor. Northwood police charged the two men with cruelty, a second degree misdemeanor. Police also charged the DeBartolo Company and the security company with corporate liability.

That was the low point in the relationship between The Press and the Woodville Mall.

My recent lunch with my daughter brought back these memories. The Press is the newspaper that ties together 23 small communities in four counties. The Woodville Mall was the brick and mortar town hall that did the same. There, you could see shoppers from Oregon, Genoa, Gibsonburg, Oak Harbor and Pemberville. Now, those shoppers are scattered throughout Northwest Ohio.

We truly have lost a community asset.

 
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