11/2019 update: the entire mall has been demolished and Amazon has begun building a distribution center on the property. Expected to be complete by spring 2020
There's this abandoned shopping centre near my school called The Flagship (closed in early 2019 cause there was nothing there but a burger king and some shite Sports Direct) and at the front there was £ Land (basically the dollar store but northern irish) and that and a shortcut from Main street to High Street for 5 years. Also I get nightmares that I'm in it and there's this jet black _thing_ chasing me while I'm bare foot and stepping on glass and blood. It's really scary.
Yeah. The mall in my area is going down pretty hard 2 of the anchor stores, (sears and Yonkers, basically just a 2 story clothing store) had shut down and the JCPenney is on thin ice but the scheels (sports store) is okay. As for the rest of the mall, there’s people, but you can tell the place is going down. There finding it harder and harder to find new people to by the space for the empty shop spots. Which is sad, since I’ve been going there when I was a baby. Idk what the future holds, hopefully something good happens to the malll
Toys R Us has been turned into a furniture store, Sears Still abandoned, JCPenny closed due to Quarantine... Even a store that was a dollar tree won't stop changing stores..
I did too. :( I can only imagine the memories of younger exciting days flashing through their minds while wandering the halls, only to know it will rot away. The chapel hill mall that I use to go on dates will soon meet the same fate.
Our mall in our town is also dying 😞 Whenever we went on a school trip every week you'd see a store in business and the next week that same space would either be replaced with another business or empy the next. Sad.
4:21 “Mall Walkers” club, essentially elderly folks that use malls as safe spaces to do their exersize and socialize; air conditioned, indoors, restroom locations known, and food, all in one place. Man, now that’s how you make drone footage!
@@packingten friend, elder, wise sage, distinguished elderly citizen… I was simply stating something that I’ve noticed that is common while watching those videos that most malls tend to have Mall Walking clubs. It’s a very smart club idea that should start up again, much more interesting way of getting your miles in, people watching and practically less hassle than going to a gym overall.
my friends church moved to the only mall in town, and other stores have been closing like crazy someone needs to bring back fredricktowne mall so i have somewhere to go when fsk closes😭😭
Amazon sucks. I used to use it but the shipping costs nearly robbed me blind, and for the amount of shopping I do it's not worth it to pay for Prime. Anyhow, there's something to be said for actually going out and buying items right away without waiting around for them to come in the post.
@@JarethTheGoblinKingForever Yeah. It is nice to be able to get what you're looking for same day. And to be able to see it before buying. I needed a lawn mower belt couple weeks back. Couldn't find it anywhere, not Lowe's, not Sears, nowhere. Amazon...boom...there it was. I does kinda suck knowing that I'm helping to make Bezos disgustingly rich, though.
Jeff Jeff - You're absolutely right. However, at one time or another each town with a mall used to have a vibrant downtown/main street where you could go shopping and support local business people. Then malls started moving in, bringing in national stores and perceived safety and convenience, but killing the local businesses. Now malls have been overbuilt, and they've had their heyday. There will be less malls everywhere. There will be some surviving upscale malls and a few low-end discount malls, but big box stores and internet retailers are already here as the next wave. You may remember when malls were not just for shopping, but as a social center. Families and youths used to meet others there, shop , sit or hang out at the food court. Some older dinosaurs may remember doing those same things at a city's downtown area or a local diner. Those days have disappeared as society has changed. People are less social, except online. Leaving the house (and wi-fi) is often a last choice for some.
That's true, still very sad, though. It used to be a day trip and a way to socialize with my friends, going to the mall. It wasn't just a bunch of stores, it was a community hub. Now I can just sit in bed all day browsing Amazon. It's not the same. But I love the architecture in these malls. It would be nice to see them repurposed so people can still have a hangout place that gets them away from the technology and into the real world once in a while. They could become anything. A library, a community club for arts and classes, a place for parties, anything. People do everything online these days and it's depressing. I mean, I like youtube as much as the next guy but sometimes I want to go out and do something real, not waste my entire life looking at a screen and then be a senior citizen wondering why I threw away the best years of my life.
I was born & raised in Akron, OH & as a kid witnessing the fall of it, it was heartbreaking. My mother always took me & my sisters shopping here & to take Christmas pics with Santa😔
Girl same. I was born in the 80s. Grew up in Norton and Barberton. And Rolling Acres was the place to be! My mom, sister and I continued to shop there even through that heartbreaking decline. Because of the nostalgia. I remember how badly tore up the parking lot got. And when the Penny's outlet finally closed. It was so sad.
That footage of the mall’s last day is indeed creepily surreal. From what I can tell, the person filming seems like the only person left in the mall. And plus the music makes the whole thing even more eerie. It is quite sad, but pretty haunting at the same time
5:30 I love that sound. Wish I could find an abondoned mall, hack the speaker system, play some music and just sit there listening to music as it echoes through the building.
Tim Dimoff: "There is a spirit here, there is a soul here, and that spirit and soul will not allow this place to die" _2 months later_ *This mall is closed, we are sorry for any inconveniences*
@@fernandezmarkbrianc.2542 malls are the all-in-one go to for filipinos, malls in the philippines have everything and i mean EVERYTHING!!!!! heck you can even buy a condominium unit in the mall. hungry in the philippines but don't want to spend too much in a resturant? Too many fastfood places to choose from. The posibilities and choices are endless.
@@DrNoobisthebestyoutuberever Because for some reason the internet is where everyone directs all their negative energy. Probably because they're cowards IRL who have no other way of expressing their frustrations.
I know this video is over 2 years old but I love everything about rolling acres mall. In the late 90s and early 2000s I spent pretty much every weekend at rolling acres mall. I lived right outside of Akron and as a teenager it was fun to go there. The Target was awesome, I shopped at JC Penney’s outlet. The arcade was outdated and toward 2003-2006 it started going really really downhill and we stopped going because there was so much crime going on. I remember when the escalator was shut down and the heat was turned off. I left the Akron area in 2010 but that mall was part of my teenage years. That food court video is so eerie I remember Wendy’s, and just hanging out all day long. Thank you for this. I’m only 32, and I feel old making this comment but it brings back good memories for me.
That is sad really sad, I’m Maine our mall isn’t doing too well, what I think was our anchor stores (Sears and JCPenny) left due to bankruptcy. I get really sad at the thought of that mall being gone one day like this one, it’s probably not long before online shopping outdoes this one. If I get kids I can’t image them never being able to go to a mall
More news about this mall it's now gone. Demolition finished around last year for it. Really Google it really bit the dust like Schuylkill which you can also Google.
Nicely done. I admit to watching this through a skeptical lens as I'm a long time resident of Akron, but you conveyed its history well. Sorry to say, if you did not know, or for others watching, the mall was demolished two years ago, not long after the city denied a contract to rent the building as a film set for a post-apocalyptic movie due to health hazards. You've gained a new subscriber. Thanks for your respectful coverage of a place that is part of my childhood.
@Danielle ... I live an hour west, in Ashland. We went to Rolling Acres a couple times when I was a teen - I bought a Homecoming Dance dress there in 1986. What is now on the land where it was?
Am I the only one who gets really sad seeing all these abandon malls? I just had a lot of good memories shopping and spending time with friends at them.
I live a few blocks from this mall, so sad to see it deteriorating over time. I had no idea there was storage/recycling centers over there though. That whole side of town is a ghost town, to be honest. Nothing but no name restaurants that come and go, check cashing places, pawn shops, a aldi, NTB, a taco bell, and endless boarded up storefronts. I used to go to this mall as a child and shit really went downhill. Chapel Hill mall may be next....
Went in Chapel Hill for the first time in years the other day (used to work at Macy's)... It made me want to cry a little seeing it closed. Don't see much hope for the place.
US Urban planning are really bad in general. If we look at high density areas in Europe, Asia, or South America. We could see shopping mall keep thriving since a single shopping mall have tens and thousands of residents living next to their property or 5 minutes walk. Suburban mall is a time bomb even when it's started.
Yeah, seeing all the hustle and bustle in the old footage and seeing it now makes me sad. Now we're seeing a return to smaller retail in downtowns and city centres - big, bloated suburban malls are pretty much dead but are a very interesting historical study.
The gangs were a problem way before the time that you mentioned. A big reason it closed was because no one felt safe there, with all the gang activity and crime.
@@drumdude46 There are gangs everywhere. Cleveland and Cincinnati have a much higher crime rate than NYC and LA combined. Don't assume that Ohio is all white country folks.
It breaks my heart to see ruined architecture. Even if it isn't your style, it represents a time and I love it for that. A kid of the 70s so I totally appreciate a 1975 structure. I also hate to see how people treated it once closed. So disrespectful. I'm a mall walker due to my asthma outside so I enjoyed seeing those older mall walkers. Our mall is kind of quiet now, but is functioning. Thanks for the research.
I agree. The people that ruin structures like this will never even install a single telephone pole in the ground, or contribute a single man-hour to ANYTHING pertaining to societal function. It would be better for EVERYONE, if a fellow gang member put a bullet between their eyes. Sometimes, people matter more than things. Sometimes, things matter more than people. It depends which people.
@Alchemica Blackwood literally everything you are thinking right now. Everything you believe really. Well not everything, just on the topic you went for in that comment
As someone who was born in the 80s. Grew up in Norton. And went to this mall almost every day in the 90s. I can say when I saw season 3 of Stranger Things. So much of that set design was spot on reminiscent of Rolling Acres.
Probably because Dollarama is our biggest dollar store chain here. Them and Dollar Tree are about the only franchise dollar stores here (that I know of). We used to have a couple of others like "A Buck or Two", but they got bought out by Dollarama, as some locations that had Buck or Two's are now Dollaramas.
It's fun to look back at the good times when malls ruled, but sad to look at how many have disappeared. Malls are following the footsteps of drive-in theaters which also are a relic of the past. History channel should do a series on "Malls Today, Gone Tomorrow"
You know these malls destroy town and city centres right? Retail space is becoming less and less relevant. Look at the UK practically everyone is shopping online I expect this trend will roll out across the western world as people become more prudent, so out of town shopping malls will almost certainly all die, amazing to think this will happen considering they used to be the future but I suspect people will come to look back on them and wonder how they were ever viable being so expensive to run and far away.
For that series, "Malls Today Gone Tomorrow" really is a good idea. Maybe History Channel should go for that though sadly it's a sad state of affairs for History Channel these days.
I spent a lot of time here as a teenager in the early 90s, and watching this has a heavy, nostalgic, emotional effect!! 😔😢 no matter how many times I see the pictures, or watch the videos, it’s totally surreal to me! I still live 10 min away, and it’s been hard seeing so many areas around me crumble in this manor... It’ll definitely be interesting to witness the changes when Amazon fully takes over the old “ Rolling Acres Mall” area 😏
@@rhettolivierpiccio4457 I always loved Sears, but they’re stores have been pretty shitty for the past ten years, they have gone bankrupt and almost all of their stores are gone, and the remaining ones are train wrecks. In southern Maine, our mall lost Sears back in 2019
My dad works at the Amazon facility that stands on the site where Rolling Acres used to be. There’s no trace of it now. I have such fond memories of going here at Christmas as a child in the early to mid 90s, and it was so much fun.
Is that one still open? I actually have friends in special effects who worked on that film, as well as the lesser known one 'Day of the Dead' Two of them are partners in KNB Effects who do the effects for 'Walking Dead' (although 'N' is one of the producers of the show, not necessarily involved in the effects)
Reminds me of the fate of the mall here in Long Beach, CA. Started off with a lot of hype with plans that the mall would serve as an anchor to revitalize the downtown area. Slow action by the city council plus the closing of the nearby Naval base contributed to the slow decline of the mall. The three anchor stores were JC Penney, Montgomery Wards and Buffums. The mall made an appearance in Madonna's movie Desperately Seeking Susan when Madonna's character goes into a music store. The mall also had a murder occur during business hours when a woman working the food court was nearly decapitated by her estranged husband. That happened when the mall was full of shoppers. Much like Rolling Acres mall toward the end of the LB malls life there were few tenants; a dollar store and social services for veterans and women and children. At the end the only power to the mall were the lights. The fountain and escalators had long been shut down. The Long Beach Plaza was bought by Developers Diversified Realty in 1999 and demolished the following year. The only part of the mall that remains is the two story parking structure. The property has since reopened as Long Beach City Place. Even this maybe in jeopardy as the Wal-Mart that anchored one side of City Place was closed last year. Fun Fact: During the LA riots the mall was used as a base of operations by the National Guard. The mall had thick concrete walls and easy to secure openings that made it ideal for the National Guard to use.
So sad! :( I was a sailor stationed at the Long Beach naval shipyard from Jan-June, 1988. Long Beach Plaza was one of my hangouts. I used to hang out in that mall all the time, eat at that same food court or sometimes go to Mickey Ds down the street. sometimes i would catch the RTD to Lakewood mall. I would go behind Lakewood Mall to the movie theater(i saw Good Morning Vietnam there). I heard it's no longer there. On some weekends i would go to Cherry beach or Seal beach further down the shore. I was 19-20yrs old at the time.
I brought some of my shoes out of Long Beach plaza back in 1988. The mall had it going on then. I use to buy my dress shoes from PayLess and my tennis shoes from Foot Locker. There used to be promotions going on at that mall all the time. I was in a drawing one time for a car giveaway. The dealership was giving away a 4-speed convertible(i cant remember the car or the dealership). But they passed out fake car keys and if your key opened the door, you won. There was a long line of people(including me) who tried to open that damn car without success. Well the drawing was almost over and the 5th from the last person in line won. I couldn't drive stick shift at that time anyway and if i won, somebody was going to have to drive me back to the base...LOLOLOL. Great memories of living and being stationed there, never had a chance to go to San Pedro but i went to Carson Mall in DEC, '88 and it was huge. Is it still around??
I remember going here with my mom and brother back in the 80's and early 90's. This, Chapel Hill Mall, and Summit Mall were all awesome and like wonderlands during Christmas. So this was yet another place that began it's downfall from reduction of sensible security. Whether domestic or foreign violence, disease, etc, all of this crap begins to infect when the standard protection wanes anywhere. What a shocker.
It’s sad because Chapel Hill is headed in the same direction as Rolling Acres. They both used to be so good. At least Summit and Belden are very good malls still
According to Dan Bell's video on this mall, there was a point where cops actually intervened at some point. The mall didnt have security at this point, but they sure as hell had a bunch of cop cars driving around nearby.
Faze of 1337planet I’ve seen dans video and it was the owner of the storage company next to the mall who called the police on Dan while he was in the abandoned mall making his video!!
Luckily, Dan was able to get the footage he needed; he got every section except for the Sears wing, and I suspect he was headed there from the Dillard's wing when the cops found him and escorted him out...
@@lendalpiaz4504 The memories of the rolling acres mall will last forever in peoples minds. I will never go to another mall in my life. My cousin even met the love of her life in that mall. If i won 500 million in the lottery i would reopen the mall and let people shop for free!
Wait till you see other dead mall vids, or abandoned places vids. It is strangely addictive, especially if you are from the era of the "hay day" of the malls. I grew up in the '70s and '80s etc. and malls were THE place and it brings me back to my youth. Good times and I have fond memories of it. One of the vids in this one was credited to a well known and put together channel "This is Dan Bell". He is one of the most famous "Dead Mall" explorers, but he's done all kinds of other things, like scummy hotels/motels, mansions, abandoned houses, stories of haunted places. There is a whole dead mall video culture out there and it is strangely fascinating.
@@MrBilld75, thanks mate, I can clearly see I'm NEVER going to get away from my computer. At least not in the foreseeable future. Appreciate the feedback. I'm also a 70's child and it amazes me even today how different the still active malls are to what I remember them growing up. Most of these places seem to be trapped in a certain place and time, it's nostalgic and eerie at the same time.
@@peter.24.7 Yeah, exactly, it is a "snapshot in time" yeah. Like they are frozen relics and it is nostalgic and eerie at the same time, yeah. Good description. Truth be told, I have imagined living in one of these abandoned malls. I think it could fun. All those wide open spaces, lots of natural light from the skylights. You could shoot some hoops, play some floor hockey, cook some eats in the food court etc. Lol. You got it all really. They've found homeless people living in abandoned malls actually. If I had to and was homeless, I sure could think of far worse places to be, than a mall.
@dave smith Yeah, I spent a good portion of my teenage years at the mall. Arcade and food court mostly. Hanging with friends etc. Even if we didn't hang at the mall, we would usually meet there anyway.
Imagine being someone in the 80s and coming to this mall regularly, drinking smoothies and listening to Kenny Rogers playing in the background, totally unaware of what would happen to it decades later.
Demolition is complete... all that remains are the outer walls and the four anchor buildings that formerly housed the Target, Macy's, Dillard's, and Sears (JCPenney donated their building to the city of Akron to be demolished along with the mall itself)... #RIPRollingAcresMall
1975-Rolling Acres Mall opened/ Sears opened 1976-JCPenney opened 1991-Fight near Rolling Acres cinema 1995-Target opened/ stores and cinema closed/JCPenney Outlet Store 2000-Forest City Enterprises planning to sell mall for $33.5 million to Banker's Trust/ Mall sold again for $2.75 million 2003-Mall at 50% occupancy/ Cinema reopened 2006-Target and Dillard's closed/ Mall at 30-40% occupancy/ Fountain shut off 2007-Merchandise stolen by homeless man 2008-Macy's and cinema closed/ Escalators shut off/ Mall website offline/ Power cut short/ Rolling Acres Mall abandoned 2010-Premier Ventures purchased the mall for $3,000,000 2011-Sears closed/ Mall starting to tear apart/ Man trying to steal copper was killed after electrical box exploded/ Timothy Kern dead 2013-JCPenney closed/ Rolling Acres Mall dead
@Based Thucydides Malls just close down because there's too many close to each other. Also too much rent+ overhead to pay for businesses there. Not very sustainable now that there's online stores with cheap shipping.
"Daddy, what's a mall?" "It's like an Amazon where you can buy anything. Only you get it the same day." "Like drone delivery?" "Yes, son. Like drone delivery." 🙄
tron3entertainment It's like an Amazon, but you go there to buy stuff instead of going online Dad, what do you mean by "go there"? It's like walking to the kitchen, but you go to another building instead of just the kitchen. Oh, ok.
5:30 Honestly, the video could be this guy turning the camera around for 10 minutes with that sweet song playing in this empty and full of memories mall, I would watch it over and over again.
EVERYTHING in Canada is American-owned, even Tim Hortons. I have never seen anything so militantly-named in Canada. Mostly we have Dollar Tree, Dollarama and the (American-owed) Great Canadian Dollar Store.
2020 update: almost the entire mall has been demolished and replaced with a Amazon facility and there Is only one anchor store remaining and it is a recycling plant
Nicely done! as someone from the area, I can say that this is a very well done way of telling the story of the mall, especially since this is apart of my childhood! But for the video itself, I think this is the best episode of Abandoned yet.
This was a particularly enjoyable Abandoned episode, because we got to see so much of the empty premises and hear so much about what it was like once abandoned. I know footage and info of that kind isn't always available, but it was really cool to see it here!
I live near this mall, it became known as Rolling Afros mall after awhile. I think we know why shoppers stopped going. In the final years it became a place were drug dealers met their customers.
This video is over 2 years old but is still interesting for me to watch. Great job on it! As for the building, it was announced a few days ago that Amazon would be moving into the mall, either tearing it down or renevating it. They bought it for only $600,000, but will use $100,000,000 to renovate it.
@@snapnclap Homeless people were running a racket where they'd hide under people's cars and then claim you hit them/ran them over to try and get money out of you.
I love watching these things now in 2022. I was born in 2002 and I currently am sitting in the NEW Amazon located EXACTLY where the old Rolling Acres used to be in Akron Ohio 🤗
This mall's fate is similar to what happened to the Bannister Mall in southeastern Kansas City. It was initially very popular, although the only way that it could be reached was by car via I-435. It also went into decline around the same time as this mall. The last time I was at Bannister Mall in 2006 was a really creepy experience. Half of the mall was closed off, and there were almost no stores open. There was literally only one place open in the food court, and it didn't even look occupied by anyone. Bannister Mall closed in early 2007, and was torn down in 2009, mainly for redevelopment, but also it was becoming a blight on the surrounding area. After it closed, but before it was torn down, it apparently became a bit of a haven for gang activity and homeless squatters. With the closing of the nearby Super-Walmart in late 2008, the whole Bannister Mall area looked more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a center for retail.
last time I was at Rolling Acres mall was in like 2002 or 2003. I was waiting in the car for 2 of my friends to go in and buy something and they came back out and said that someone got stabbed in the checkout line ahead of them..that place was extremely ghetto
There’s a mall here in Sioux Falls, SD that is doing incredibly well and just keeps growing. And Sioux Falls is smaller than Akron. It’s not about online shopping killing malls, it’s about poor management and a very unsafe environment for families to shop.
33% Comments from people who miss the mall 33% Comments finding the mall creepy 33% People blaming minorities & liberals for ruining everything 1% Jesus comments
@@Rick-S-6063 Sell that in Syria, Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo or to the millions raped, robbed, maimed and killed by others or orphans or the parents of murdered children.
Chapel Hill Mall, one of Akron's two other malls, will soon share the same fate as Rolling Acres... the Macy's and Sears there are already gone, and I saw on a video about Chapel Hill Mall that the JCPenney, the last surviving anchor, will be closing soon as well :(
@@edwardmartinez199 before internet there was mail order. Neither satisfy the ability to inspect and compare before you buy, nor the instant gratification of going to a store and having the item that same day. Unfortunately, many things are only available online, but it is not my preferred method of shopping.
Tell that to all the man hours that went into designing, planning, and building that place from the ground up by all the architects, electricians, workers, and the culture that emanated from that place, during its peak. That is the soul he was referring to.
Your videos have improved 110% in quality and I look forward to seeing many, many more. The song at the end of this video as well; definitely keep that too. Fits the overall tone of this series. Keep it up bro!
I'll second this. I've watched your entire Abandoned series and this installment is hands down the most polished and professional. Also, the vast majority of the script stayed on subject, and any diversions were closely related to the subject. Nice job.
As someone from the area, it's not at all just the mall, it's the entire surrounding area. This place was awesome in the early to mid 90's. It was truly sad to watch an entire street go straight to the depths of hell. It's not worth $10 for the amount of remodeling, rewiring you'd have to do. You'd still be stuck with a God awful location and virtually no takers on businesses wanting to set-up.
there's something eerie/sinister about that "Premier Ventures" company buying the mall... doing nothing with it... not paying the bills or taxes... not showing any interest in rejuvenating it, but at the same time, not wanting the county to take it back or auction it. Very odd. And never revealing why they bought it in the first place... being so far away and having no offices or other business in the state. It's.... creepy.
And claiming they were from another state on the other side of the country. I'm guessing they are a front for the city, and that the city had wanted to claim it for years, and just found a way. City councils are more often than not filled with some of the shadiest citizens.
As of January 2019 nearly the entire site has been demolished. In a twist of irony, a statement was issued by the city of Akron that Amazon had officially acquired the land of the former demolished mall in July 22, 2019. Construction on the new distribution center will begin in September of 2019.
I clicked on this because I remember going to this mall. It was not to far from my Grandmas house in Barberton. My grandparents and aunts and uncles are buried in a cemetary just down the road. on a bright sunny day in Oct. of last year my mom wanted to visit gravesides there but we were told it was not safe in that area. What a shame its not safe to visit loved ones graves .
it's always sad to see a mall die so slowly. used to have a mall that was hopping back in the eighties and in the late 1900s it slowly started to die, one store after another would move out and nobody was maintaining the building or even mopping the floors anymore and then all the sudden they started taking light bulbs out to save electricity and then they drained and turned the fountain off in the courtyard. An old friend of mine and I went back to the mall for just old-time sake and only two stores were left and we were literally the only ones in the whole Mall and there was so many empty stores and literally garbage just piled up around the corners like the two stores that were left were just throwing their garbage out in the main hall. One of the girls working at one of the last stores said that they busted a couple homeless people screwing eachother in one of the empty stores and discovered that a bunch of homeless people were living in empty stores. About a month later they closed the place up. I'll never forget going to that mall in the eighties with my parents during Christmas when the place was so happy and full of life and all the stores were packed and then to see it covered in dust and dirty and trash in the hallways was just so sad.
A great idea, except that taxes and lack of customers would doom it almost from day one. Laser tag would be awesome there, but again, no $$$ to keep it open. Heck, they cannot even stay open in small storefronts!
This was very similar to my local mall. A much bigger mall with 4 stories was built with many anchor stores in the same county. So everyone stopped going to the older and smaller one. But they renovated and basically scrapped the whole architecture and is now basically a small shopping plaza and is doing pretty good
ginger elvira You do know that is only malls not the States people still live in the States & no one is leaving the Northern & if it ever did happen Canada is getting it.
I lived near there in the '80's. It was a nice place and had a great pizza place in the food court. It was one of those places where you would go to buy something and end up buying something else because you could get a great deal on it. Chapel Hill Mall seems to be going the same way as Rolling Acres.
Wasn't it star pizza or something like that? Sold it by the slice n they were huge! The sausage came in the form of tiny chunks Even had a kinda sterotypical italian owner if I remember correctly.
11/2019 update: the entire mall has been demolished and Amazon has begun building a distribution center on the property. Expected to be complete by spring 2020
And the Circle of Life continues......
A sad sign of the times for those of us who grew up in the mall generation.
How ironic.
Insect Overlord things do and always will change.
😭😭😭🥺🥺
I don't know why, but I really like the quiet 70s shopping centre aesthetic.
Its pretty loud compared to todays lame brown, black, grey and white colors
Hayden Steder lmao literally everything is colorful theses days. Are you colorblind
@@jasj122 you ever go into a modern mall?
Hayden Steder I just went two days ago lol. Everything is colorful but maybe it isn’t enough for you
lol
When you have a dollar general in your shopping mall, that’s a sign there’s something wrong.
There's this abandoned shopping centre near my school called The Flagship (closed in early 2019 cause there was nothing there but a burger king and some shite Sports Direct) and at the front there was £ Land (basically the dollar store but northern irish) and that and a shortcut from Main street to High Street for 5 years.
Also I get nightmares that I'm in it and there's this jet black _thing_ chasing me while I'm bare foot and stepping on glass and blood. It's really scary.
Walmart is a bad omen for a mall.
Green Bay East Town Mall had one. Then it left
Yeah. The mall in my area is going down pretty hard 2 of the anchor stores, (sears and Yonkers, basically just a 2 story clothing store) had shut down and the JCPenney is on thin ice but the scheels (sports store) is okay. As for the rest of the mall, there’s people, but you can tell the place is going down. There finding it harder and harder to find new people to by the space for the empty shop spots. Which is sad, since I’ve been going there when I was a baby.
Idk what the future holds, hopefully something good happens to the malll
Breck Swany The other mall in my area had a Yonkers, but it went kaput. Now they’re turning it into a Dave and Busters😃
JCPenney is almost always the last man standing.
In my town literally there was a Toys R Us and a Sears and they closed and there's a JCpenny right next to them!
Not anymore; they filed for bankruptcy lol
In my town when JC Penny’s leaves it’s usually the first sign that shits going downhill.
Toys R Us has been turned into a furniture store, Sears Still abandoned, JCPenny closed due to Quarantine... Even a store that was a dollar tree won't stop changing stores..
This comment has aged quite well if u ask me
I felt really sad for those old ladies.
a few of them are probably dead by now.
I did too. :(
I can only imagine the memories of younger exciting days flashing through their minds while wandering the halls, only to know it will rot away.
The chapel hill mall that I use to go on dates will soon meet the same fate.
those ladies probably cried for ever because they were so sad.
Our mall in our town is also dying 😞 Whenever we went on a school trip every week you'd see a store in business and the next week that same space would either be replaced with another business or empy the next. Sad.
TheInterweb'sMaster Murphy crossing
In Texas is dying
Its sad to see a mall slowly die. Watching something go from a living thing, to a memory is hard. The reality is even harder, as its usually forever.
A mall near me is slowly dying it is really sad to see it looks like the last day footage of this mall every day
4:21 “Mall Walkers” club, essentially elderly folks that use malls as safe spaces to do their exersize and socialize; air conditioned, indoors, restroom locations known, and food, all in one place.
Man, now that’s how you make drone footage!
Well char you will get old to darlin!,All of you juvenile delinquents WILL GET OLD and a LOT faster than you think!.
These ✨boomer✨ comments are hilarious, they weren’t even saying anything rude, and they got offended 💀💀💀 delinquents? 😂🤚
@@packingten friend, elder, wise sage, distinguished elderly citizen… I was simply stating something that I’ve noticed that is common while watching those videos that most malls tend to have Mall Walking clubs.
It’s a very smart club idea that should start up again, much more interesting way of getting your miles in, people watching and practically less hassle than going to a gym overall.
@@laneyhesse8102 Stop embarrassing my generation with dumb ass overused emojis.
Imagine being like
"Gtg to church brb"
"Wheres it at"
"The mall"
My parent’s church bought a mall lol
Lol that’s normal where I’m from
That's just an average Sunday in the Philippines. lol
@@hsc894 Lol yeah I’m from the Philippines
my friends church moved to the only mall in town, and other stores have been closing like crazy
someone needs to bring back fredricktowne mall so i have somewhere to go when fsk closes😭😭
These abandoned malls are so sad, so much potential wasted. This structure was somebody's dream once. Now it's just completely trashed. :(
Amazon baby. Shop from your laptop. No need to go driving around only to find that what you want isn't available.
Amazon sucks. I used to use it but the shipping costs nearly robbed me blind, and for the amount of shopping I do it's not worth it to pay for Prime. Anyhow, there's something to be said for actually going out and buying items right away without waiting around for them to come in the post.
@@JarethTheGoblinKingForever Yeah. It is nice to be able to get what you're looking for same day. And to be able to see it before buying. I needed a lawn mower belt couple weeks back. Couldn't find it anywhere, not Lowe's, not Sears, nowhere. Amazon...boom...there it was. I does kinda suck knowing that I'm helping to make Bezos disgustingly rich, though.
Jeff Jeff - You're absolutely right. However, at one time or another each town with a mall used to have a vibrant downtown/main street where you could go shopping and support local business people. Then malls started moving in, bringing in national stores and perceived safety and convenience, but killing the local businesses. Now malls have been overbuilt, and they've had their heyday. There will be less malls everywhere. There will be some surviving upscale malls and a few low-end discount malls, but big box stores and internet retailers are already here as the next wave. You may remember when malls were not just for shopping, but as a social center. Families and youths used to meet others there, shop , sit or hang out at the food court. Some older dinosaurs may remember doing those same things at a city's downtown area or a local diner. Those days have disappeared as society has changed. People are less social, except online. Leaving the house (and wi-fi) is often a last choice for some.
That's true, still very sad, though. It used to be a day trip and a way to socialize with my friends, going to the mall. It wasn't just a bunch of stores, it was a community hub. Now I can just sit in bed all day browsing Amazon. It's not the same. But I love the architecture in these malls. It would be nice to see them repurposed so people can still have a hangout place that gets them away from the technology and into the real world once in a while. They could become anything. A library, a community club for arts and classes, a place for parties, anything. People do everything online these days and it's depressing. I mean, I like youtube as much as the next guy but sometimes I want to go out and do something real, not waste my entire life looking at a screen and then be a senior citizen wondering why I threw away the best years of my life.
I was born & raised in Akron, OH & as a kid witnessing the fall of it, it was heartbreaking. My mother always took me & my sisters shopping here & to take Christmas pics with Santa😔
My favorite mall is dying slowly but not really
Girl same. I was born in the 80s. Grew up in Norton and Barberton. And Rolling Acres was the place to be! My mom, sister and I continued to shop there even through that heartbreaking decline. Because of the nostalgia. I remember how badly tore up the parking lot got. And when the Penny's outlet finally closed. It was so sad.
I went to Chapel Hill a couple months ago and it's on life support, but it's never really been as good as summit or rolling acres.
Yes, but I suspect that while the mall was doing well in the 70’s and 80’s, Akron’s city core was dying.
I also went to that same mall. My aunt used to work at JCPenney when it was the last store left.
That footage of the mall’s last day is indeed creepily surreal. From what I can tell, the person filming seems like the only person left in the mall. And plus the music makes the whole thing even more eerie. It is quite sad, but pretty haunting at the same time
5:30 I love that sound. Wish I could find an abondoned mall, hack the speaker system, play some music and just sit there listening to music as it echoes through the building.
That's the trick. . Just play it with a electronic echo. . . Sounds just like a dead mall.
*Reverb*
Sad sounds. All the memories made there. :(
With the buzzing going on in the distance
If you like that sound, you should check out Palm Mall. It a great vaporwave mall music album, and you can find it in full on TH-cam.
Tim Dimoff: "There is a spirit here, there is a soul here, and that spirit and soul will not allow this place to die"
_2 months later_
*This mall is closed, we are sorry for any inconveniences*
Bill Williams is dead
Me: u r immortal
Rolling Acres doesn't exist anymore, it has been demolished a couple years ago.
julosx just looked that up, interesting.
2 years later!
The mall is torn down and leveled! Except for the Sears and Target sections!
The spirit was on vacation it was tired of doing all the work
One day kids will ask what a mall is
Not in the Philippines, because malls have been a part of every Filipino's lives
@@fernandezmarkbrianc.2542 malls are the all-in-one go to for filipinos, malls in the philippines have everything and i mean EVERYTHING!!!!! heck you can even buy a condominium unit in the mall. hungry in the philippines but don't want to spend too much in a resturant? Too many fastfood places to choose from. The posibilities and choices are endless.
Why are we fighting?
@@DrNoobisthebestyoutuberever Because for some reason the internet is where everyone directs all their negative energy. Probably because they're cowards IRL who have no other way of expressing their frustrations.
Butter Johnson yeah your right
I know this video is over 2 years old but I love everything about rolling acres mall. In the late 90s and early 2000s I spent pretty much every weekend at rolling acres mall. I lived right outside of Akron and as a teenager it was fun to go there. The Target was awesome, I shopped at JC Penney’s outlet. The arcade was outdated and toward 2003-2006 it started going really really downhill and we stopped going because there was so much crime going on. I remember when the escalator was shut down and the heat was turned off. I left the Akron area in 2010 but that mall was part of my teenage years. That food court video is so eerie I remember Wendy’s, and just hanging out all day long. Thank you for this. I’m only 32, and I feel old making this comment but it brings back good memories for me.
Beth 1986 Thanks for sharing this with us. it's a shame it was demolished.
Wow, 32 is old! You were born before Eminem's first CD.
Dexter Haven lets see how you feel when you reach 32 and get called old bud
Incredible Scree Wait until you hit 75, and people call you old fart!
I'll never need viagra. @@Isurvivedthe1990s
My grandpa had a men’s retail store here back in the day called Abbey’s... sad. 😕 My dad still has coat hangers from the store.
That is sad really sad, I’m Maine our mall isn’t doing too well, what I think was our anchor stores (Sears and JCPenny) left due to bankruptcy. I get really sad at the thought of that mall being gone one day like this one, it’s probably not long before online shopping outdoes this one. If I get kids I can’t image them never being able to go to a mall
this is probably my favorite abandoned episode, there's just something so eerie about this place slowly crumbling to the ground that i love
it's like my dreams #edgybrah
@@adams1458 my dreams too ever since I was little
More news about this mall it's now gone. Demolition finished around last year for it. Really Google it really bit the dust like Schuylkill which you can also Google.
The name Rolling Acres Mall sounds like something out of a Disney or Nick show
Clarimax for some reason it reminds me of Dawn of the Dead.
U mean Apartment complex
Its aka rolling afros mall
No, it sounds more like a retirement home..
Sounds like a Wiz Khalifa mixtape
Nicely done. I admit to watching this through a skeptical lens as I'm a long time resident of Akron, but you conveyed its history well. Sorry to say, if you did not know, or for others watching, the mall was demolished two years ago, not long after the city denied a contract to rent the building as a film set for a post-apocalyptic movie due to health hazards.
You've gained a new subscriber. Thanks for your respectful coverage of a place that is part of my childhood.
@Danielle ... I live an hour west, in Ashland. We went to Rolling Acres a couple times when I was a teen - I bought a Homecoming Dance dress there in 1986. What is now on the land where it was?
@@sarahcleland3637 Hi Sarah, it's now an Amazon distribution centre.
Am I the only one who gets really sad seeing all these abandon malls? I just had a lot of good memories shopping and spending time with friends at them.
I live a few blocks from this mall, so sad to see it deteriorating over time. I had no idea there was storage/recycling centers over there though. That whole side of town is a ghost town, to be honest. Nothing but no name restaurants that come and go, check cashing places, pawn shops, a aldi, NTB, a taco bell, and endless boarded up storefronts. I used to go to this mall as a child and shit really went downhill. Chapel Hill mall may be next....
Went in Chapel Hill for the first time in years the other day (used to work at Macy's)... It made me want to cry a little seeing it closed. Don't see much hope for the place.
Why do you think that is ? Be honest !!!!!!!!
US Urban planning are really bad in general. If we look at high density areas in Europe, Asia, or South America. We could see shopping mall keep thriving since a single shopping mall have tens and thousands of residents living next to their property or 5 minutes walk.
Suburban mall is a time bomb even when it's started.
Yeah, seeing all the hustle and bustle in the old footage and seeing it now makes me sad. Now we're seeing a return to smaller retail in downtowns and city centres - big, bloated suburban malls are pretty much dead but are a very interesting historical study.
It's sad that this mall closed considering I live in Akron
The gangs were a problem way before the time that you mentioned. A big reason it closed was because no one felt safe there, with all the gang activity and crime.
He did mention that🤦🏻♂️
"Gangs'...in Ohio. Lol!
Peter Piper so bloods and crips are youths, not gangs?
ChristianGamer when it goes black you won’t go back
@@drumdude46 There are gangs everywhere. Cleveland and Cincinnati have a much higher crime rate than NYC and LA combined. Don't assume that Ohio is all white country folks.
When I was a kid this was the spot to meet chicks. I remember watching this mall slowly die.
It must hurt.
@Alchemica Blackwood / How is that funny? He is talking about himself. He is not a "chick" and was not going there to meet guys.
Alchemica Blackwood you’re fucking stupid
@Alchemica Blackwood you're an ass
@Alchemica Blackwood You make no sense! How brain dead! It is obviously for BOTH to meet! WOW, no reading comprehension skills!
That’d be a cool paintball or airsoft complex lol
Uh, please go down to your local Armed Forces Recruiting Center and sign UP. That would be cool.
@@HighSpeedNoDrag nah
Ive heard that people have used it before for airsoft. Just unofficially. I went exploring there before they tore it down and found bbs everywhere
@@HighSpeedNoDrag Imagine comparing putting your life on the line with the chance of being killed at any moment to shooting some BBs at one another.
@@JohnSmith-mk5jt Good for practice just don't aim at one another Eyes.
It breaks my heart to see ruined architecture. Even if it isn't your style, it represents a time and I love it for that. A kid of the 70s so I totally appreciate a 1975 structure. I also hate to see how people treated it once closed. So disrespectful. I'm a mall walker due to my asthma outside so I enjoyed seeing those older mall walkers. Our mall is kind of quiet now, but is functioning. Thanks for the research.
I agree. The people that ruin structures like this will never even install a single telephone pole in the ground, or contribute a single man-hour to ANYTHING pertaining to societal function. It would be better for EVERYONE, if a fellow gang member put a bullet between their eyes.
Sometimes, people matter more than things. Sometimes, things matter more than people. It depends which people.
@Alchemica Blackwood wtf
@Alchemica Blackwood delusion. Convince yourself.
@Alchemica Blackwood literally everything you are thinking right now. Everything you believe really. Well not everything, just on the topic you went for in that comment
@Alchemica Blackwood ohhh ok It was a joke. I thought you were being real. Lol that's actually really great slskks I'm ironic half the time as well
Update: Rolling Acres Mall has been demolished
Actually
the cool kids Actually what?
S h a r k J e s u s nvm
Sad
It’s being torn down slowly
Why does this remind me of the Starcourt from Stranger Things🤔🤔
Bill n Ted's
No
It was scary to see Gwinnett Place Mall in all of its 80s glory. The place is a ghost town. Scary inside.
As someone who was born in the 80s. Grew up in Norton. And went to this mall almost every day in the 90s. I can say when I saw season 3 of Stranger Things. So much of that set design was spot on reminiscent of Rolling Acres.
I love how the Canadian commentator calls dollar general "Dollarama"
5:06
That’s because he does know not too much about dollar general
He also pronounced Dill-ards as Dilly-ards. And Wads-worth as "Wades-worth" 🤣. That's cute.
Probably because Dollarama is our biggest dollar store chain here. Them and Dollar Tree are about the only franchise dollar stores here (that I know of). We used to have a couple of others like "A Buck or Two", but they got bought out by Dollarama, as some locations that had Buck or Two's are now Dollaramas.
Hey man, Dollarama is giant across Canada. It’s a catchy name, and the go to dollar store in the country.
It's fun to look back at the good times when malls ruled, but sad to look at how many have disappeared. Malls are following the footsteps of drive-in theaters which also are a relic of the past. History channel should do a series on "Malls Today, Gone Tomorrow"
knifevandal I have a drive in where I live.
You know these malls destroy town and city centres right? Retail space is becoming less and less relevant. Look at the UK practically everyone is shopping online I expect this trend will roll out across the western world as people become more prudent, so out of town shopping malls will almost certainly all die, amazing to think this will happen considering they used to be the future but I suspect people will come to look back on them and wonder how they were ever viable being so expensive to run and far away.
Where do you people live? Because the malls where I am are as busy as ever.
Not in every state. They’re still popular in much of Southern California.
For that series, "Malls Today Gone Tomorrow" really is a good idea. Maybe History Channel should go for that though sadly it's a sad state of affairs for History Channel these days.
2:24 Did he just say "Dillyards"?!
He probably thought one of the l's was an i. LOL, or ioi for him.
No, he didn't. He literally didn't say that.
@@Anti-HyperLink Yes he did say Dilly-ards.
yup 😂
Dilly Dilly!
I spent a lot of time here as a teenager in the early 90s, and watching this has a heavy, nostalgic, emotional effect!! 😔😢 no matter how many times I see the pictures, or watch the videos, it’s totally surreal to me! I still live 10 min away, and it’s been hard seeing so many areas around me crumble in this manor... It’ll definitely be interesting to witness the changes when Amazon fully takes over the old “ Rolling Acres Mall” area 😏
I feel like this place is cursed
Murders, deaths, gunshots and sears
If that’s so, then all malls are cursed.
Lol whats wrong with Sears?
@@rhettolivierpiccio4457 I always loved Sears, but they’re stores have been pretty shitty for the past ten years, they have gone bankrupt and almost all of their stores are gone, and the remaining ones are train wrecks. In southern Maine, our mall lost Sears back in 2019
I'm from PH, I don't have experience with Sears or any type of store that is wrong, the only exception of me visiting Sears would be Google Earth.
@@rhettolivierpiccio4457 PH as in Philippines?
My dad works at the Amazon facility that stands on the site where Rolling Acres used to be. There’s no trace of it now. I have such fond memories of going here at Christmas as a child in the early to mid 90s, and it was so much fun.
isnt the former sears building still there?
@@bigburgerboi2005yes it is. It's now used as a storage facility
What they don't tell you is that peop,e were getting robbed regularly in the parking lot. People were scared too go there.
Well why wouldnt they hire security or officers to patrol the parking lot?
Reminds me of the mall from dawn of the dead
Is that one still open? I actually have friends in special effects who worked on that film, as well as the lesser known one 'Day of the Dead' Two of them are partners in KNB Effects who do the effects for 'Walking Dead' (although 'N' is one of the producers of the show, not necessarily involved in the effects)
@ nonvolt, O said the same...
Its the monroeville mall, it looks nothing like it did before, but still interesting.
That mall was in Pittsburgh, PA!
It’s very much still open and thriving in Monroeville, PA.
Business: dies
Amazon: *fortnite victory royale dance on grave*
You already know Amazon got all them V-Bucks
lol 😂😂😂
ColorblindBoi we know that already
ColorblindBoi amazon gets victory royale every time
I live in Akron
This video has been recommended to me for a while now and finally got to watching it and this is my new series
Thanks!
@@BrightSunFilms due to online shopping malls are slowly dying out
Reminds me of the fate of the mall here in Long Beach, CA. Started off with a lot of hype with plans that the mall would serve as an anchor to revitalize the downtown area. Slow action by the city council plus the closing of the nearby Naval base contributed to the slow decline of the mall. The three anchor stores were JC Penney, Montgomery Wards and Buffums.
The mall made an appearance in Madonna's movie Desperately Seeking Susan when Madonna's character goes into a music store. The mall also had a murder occur during business hours when a woman working the food court was nearly decapitated by her estranged husband. That happened when the mall was full of shoppers. Much like Rolling Acres mall toward the end of the LB malls life there were few tenants; a dollar store and social services for veterans and women and children. At the end the only power to the mall were the lights. The fountain and escalators had long been shut down. The Long Beach Plaza was bought by Developers Diversified Realty in 1999 and demolished the following year. The only part of the mall that remains is the two story parking structure. The property has since reopened as Long Beach City Place. Even this maybe in jeopardy as the Wal-Mart that anchored one side of City Place was closed last year.
Fun Fact: During the LA riots the mall was used as a base of operations by the National Guard. The mall had thick concrete walls and easy to secure openings that made it ideal for the National Guard to use.
I was unaware of that it was a former mall! As a LB Resident.
So sad! :( I was a sailor stationed at the Long Beach naval shipyard from Jan-June, 1988. Long Beach Plaza was one of my hangouts. I used to hang out in that mall all the time, eat at that same food court or sometimes go to Mickey Ds down the street. sometimes i would catch the RTD to Lakewood mall. I would go behind Lakewood Mall to the movie theater(i saw Good Morning Vietnam there). I heard it's no longer there. On some weekends i would go to Cherry beach or Seal beach further down the shore. I was 19-20yrs old at the time.
I brought some of my shoes out of Long Beach plaza back in 1988. The mall had it going on then. I use to buy my dress shoes from PayLess and my tennis shoes from Foot Locker. There used to be promotions going on at that mall all the time. I was in a drawing one time for a car giveaway. The dealership was giving away a 4-speed convertible(i cant remember the car or the dealership). But they passed out fake car keys and if your key opened the door, you won. There was a long line of people(including me) who tried to open that damn car without success. Well the drawing was almost over and the 5th from the last person in line won. I couldn't drive stick shift at that time anyway and if i won, somebody was going to have to drive me back to the base...LOLOLOL. Great memories of living and being stationed there, never had a chance to go to San Pedro but i went to Carson Mall in DEC, '88 and it was huge. Is it still around??
I remember going here with my mom and brother back in the 80's and early 90's. This, Chapel Hill Mall, and Summit Mall were all awesome and like wonderlands during Christmas.
So this was yet another place that began it's downfall from reduction of sensible security. Whether domestic or foreign violence, disease, etc, all of this crap begins to infect when the standard protection wanes anywhere. What a shocker.
It’s sad because Chapel Hill is headed in the same direction as Rolling Acres. They both used to be so good. At least Summit and Belden are very good malls still
Ben Bond yea many malls were memorable during Christmas back then
Should have gotten army reserve dudes for security.
eddfan999 good idea but nobody to pay for it
@citizen-x Archie! I totally forgot about that, along with the Easter Bunny there. Archie was HUGE! Wow, I miss those days.
It's religion to always come back to this video every once in a while.
Glad I’m not the only one
According to Dan Bell's video on this mall, there was a point where cops actually intervened at some point. The mall didnt have security at this point, but they sure as hell had a bunch of cop cars driving around nearby.
Faze of 1337planet I’ve seen dans video and it was the owner of the storage company next to the mall who called the police on Dan while he was in the abandoned mall making his video!!
Luckily, Dan was able to get the footage he needed; he got every section except for the Sears wing, and I suspect he was headed there from the Dillard's wing when the cops found him and escorted him out...
That video of the old people made me sad
Yea That Was Pretty Sad
Maria Deluca I think this is the saddest Abandoned video ever. :(
I'm not quite there but almost. I hope I never wear my polyester elastic waist pants up around my chest and white sneakers.
"Timothy was found dead..."
*banana toy ad*
FORTNITE SHADOW LEGENDS
"we'll be lost if the mall closes"...that's sad on a lot of levels.
Get over yourselves, you old bats....lol jk
cjsligo Jones: On at least two levels! Get it? Sorry. Bad joke.
Yeah, start going to another mall
@@lendalpiaz4504 The memories of the rolling acres mall will last forever in peoples minds. I will never go to another mall in my life. My cousin even met the love of her life in that mall. If i won 500 million in the lottery i would reopen the mall and let people shop for free!
@@tmo4330 I'm sorry to hear that. It would be a gross waste of money
why do i watch these before bed ahhh
Sadonkers Pretty same
Same
Same
same ;-;
I'm in bed lol
I stumbled on to this video by accident. What an imaginative topic for a video, very interesting!
Agreed Tom, not sure why this popped up in my suggestions, but I'm glad it has.
Wait till you see other dead mall vids, or abandoned places vids. It is strangely addictive, especially if you are from the era of the "hay day" of the malls. I grew up in the '70s and '80s etc. and malls were THE place and it brings me back to my youth. Good times and I have fond memories of it.
One of the vids in this one was credited to a well known and put together channel "This is Dan Bell". He is one of the most famous "Dead Mall" explorers, but he's done all kinds of other things, like scummy hotels/motels, mansions, abandoned houses, stories of haunted places. There is a whole dead mall video culture out there and it is strangely fascinating.
@@MrBilld75, thanks mate, I can clearly see I'm NEVER going to get away from my computer. At least not in the foreseeable future. Appreciate the feedback. I'm also a 70's child and it amazes me even today how different the still active malls are to what I remember them growing up. Most of these places seem to be trapped in a certain place and time, it's nostalgic and eerie at the same time.
@@peter.24.7 Yeah, exactly, it is a "snapshot in time" yeah. Like they are frozen relics and it is nostalgic and eerie at the same time, yeah. Good description. Truth be told, I have imagined living in one of these abandoned malls. I think it could fun. All those wide open spaces, lots of natural light from the skylights. You could shoot some hoops, play some floor hockey, cook some eats in the food court etc. Lol. You got it all really. They've found homeless people living in abandoned malls actually. If I had to and was homeless, I sure could think of far worse places to be, than a mall.
@dave smith Yeah, I spent a good portion of my teenage years at the mall. Arcade and food court mostly. Hanging with friends etc. Even if we didn't hang at the mall, we would usually meet there anyway.
Imagine being someone in the 80s and coming to this mall regularly, drinking smoothies and listening to Kenny Rogers playing in the background, totally unaware of what would happen to it decades later.
Jake, the Mall is getting demolished now. Apparently the fountain in the middle of the mall is being saved or moved.
Technology Spotlight that's gone too ;n;
I know. It's sad.
Fountain is still there but it will be destroyed and taken away
I wonder what will go in it's place.
Demolition is complete... all that remains are the outer walls and the four anchor buildings that formerly housed the Target, Macy's, Dillard's, and Sears (JCPenney donated their building to the city of Akron to be demolished along with the mall itself)... #RIPRollingAcresMall
1975-Rolling Acres Mall opened/ Sears opened
1976-JCPenney opened
1991-Fight near Rolling Acres cinema
1995-Target opened/ stores and cinema closed/JCPenney Outlet Store
2000-Forest City Enterprises planning to sell mall for $33.5 million to Banker's Trust/ Mall sold again for $2.75 million
2003-Mall at 50% occupancy/ Cinema reopened
2006-Target and Dillard's closed/ Mall at 30-40% occupancy/ Fountain shut off
2007-Merchandise stolen by homeless man
2008-Macy's and cinema closed/ Escalators shut off/ Mall website offline/ Power cut short/ Rolling Acres Mall abandoned
2010-Premier Ventures purchased the mall for $3,000,000
2011-Sears closed/ Mall starting to tear apart/ Man trying to steal copper was killed after electrical box exploded/ Timothy Kern dead
2013-JCPenney closed/ Rolling Acres Mall dead
2018-All that remains are the four anchor buildings that were formerly Target, Macy's, Dillard's, and Sears, with everything else demolished...
2009 Auctioned Off Online
@Based Thucydides yep. It's quite sad.
7 know how sad this is
@Based Thucydides Malls just close down because there's too many close to each other. Also too much rent+ overhead to pay for businesses there. Not very sustainable now that there's online stores with cheap shipping.
"Daddy, what's a mall?"
"It's like an Amazon where you can buy anything. Only you get it the same day."
"Like drone delivery?"
"Yes, son. Like drone delivery." 🙄
tron3entertainment It's like an Amazon, but you go there to buy stuff instead of going online
Dad, what do you mean by "go there"?
It's like walking to the kitchen, but you go to another building instead of just the kitchen.
Oh, ok.
The ironic part about this comment is, that they’re are tearing down this mall, and building an amazon factory in its place.
Lolol
Closing down this is so sad😔😔😔😔😔😔😥😥😥😥😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
ok boomer
5:30 Honestly, the video could be this guy turning the camera around for 10 minutes with that sweet song playing in this empty and full of memories mall, I would watch it over and over again.
>Dollarama
>Dollar General
Your Canada is showing.
The accent sticks out a mile. But mine does too.
Dilliards
Isn’t dollar general Canadian owned?
EVERYTHING in Canada is American-owned, even Tim Hortons. I have never seen anything so militantly-named in Canada. Mostly we have Dollar Tree, Dollarama and the (American-owed) Great Canadian Dollar Store.
ferociousgumby
....pretty sure Dollar General bigwig lives in Montreal...
I've been inside this mall. Such an amazing experience
same i remenber going there to get my blood drawn
Natertot Games I meant while it was abandoned lol. Actually got arrested
Zimmy 66 LIKES 😨
YOU WENT INSIDE THIS MALL? WHILE IT WAS ABANDONED?
2020 update: almost the entire mall has been demolished and replaced with a Amazon facility and there Is only one anchor store
remaining and it is a recycling plant
Nice!
Fuck Amazon
@@BMUSIK101 What did Amazon ever do to you to get you pissed off?
Chenglor91 ruins our childhoods.
@@Chenglor91 Because monopolies suck?
i love malls trying things on and the smell when you first walk in, something i will miss :(
I will miss it too.
Nicely done! as someone from the area, I can say that this is a very well done way of telling the story of the mall, especially since this is apart of my childhood! But for the video itself, I think this is the best episode of Abandoned yet.
Thanks so much Riley!
I agree 100%
This was a particularly enjoyable Abandoned episode, because we got to see so much of the empty premises and hear so much about what it was like once abandoned. I know footage and info of that kind isn't always available, but it was really cool to see it here!
With all the horrible things that happened there I would not feel comfortable running a storage business let alone a recycling one at that location.
tighten up soldier
It’s so sad to see malls die out like this, all of the malls in my area have been doing very well since the 60s
I live near this mall, it became known as Rolling Afros mall after awhile. I think we know why shoppers stopped going. In the final years it became a place were drug dealers met their customers.
LMAO, rolling afros
The blacks destroy everything they touch
@@ohguy1991 I would say the same thing about white people.
Erock racist fuck, I could say the same thing about your kind.
Yeah, ibet you can't leave your doors unlocked in your black neighborhood. White people can, cause we're not theiving scumbags
This video is over 2 years old but is still interesting for me to watch. Great job on it!
As for the building, it was announced a few days ago that Amazon would be moving into the mall, either tearing it down or renevating it. They bought it for only $600,000, but will use $100,000,000 to renovate it.
My mom would take me there when I was little and we use to have to look under the car for homeless people that would say you ran over them... :)
OOOOOH me goodmenss
@@snapnclap Homeless people were running a racket where they'd hide under people's cars and then claim you hit them/ran them over to try and get money out of you.
If you ever "run over" a homeless scammer; just keep going.
I love watching these things now in 2022. I was born in 2002 and I currently am sitting in the NEW Amazon located EXACTLY where the old Rolling Acres used to be in Akron Ohio 🤗
This mall's fate is similar to what happened to the Bannister Mall in southeastern Kansas City.
It was initially very popular, although the only way that it could be reached was by car via I-435. It also went into decline around the same time as this mall. The last time I was at Bannister Mall in 2006 was a really creepy experience. Half of the mall was closed off, and there were almost no stores open. There was literally only one place open in the food court, and it didn't even look occupied by anyone.
Bannister Mall closed in early 2007, and was torn down in 2009, mainly for redevelopment, but also it was becoming a blight on the surrounding area. After it closed, but before it was torn down, it apparently became a bit of a haven for gang activity and homeless squatters. With the closing of the nearby Super-Walmart in late 2008, the whole Bannister Mall area looked more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a center for retail.
Bannister Mall closing was sad..now it's owned by Cerner
Marin Granger _ oh yeah I forgot about that place!!! I went there for a birthday party....it was suppose to be better then Oak Park Mall
I remember that mall! It was creepy near the end
Bethany Cook Yeah! Oak Park is the only mall close to me now, hopefully it won’t be abandoned since Nordstrom is leaving.
Flame The Hybrid ;u; I really like Oak Park Mall but I doubt that mall will close anytime soon..i think it will stand the test of time
last time I was at Rolling Acres mall was in like 2002 or 2003. I was waiting in the car for 2 of my friends to go in and buy something and they came back out and said that someone got stabbed in the checkout line ahead of them..that place was extremely ghetto
edm Dang...
No way
J e s u s that’s horrible o-o
edm: The real reason RA mall collapsed!
aninjawaffle98 schwarzer ehrenmann
kinda reminds me of the mall in the last of us game.
I miss that game I don't have a ps4 and my PS3 is Broken
some things are diffrent
I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING OH MY GOD
I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING OH MY GOD
not really well maybe for some people
There’s a mall here in Sioux Falls, SD that is doing incredibly well and just keeps growing. And Sioux Falls is smaller than Akron. It’s not about online shopping killing malls, it’s about poor management and a very unsafe environment for families to shop.
33% Comments from people who miss the mall
33% Comments finding the mall creepy
33% People blaming minorities & liberals for ruining everything
1% Jesus comments
Damn liberals ruined my life. May God bless you.
Ben Logic&Facts Shapiro what about comments saying internet shopping killed the mall??
Ben Logic&Facts Shapiro Destroy them with facts and knowledge
@@Rick-S-6063 Sell that in Syria, Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo or to the millions raped, robbed, maimed and killed by others or orphans or the parents of murdered children.
@@SBCBears None of which happen in American Malls. . .
-TVs Frank
The Rolling Achers Mall is currently being demolished LIKE YESTERDAY!
Snotty brat.
Chapel Hill Mall, one of Akron's two other malls, will soon share the same fate as Rolling Acres... the Macy's and Sears there are already gone, and I saw on a video about Chapel Hill Mall that the JCPenney, the last surviving anchor, will be closing soon as well :(
Glamour Girl 212 😕 very sad
Kip Paseo 1o9
Thicc Boi da fuq
Mom and pop stores went by the way side, replaced by strip malls. Now we tear up about the loss of our strip malls.
Parking meters and suburban Malls, killed off the High Street.
Nail in the coffin was internet why go to the mall when you can order it online cheap.
You don't know what a strip mall is. This is not a strip mall.
@@edwardmartinez199 before internet there was mail order. Neither satisfy the ability to inspect and compare before you buy, nor the instant gratification of going to a store and having the item that same day. Unfortunately, many things are only available online, but it is not my preferred method of shopping.
@@drl5002 mail order was utter garbage no where near the level of the internet.
“JCPenny seems to be all that’s left…”
Well that aged well…
4:12 There's a spirit to this mall, there's a soul here.
Truth: There's no spirit to this mall, there's no soul there, it's just a big building.
Well, now there isn't, as I understand it's being torn down.
Tell that to all the man hours that went into designing, planning, and building that place from the ground up by all the architects, electricians, workers, and the culture that emanated from that place, during its peak. That is the soul he was referring to.
@@MarcABrown-tt1fp The same can be said for the carcass of any poor old creature including humans. Once it's gone, it's gone.
creepy building
Thanks for ruining a touching speach with reality
Your videos have improved 110% in quality and I look forward to seeing many, many more. The song at the end of this video as well; definitely keep that too. Fits the overall tone of this series. Keep it up bro!
I'll second this. I've watched your entire Abandoned series and this installment is hands down the most polished and professional. Also, the vast majority of the script stayed on subject, and any diversions were closely related to the subject. Nice job.
i 3rd that comment
What a great place to play hide and seek with boys
And girls
This mall was featured in Naughty Dog’s “The Last Of Us: Left Behind” as the Colorado Mountain Plaza
Wait seriously?
MSE isn’t the exact same floor plan obviously but it follows it so closely I’ve seen people mix up the two when shown photographs of them
Really?
As someone from the area, it's not at all just the mall, it's the entire surrounding area. This place was awesome in the early to mid 90's. It was truly sad to watch an entire street go straight to the depths of hell. It's not worth $10 for the amount of remodeling, rewiring you'd have to do. You'd still be stuck with a God awful location and virtually no takers on businesses wanting to set-up.
rite everyone is going to summit mall
even chapel hill mall is dying
+Michael Thompson Ohio is dying
Ohio is a no man's land. It's just full of farms and small towns.
not true i live in akron and we are far from the small farmtown people think of when they think of ohio
there's something eerie/sinister about that "Premier Ventures" company buying the mall... doing nothing with it... not paying the bills or taxes... not showing any interest in rejuvenating it, but at the same time, not wanting the county to take it back or auction it. Very odd. And never revealing why they bought it in the first place... being so far away and having no offices or other business in the state. It's.... creepy.
And claiming they were from another state on the other side of the country. I'm guessing they are a front for the city, and that the city had wanted to claim it for years, and just found a way. City councils are more often than not filled with some of the shadiest citizens.
Tax breaks. Money laundering. Many motives, but unlikely anything supernatural
@@aylbdrmadison1051 The city would not be interested in taking on the huge financial burden of owning it.
Government corruption. Government is the biggest murderers of people and the economy that exist.
worth looking into.
I drive for a trucking company that regularly picks up from the recycling company he mentioned. That space is creepy
This makes me sad that a mall that was so high and booming eventually becomes dead and abandoned
Anything: is abandoned
BSF: It’s showtime.
4:46 You know your business is fucked when the only customers remaining are just a bunch of old farts reminiscing the good old days.
The pack of old ladies wandering through the mall was hilarious.
xD
Looks like Rape City.
Reptilian Bilderburgers Rude, but that's pretty funny XD.
Chad deez what's that
As of January 2019 nearly the entire site has been demolished. In a twist of irony, a statement was issued by the city of Akron that Amazon had officially acquired the land of the former demolished mall in July 22, 2019. Construction on the new distribution center will begin in September of 2019.
If anyone has not watched the Dan Bell exploration video of Rolling Acres you need to, it's incredible to see
the end credits are LIT AF.
great video, as usual.
+Nicole Ikr, I spend so much time on the end credits haha
lay off the drugs
"LIT AF"
Oh god the cringe...
trevortornadoes122 lol no
I clicked on this because I remember going to this mall. It was not to far from my Grandmas house in Barberton. My grandparents and aunts and uncles are buried in a cemetary just down the road. on a bright sunny day in Oct. of last year my mom wanted to visit gravesides there but we were told it was not safe in that area. What a shame its not safe to visit loved ones graves .
it's always sad to see a mall die so slowly.
used to have a mall that was hopping back in the eighties and in the late 1900s it slowly started to die, one store after another would move out and nobody was maintaining the building or even mopping the floors anymore and then all the sudden they started taking light bulbs out to save electricity and then they drained and turned the fountain off in the courtyard.
An old friend of mine and I went back to the mall for just old-time sake and only two stores were left and we were literally the only ones in the whole Mall and there was so many empty stores and literally garbage just piled up around the corners like the two stores that were left were just throwing their garbage out in the main hall.
One of the girls working at one of the last stores said that they busted a couple homeless people screwing eachother in one of the empty stores and discovered that a bunch of homeless people were living in empty stores.
About a month later they closed the place up.
I'll never forget going to that mall in the eighties with my parents during Christmas when the place was so happy and full of life and all the stores were packed and then to see it covered in dust and dirty and trash in the hallways was just so sad.
Rusty Nail aww...
this also gives me mad starcourt mall vibes
stooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPP!!!!!!!!! STOP!!!!! STOP RIGHT NOW!!!!! AHHHHGHSHSHWHJEJEU3U3U3I3URJRBRIENEIRBEUHRUE
You know he’s not from the area when he says “Wades-worth” lololol I lived in walking distance to this mall and it always had a creepy feel
turn it into an airsoft or paint ball fighting place.
Magician12345 that'd be so lit
That is such a great idea! Problem is that there is probably a ton of mold and other disgusting things in the mall that will cost a lot to clean.
The mall is going to be demolished by the city. Paintball dreams ruined ;_;
it was demolished in the end of October 2016.
A great idea, except that taxes and lack of customers would doom it almost from day one. Laser tag would be awesome there, but again, no $$$ to keep it open. Heck, they cannot even stay open in small storefronts!
A lot of malls are going to look just like this. Sad. We need to go back to shopping in stores and help save them
Did he just say “diLiaRds”
Aaliyah he said diLiaRds
Dude it his accent don’t mock him
Actually yeah it is his accent
Tman exportation Holtmann No, it’s not his accent, he’s just mispronouncing it by adding letters that aren’t there. He actually says it right once.
@@1rockcrawford right thank you I wouldn’t mock him if I knew it was his accent😂
Ayyy you live in Canada! That wasn't a dollarama, it was a dollar general v
30 million people live in Canada, so you're bound to find a few of us on here.
Surprisingly we have those stores and the dollar store with a weird cousin, the dollar tree in the us
I spent a lot of time hanging out at that mall as a youth, great place in it's days.
People will not shop were they fill unsafe.
Hey not cool
My friend is black
...?
I'm they're Black People who won't shop were they don't fill safe.
sure
"After finding a man accidentally electrocuted, police decided not to file charges, as that would be redundant."
Dark...but good lol
Shockingly good move on the cops’ part.
@@waltertomaszewski1083 good one 👍
This was very similar to my local mall. A much bigger mall with 4 stories was built with many anchor stores in the same county. So everyone stopped going to the older and smaller one. But they renovated and basically scrapped the whole architecture and is now basically a small shopping plaza and is doing pretty good
Everyone in northeast Ohio cringed when he pronounced wadsworth as wades-worth
Wadsworth is also in Texas.
Yo u from ohio
Mr gimme that Neck
Cringed just like anyone who’s ever driven through East Ohio.
Got Dillards wrong too
Keith Perrotto I cringed at “dilly- ards”
I remember this Mall, most stop going due to the rise of urban gang traffic. Middle class and wealthier families moved out.
Anything: abandoned
BSF: it’s free real estate
People are LEAVING THE NORTHERN MOST US as its prefered to live in a Warm climate. NOT to worry, the mexicans are Happy to take out leftrovers.
ginger elvira You do know that is only malls not the States people still live in the States & no one is leaving the Northern & if it ever did happen Canada is getting it.
I lived near there in the '80's. It was a nice place and had a great pizza place in the food court. It was one of those places where you would go to buy something and end up buying something else because you could get a great deal on it. Chapel Hill Mall seems to be going the same way as Rolling Acres.
Wasn't it star pizza or something like that? Sold it by the slice n they were huge! The sausage came in the form of tiny chunks Even had a kinda sterotypical italian owner if I remember correctly.