Unicomm Presents - Woodland Mall - Bowling Green, Ohio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- Welcome to WOODLAND MALL in Bowling Green, OH--a forgotten 1987 time capsule that lies off the beaten path and could use some tender loving care.
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I was a student at BG when they opened this place in 1987. I remember when it was new. But it was considered a small kind of B list mall back then. (It was the hey day of malls) We used to call it the "Woodland sMall". I wandered through it a few times when it was first built. The Elder Beerman sign brought back memories of browsing through that store.
It’s definitely really tiny compared with what was up in Toledo at the time. Was it full of normal mall stores when it opened?
@@UniCommProductions yes, accross from the movie theater next to the bathroom and mall office hallway was jolly time arcade, the lab thing used to be professor tinkers toy shop, just passed the movie theater heading to center court was a nail salon and candy store, then the place with the red brick Luca Pizza, next empty spot on the food court was a Chinese place, then a cookie place, rounding the corner on the way to sears were a few clothing stores, but places that never really lasted even since new until you got to sears, the place after and part of sears and before elder beerman was never developed from new until sears came in , in the 2000's... after Elder beerman where the timeless treasures place is used to be Dollar Tree, back when they were in malls and all had green carpet and green and pink neon ......first place after that hallway where the postal thing is was a sporting goods store that became a home goods store, now St. Jullians fitness, continuing on to where the mirrors are nearing the next corner was as you can probably tell a jewelry store, after the hallway with the big red gumball machine where it looks to be sporting goods was Famous Footwear which was there until only a few years ago, then continuing on Was Waldon Books, then Bridal store, another hallway, then the store on the corner to the right of Dunham's was Fiesta hair, other opposite corner was Hallmark Gifts, then DEB a ladies clothing store that became Fashion Bug, or vise versa, then Sam Goody music store, a few empty spots, then Foot Locker, then the food court starts again and first spot was Subway, next one was always full but never lasting names, then jolly time arcade, mall office hallway, then Shoe Sensation, then from there all the way over to Hills was an area that was never developed until it got the restaurant (even new mall was at maybe 85% occupancy) same with the Science Lab, former Professor Tinkers area, it was a blank wall until about the 2000's....with the name brands i mentioned and Hills, Penney's and Elder Beerman it was usually pretty packed for the first 10 years or so, it really turned when Penney's left and other national names followed, as others have mentioned it's too close to Toledo that used to have 4 very large malls, and still has a super regional mall, Frakling Park, with 6 full anchors, 200 stores, full out lots, and even a parking garage.
Another fantastic episode. You guys really deserve way more subs :) Reminds me of some of the malls up here in Ontario albeit the lower performing ones have since gone through refurbishment to keep occupancy high and customers happy.
Aw shucks thank you :) I think this one has gone through so many owners that I don’t think anyone seems to have known how to properly deal with it
I've waited sooo looong for a new unicooommmm
Sorry for the delay; we had a laptop mishap recently that held us up!
Professor Tinker was the best store after Sam Goody's.
A mall this depressing-looking is exactly why I love these videos! Thanks for the tour :D
I'll tell you what, having seen over 30 malls in various states, this one might take the cake as "saddest". It just feels so neglected!
Oh man, Hills. My family shopped at Hills in our home state of Virginia and surrounding areas during the 1980s and 1990s, and although I was quite young during the 80s (born 1982), I do still remember that classic 1980s Hills snack bar smell. I personally consider Hills to be the epitome of 1980s-"flavored" American retail.
I only barely remember Hills-we had Gold Circle in Cincinnati, who became Hills for maybe a couple years before becoming K-Mart. I LOVED Gold Circle though!
I strangely love places like this because it has a classic feel, and those planter benches are borrow-overs from the 70’s early 80’s, if you want to see a real 1987 aesthetic mall which is actually in Downtown Winnipeg, I will add the link
That would be neat to see--although I don't know when we will make it up to Canada, I'm sure it will happen eventually!
I'm surprised the locals are so against the mall. I would rather have a dead mall that's maybe not the best looking than nothing at all.
Eric Eberle I think they view it as an economic dead zone as well, which is why the city council wanted to set the record straight. For whatever it’s worth, it’s not in disrepair inside.
Being from the area and having grown up going to this mall, it’s not that I’m against it, it just makes me sad. There used to be much more life in the mall and more people, but it’s been slowly emptying out over time.
@@mcalcamuggio2 I for sure understand that. My hometown mall circled the drain for years before it finally closed in 2017.
I’m from Bowling Green - Seeing this mo makes me so nostalgic for days gone by, I remember I would always go to the dollar tree store and buy the mystery bag! We will go there every now and then, there is a toy store there too and the guy gave me a free car once! Too many memories…
Hi Kristen,
This video was so nicely done! I love the research you do and congratulations to you and Ron for your work.
Thank you for watching! What a nice thing to say.
Kenny G so smooth. Apparently, we have the same taste in music.
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I like some Kenny g, but the 80s had my fave modern jazz group, Spyro Gyra, also Yellowjackets, David Sanborn, Grover Washington jr and George Benson not to mention Donald Fagens Nightfly album
Another great vid! We actually moved to BG from Clermont Co for a few years a decade ago, so this is another one that hits the nostalgia spot. Can’t wait for the next one!
Clermont County? That’s where I grew up! :)
I went to a Sprint Car show at Woodland Mall back in 1997 and it was awesome then! It's too bad malls like Woodland have declined! On-line shopping has helped contribute to the downfall of shopping malls
The city should encourage and help support local businesses to the mall, I bet you could fill that place up with in line Mom and Pops, including eateries. They should require all tenants be open, open to close regular mall hours. Try to get a grocery store to open in one of the empty anchors, with mall direct mall access.
I agree completely! It’s so close to a pretty big university, and it would be kind of awesome to make it a place where business majors would try out running a business.
@@UniCommProductions That is an awesome idea! they could also bring in highschoolers that are in future business leaders of America or other such programs that teach life skills, while keeping a retail theme.
Good video. Went here this week and was blown away how cool and retro it looked. At first I thought it was a late 60s/early 70s mall and shocked it was 1987 when I was born. The theater was closed and the Sears was still open. I think the flea market thing is a weekend thing IIRC. The sports place was cool and took some nice photos. There was a nice Asian buffet in front of the mall that I recommend too.
Due to the pandemic, the Cinemark theatre closed after 31 years of operation. That’s gonna hurt real bad.
The day I was there, the theater seemed to be the main thing drawing in traffic; this was a couple days after Christmas in 2018. When I read that the theater was closing, I didn’t expect it to remain open at all.
@@UniCommProductions yeah when I used to live nearby that was the only reason I knew of that would bring people in. It’s a shame.
I was just coming to post that
The mall seemed pretty vacant when I went to school there (1993-1997) - we called it "the small". I think we rehearsed a community orchestra in the dead Hills space and I recall seeing a movie there, but otherwise I went to Toledo (once I knew people with cars!). Very interesting to know it was barely 10 years old by the time I graduated.
They still have risers in the old Hills space for something. That mall could have so many uses--it's right next to the university, they should turn the old food court into a bar and use all the old store spaces as private karaoke rooms, throw some pool tables in there, it could be cool!
I went there several years ago on our way home from Cedar Point. It was dead even then. Im surprised it's still there.
I’m inclined to agree-I was really surprised by this place especially when it’s only 30 min away from the bright and cheery Northtowne
I was referred here by another video someone put up a few days ago....I can tell you I worked there for 5 years at the RadioShack and managing a Verizon kiosk between 2007-2012ish. Things you would had noticed weren't there. Spent times flirting with the girls at subway and Claire's, not there. Getting Chinese food owned by the folks who owned the mattress store, they literally fled the state for some reason I wasn't clear. A sports memorabilia store was owned by a white supremacist who was arrested with a stockpile of guns and ammo planning hits on Jewish residents of Michigan.... And the movie theater I've probably seen a hundred movies at is now gone. Not to mention everything else
I live in Perrysburg Ohio, which is about 20 minutes from Bowling Green. That mall screams worn out, tired, and ugly, but they seem to still make a go of it. The Movie theater closed awhile back as did Broken Chains Church. I would imagine if Dunham's and the small Sears store closed, then that could doom them.
The place needs to be demolished and redeveloped but I don't see that happening any time soon.
It’s a bad location for a mall and not a good one for much. It’s in such a weird spot on the edge of town.
@@UniCommProductions it is and it's never been what you would call nice. All the junk in the common areas looks awful.
Ohio must truly be the dead mall state, but I think my state of Pennsylvania maybe the second runner up. Mid-Atlantic states like NJ, PA, MD, DE, VA and also Ohio were "over-malled" and do not have the population growth of some of the sunbelt states to support them. I absolutely love the Occupancy "thermometer" at 3:40. You don't really discuss the architecture of this mall - and it is really ugly on the outside and at best depressingly boring on the inside.
It’s got some interesting elements like those (faded) shiny tiles but in general it’s very plain.
It seemed like it had a cozy kinda feelin to it, liked video
It kinda reminded me of a mall I would have gone to as a kid so I agree! Took me back to a much simpler time.
Wonderful job as always. Any plans to do a video on Liberty Center which includes a significant enclosed mall? What little does exist on TH-cam focuses on the outdoor areas.
I hadn’t considered that! Since we usually focus mainly on malls that aren’t doing very well, that one is a wait and see...but we’ve got some more content from around Cincinnati coming soon. :)
Beautiful voice should do radio
Thank you very much!
i used to work at that elder beerman almost up until it closed. it was dead as hell all the time. i could work a 4 hour shift in the mens department without ringing out ANYONE
It seemed very out of place alongside the other stores in that mall
@@UniCommProductions i mean despite it being dead it got good business, oddly enough, that store alone could have sustained itself and stayed open if it werent for the fact that the whole company filed for bankruptcy and liquidated. i watched a whole video that went into detail about exactly why it went downhill and basically the company was just setting itself up for bankruptcy since like, 2006 or something. i live in bg now and im shocked the mall itself is still open tbh? also that flea market style sort of setup isn't ALWAYS there, its kind of an on and off thing? one saturday a month there is an actual flea market that goes on in that mall which is really assumably the only way it stays open.
@@WillowTnya I think the movie theater helps. Supposedly the guy who owns it is turning a profit, but I can't imagine how. His overhead has got to be incredibly low.
I grew up in BG, that anchor space at the back next to the BiG Fab Lab never had an actual anchor store. There was temporary events and flee market, but never a store, at least in the last twenty years.
There was Steve and Barry’s but they went under
The economic collapse of Ohio, still going on, bye bye GM, has just killed the malls in that state.
Especially the closer you get to Toledo. This one just seemed so sad and forgotten.
Man I bought some of my original BGSU merch at Steve & Barry's in 2008... right before it closes I guess...
I still have some lounging-around-the-house pants that were purchased at Steve and Barry's!
The theater has now also closed, it's sad that Bowling Green at one time had 3 different working movie theaters and now has zero. :(
It was a thriving mall 13 yrs ago
Kristin I haven't been to the "Small" as BG people call it, since 2009 but went there quite often in 98 & 99 when my then Gf, Eloise was a student @ BGSU.
I don't remember there being any access from the rear but the best thing about this mall was it had a merry-go-round straight thru from the main entrance past the "food court" which then had an "amphitheater" behind it.
The only other malls where I've seen a merry-go-round are Eastwood Mall in Niles which a 3 tier carousel and the long gone Southwyck Mall in Maumee.
Gotta wonder how profitable it is now that the movie theater shut down!
I really feel like this place isnt long for this world unless they figure something out--that theater had to have been paying the lion's share of the rent there. Is the Sears Hometown still open?
Your pfp concerns me (not unicomm)
@@jasburger lol
Streets of rage 2 .....AGAIN.love it...stage 5...LOL what the odds😻..how can I not find these remixes?
A lot of them I downloaded from TH-cam--there's a person called IceFerno who makes some great video game remixes along with Plasma3Remixes.
I’ve never seen a mall quite like this one. The owners could be worse but they seem to be selfish; maybe they are profiting but what are they doing to revitalize or bring new business in for the community?
I think a lot of malls with out of town owners suffer from that problem-they’re making best-guesses as someone who is removed from the situation. In the article I quoted in the video, there was a suggestion to use it as a “business incubator” for students at Bowling Green University and I think that’s a really intriguing idea.
Do you know if that Sears is going to stay open? It actually looked kind of nice. But Sears is closing most everywhere. I agree with you that it's really weird to see so much clutter in the hallways combined with so many open stores.
John Franco The Sears is one of their “franchise” Sears Hometown concepts. A lot
Of analysts think that branch of the company -which is independent of Lambert’s fiasco-think Hometown will be around after the demise of Sears. I hope it sticks around-Marion Centre has one too.
im pretty sure that sears is still open
It’s still open!
Nope it outta here
Glad to see got this one out despite the actions of that meddling cat. They always have that much junk in the coridor or was it just for Christmas?
mike mcgregor Apparently it’s a rotating selection but yes, that is what that mall ordinarily looks like. Why they don’t offer, for instance, the person who owns the three “collectibles” stores a larger or an additional space is confusing.
UniComm Productions yea that just makes it look cluttered and empty at the same time.
It makes it look like a flea market. I’m not a fan of it at all.
Wow! Was that an open-for-business Sears store that you recorded? And I’m pretty certain that I saw someone inside the store shopping, too!
I am delighted that you captured that increasingly rare image for posterity.
Kristin, you do a fabulous job of researching and summarizing information about all the malls you visit. In my view, the fact that Woodland Mall has seven different owners over its 30 years of operation is a DEFCON-1 level warning that Bowling Green was simply too small a city (and also way too close to Toledo…) to have ever supported any shopping mall.
As you mentioned, the city is home to Bowling Green State University so it is a small college town with only a total population of approximately +30000 residents. The university faculty headcount is roughly 2000 and the population attending the university is slightly more than 20000 students.
I will point out the blindly obvious fact that the dunderheaded mall developers apparently completely overlooked:
Students don’t have any money.
I’d bet that even back in the lush, halcyon days of the late 1980’s, Woodland Mall could never make a concrete business case that completely closed on profitability.
But they built it, anyway.
The one good thing is that apparently the current mall owner negotiated very carefully and didn’t pay stupid money for the location. They didn’t start out fully under water like some of the notoriously insane do-over mall concepts in Ohio (see: Cincinnati Mills) and so many others in the rest of the country.
It’s certainly not pretty but at least they’re managing to keep the mall operation profitable in their repurposing efforts.
The Sears you saw is a Sears Hometown, which are franchises and separate from Sears Corporate-this one May well outlive the parent company.
I had to resort to some more novel approaches with this one-I have started scouring public records like sales and tax records to fill in the blanks where Newspapers.com fails me-I have good colleagues that we share tips on how to do the best research.
You’re right about college students, and this one is just far enough from campus that they won’t want to walk there either.
Love the videos as most are malls that I have been too. Any plans to do the Lima Mall in Lima, Ohio? That is the mall I went to almost weekly growing up.
Austin Shellabarger we did visit Lima Mall right before Christmas...at the time they were very busy and seemed to be mostly full of stores so other than a serious case of empty anchors it’s actually not doing too badly. Christmas can be deceiving though so I’d definitely be up for going again,.
This mall has gotten a lot worse since I covered it a year and a half ago (I say coverage very loosely because it doesn’t compare to the work you guys put into this).
I noticed that it seemed a tad more vital in your footage-I enjoyed your video a lot, actually!
UniComm Productions Thanks
the movies and im pretty sure big fab lab closed their doors now.
Interesting entrance. The outline reminds me of a Circuit City.
You’re right it does!
well this mall keeping it's self profitable. not pretty but functional. great job as aways!!!
It’s keeping the doors open and the wrecking ball away-I’ll take it. Just leave those wooden bench/planters alone-they’re awesome!
This was one of last built enclosed malls in NWO in 1987. It had a great anchor store in hills but when Wallbastards came to town they soon closed. They had this and three malls in Toledo and the trend setting Toledo portside (opened in 1984 dead mall by 1989)
Yessss Chardonnay by network music is my town tune in animal crossing
Now the theater is closed at this mall so it's a matter of time now before it is gone for good
I guess that would depend a lot on how much other stuff is left in there. They’ve got some really unconventional tenants
@@UniCommProductions I know they used to have a flea market on the weekends but weekdays it's dead. The covid constrictions is what killed the theater. I believe the dunham's is still there and a pawn shop is still there
@@UniCommProductions you should try mall of Monroe in Monroe Michigan. It's almost dead too
I didn’t really think about the fact a lot of those service businesses in there would have had trouble due to COVID too-the dance school, the church , etc
Also, Im taking a wild guess on the other song but maybe streets of rage 2.
You have a great ear! Both other tracks are from Streets of Rage 2.
If the mall is making money, the residents have no right to complain. If it was making no money, different story. Voorhees Town Center (the dead mall portion) should duplicate what Woodland is doing. VTC is absolutely horrible shape right now.
I feel sort of conflicted about my opinion of the state of the mall; it’s occupied and the owners are making money which does probably prevent the place from closing its doors entirely. However some of the decisions they are making does prevent it from improving-the entire inner corridor looks like a flea market. When they still have a decent number of empty spaces I’m not entirely sure why they’re allowing all that random stuff out in the middle like that.
🆒👍👍 U.C. I JUST NOW GOT THE NOTICE OF UR VIDEO!!!
It’s so nice to see your comments every time, that way we know the notifications went out the way they’re supposed to!! :) 🆒🆒🆒
@@UniCommProductions 👍👍 THX. WEN DID U POST THIS VIDEO?
Went live for Patreon last night...public just now.
@@UniCommProductions 👍
@@UniCommProductions INTERSTATE 69 🔥 HOT DAMN!!!! I CUD SAY SOMETHING 'BOUT THAT!!!!!
There is nothing at this mall ... Oddly enough they have a Security Force . And or is patroled by the local cops ... And You will get a speeding ticket . If your not very careful .
You know it's funny...it seems like the deader and emptier the mall is, the more overzealous their security force is. Could be boredom?
@@UniCommProductions I agree . cmn
This place is a dump and should be torn down, and i would rather it be turned into another home depot than stay like it is.
I don’t necessarily disagree-there seems to be so much that would need to be done to it to make it more viable that you’re probably right. It’s a sad little place.