Tri-County Blues

A snapshot of the current happenings at Tri-County Mall of Greater Cincinnati, OH, and a look back at the last few years of the mall's life.

Tri-County Mall in the Cincinnati suburb of Springdale, OH sits quiet and abandoned. Security still patrols (don’t get any ideas, kids), and the mall is still glistening in pristine shape, almost like it is ready to open once again. But the future is cloudy. Until recently, there were pretty solid plans in place. A redevelopment project to turn the enclosed mall inside out, into a mixed use center called Artisan Village. The designs have changed through the course of the project. Originally set to repurpose several sections of the mall, and even reutilize some of the grand atirum skylights, financial restructuring and other hiccups have caused property owners, MarketSpace Capital and Park Harbor Capital to change course. Now, the property is threatened with foreclosure, in light of the Texas owners’ defaulting on their $28 billion loan to acquire the mall.

If you had said to me back in 2017, when I first visited the mall, that it would be closed 5 years later, I wouldn’t have quite believed it. Yes, it had some pockets of vacancy, namely the wing leading between Sears and the former JCPenney/Pogue’s building, plus the shuttered Dillard’s a few years prior. Despite this, foot traffic was good and the mall still seemed to do well considering. Compared to the husk of Forest Fair Mall two exits down I-275, things were great. The fact that,at the end, Tri-County closed BEFORE Forest Fair did, still surprises me. But, you know what they say about hindsight.

Perhaps I had thought positively too soon, for the following year saw the closure of Sears. Previous plans by Singapore based owners Sing Haiyi Group, to redevelop a portion of the property continued to languish in development, ultimately never seeing the light of day. The food court adjacent to Sears was shut, its food stalls walled over. The plan was to move the food court back to the main entrance, where it was originally located when the mall was first enclosed, but this too never happened. 2021 saw the closure of Macy’s, leaving the mall anchorless. Smaller stores drifted out. By the following year, the prognosis was grim. The mall’s closure was announced, and the final day was May 15th, 2022. Tri-County Mall was just shy of its 62nd year as an operational shopping mall.

Tri-County Mall was developed by the joint venture of Federated Department Stores and Baltimore, MD developer John Meyerhoff. Opened September 26th, 1960. The center was originally an open air property anchored by Shillito's and Pogue's, both Cincinnati based department stores. Sears was added on in 1967 along with an additional wing of stores. The mall was enclosed in 1968. Equitable Life Insrance purchased the property in 1979 for $34 million.⠀ ⠀

In response to the opening of Forest Fair Mall (not yet known to be the colossal failure it would end up as), Tri-County embarked on an expansion that added a second level to the complex as well as Cincinnati based McAlpin's as a fourth anchor. A center court fountain, a new food court upstairs (replacing the original off the main entrance) and huge skylights were added. Two parking garages were also built for expanded parking options. Equitable Life Insurance sold the mall to The O'Connor Group in 1997 for $147 million.

Anchor changes over the years included: Pogue's becoming L.S. Ayers and finally JCPenney, Shillito's merging with Dayton, OH based Rike's department store to form Shillito-Rike's, and McAlpin's changing over to Dillard’s. Shillito-Rike's would change over to Lazarus in 1986, then being co-branded along with Macy's in 2003, before switching solely to the Macy's brand in 2005. That same year, JCPenney would close and the space would be gutted out for more mall space. ⠀ ⠀

Tri-County's troubles would amplify by the 2010's. Coventry Real Estate and Developers Diversified Realty, owners since 2006, lost the mall to receivership in 2012, and the following year the property was sent to a Sheriff's sale. As previously mentioned, Singapore based Sing Haiyi Group, Limited took over the property and planned to rejuvenate the mall by the usual promises of more stores and restaurants. Instead, the mall languished, stores closed, and now it sits, awaiting an uncertain future. If the current owners work their money troubles out, and they retain the property, redevelopment will surely continue. Until then, we wait and see.

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