It is no mystery that malls are rapidly declining. The draw of driving out to a big mall and spending hours walking around shopping, grabbing some food at the food court, and then returning home with bags upon bags of items seems to be fading. It is not an economic issue because malls have been fading out for well over a decade within many different administrations in America. Are social norms changing? Was mall life nothing but a trend?
With the rise of online shopping and the fact that you can have something as basic as Starbucks coffee delivered to your door, it is no wonder that in person shopping is on the out. If you think about it......malls are the physical version of swiping up on your phone. Malls are the place you experience the sometimes hedonistic side of life in the flesh. Endless buying of things you probably don't need just because the glimmer and pizazz drew you in the door. Malls have also served a purpose of just being a place for people to meet up and hang out. Again......this is being superseded by "hanging out" via a screen on your couch.
I have been to the old Cincinnati Mills Mall a few times in the past. This place is a very large building. It is 1,500,000 square feet and is/was the 2nd largest mall in the state. I'm just guessing but it looks like there are well over 150 empty store fronts inside. Currently there are a total of 3 operating stores inside that I seen on this day. One was an arcade room which also sold video games. The other was a kids bouncy house and the last was the end anchor store of Kohls. It is just crazy to me that such a large area is just being ignored and its just as crazy to me that the few stores in there choose to operate in such an environment. It was COLD inside. When I say cold I'm talking mid 40s. There are holes in the ceiling everywhere. Buckets, cat litter containers, and mop buckets are strategically placed all over the floors to catch rain water. The floors look like they haven't been cleaned in years. Why continue to keep the building open?
The main thing I see this mall being used for now days is just an dry environment(if you dodge the buckets) to walk for exercise. It also draws people like me who just go there to observe such a marvel of obscurity. It is so eerie inside because the grand scale is met with absolutely nothing going on. Empty food court, empty kids play area, empty info center, not one but 2 empty theaters. Its like some kind of dream world where you wake up confused and try to put the pieces together on what you just experienced.
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